Kechnie places the WI within the context of the country life movement emanating from the United States, arguing that Ontario farm women's attempts to organize should be viewed as part of the Department of Agricultural's efforts to revive the flagging fortunes of the Farmers' Institutes and encourage farm women to embrace "scientific home management" in order to modernize farm homes and discourage the depopulation of Ontario's farms. While many men and women within the farm community supported the government's attempts to encourage "book farming," many others resisted the state's educational initiatives and identified with the independent farm movement. In order to ensure the success of the WI the Ontario Department of Agriculture provided funds to hire organizers and the organization was encouraged to develop branches outside farming areas, even if this meant ignoring the needs of farm women. By the end of the World War I the WI had become one of the largest women's organizations in the province but was widely known not for its emphasis on scientific home management but for its community activism.

Thorneloe College, Laurentian University

Margaret C. Kechnie's profile page

"This book sets the history of this important women's organization into context in rural Ontario, and ties it to the urban reform movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is a solid piece of research." Linda Ambrose, Department of History, Laurentian University