A Great Rural Sisterhood : Madge Robertson Watt and the ACWW

As the founding president of the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW), Madge Robertson Watt (1868-1948) turned imperialism on its head. During the First World War, Watt imported the "made-in-Canada" concept of Women's Institutes - voluntary associations of rural women - to the British countryside. In the interwar years, she capitalized on the success of the Institutes to help create the ACWW, a global organization of rural women. A feminist imperialist and a liberal internationalist, Watt was central to the establishment of two organizations which remain active around the world today. In A Great Rural Sisterhood , Linda M. Ambrose uses a wealth of archival materials from both sides of the Atlantic to tell the story of Watt's remarkable life, from her early years as a Toronto journalist to her retirement and memorialization after the Second World War. Cover 1 Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction: Framing the Life of Madge Robertson Watt 16 1 Formative Years: Family Influences and University Life 33 2 Scripting the New Woman: Writer and Editor 62 3 Playing Multiple Parts: Family, Society, and Sorrow 82 4 Role Reversal: From Colonial Widow to Imperial War Hero 110 5 On the World Stage: Forging International Networks 137 6 Sidelined by War: Waning Influence, Denial, and Death 199 7 Conclusion: Interpreting the Significance of Madge Watt 245 Notes 268 Bibliography 320 Index 342 Photographs 162 In A Great Rural Sisterhood, Linda M. Ambrose uses a wealth of archival materials from both sides of the Atlantic to tell the story of Watt's remarkable life and the creation of the Associated Country Women of the World.