In 1913, Oxford-educated Margaret Gascoigne left England for Montreal in search of new opportunities. In 1915 she established a small school for six students in the study of her downtown Montreal home - the modest but aspiring beginning of what would become known as The Study.

Presenting lively images, oral testimonies, and material gleaned from the school’s archives, No Ordinary School explores the evolution of The Study through world wars, the Great Depression, the Quiet Revolution, and many stages of feminism, from its predominantly English Montreal origins into the bilingual and multicultural community that it is today. Always at the forefront of the most progressive educational developments, The Study has encouraged generations of women to transcend the boundaries of their times. Influential alumni include the physicist and Canadian Department of External Affairs civil servant Dorothy Osborne Xanthaky, avant-garde artist Marian Dale Scott, former chief curator and director of the McCord Museum of Canadian History Isabel Barclay Dobell, world-renowned architect Phyllis Lambert, internationally acclaimed pianist Janina Fialkowska, Olympic rowing medalist Andréanne Morin, and tennis star Eugenie Bouchard.

Firmly grounded in a wider historical context, No Ordinary School celebrates an exceptional educational institution while paying tribute to its illustrious past and promising future.

Colleen Gray teaches history at Concordia University and is the author of The Congrégation de Notre-Dame, Superiors, and the Paradox of Power, 1693-1796.

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