The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2009, Qupperneq 32

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 6Z #3
tion from Icelandic Canadian and women’s
historians. Her absence within the
Canadian women's political history canon
may be due to her membership in a conser-
vative political movement, particularly one
which enjoyed only a brief period of
vibrant female activism also characterized
by the language and logic of traditional
gender norms. Janine Stingel's acclaimed
2000 investigation into the intrinsically
anti-Semetic nature of Social Credit ideolo-
gy in Canada may have also inadvertently
contributed to a general perception of the
movement as being uniformly hostile to
progressive political elements, creating an
image of female Social Crediters, particu-
larly one from a non-Anglo ethnic commu-
nity, as trapped within a non-negotiable
and intolerant environment.
Halldorson's writing initially fails to
dispel these impressions of ethnic female
participation in the Canadian Social Credit
movement. Her frequent use of traditional
nationalist and gendered language as well as
her work with the sometimes inaccessible
Icelandic Canadian press and Icelandic lan-
guage in her political campaigns have all
contributed to a somewhat hazy vision of
her career and political beliefs. Although
these factors may help to explain
Halldorson's absence within Canadian
women's historiography, her exclusion
from mainstream Icelandic Canadian histo-
ry appears quite unusual and presents new
questions about the traditional portrayal of
historical female figures within the com-
munity. Icelandic Canadian historiography
generally prides itself on Iceland’s history
of comparatively progressive property and
political rights for women, yet figures such
as Halldorson and her other well-known
female contemporaries, such as author
Laura Goodman Salverson, occupy the
outskirts of mainstream history and com-
memoration. Daisy Neijman notes this
"silence" surrounding accomplished female
figures such as Salverson appears as "an
anomaly for a group that produced so
many newspapers and magazines, and was
so keen to list its achievements in its adopt-
ed society." While the origins of
Salverson's exclusion also relate to her
decision to write in English for an English
audience as well as her contentious treat-
ment of important Icelandic and Icelandic
Canadian historical events, the continued
ambivalence towards her work and legacy,
even following Anglicization, is remark-
able. Halldorson, in contrast, was a popular
figure within the Icelandic Canadian com-
munity. Accounts in the Icelandic Oral
History Collection at the Provincial
Archives of Manitoba from members of the
community’s interwar population fre-
quently identify her as a person of promi-
nence alongside other well-known
Icelandic Canadian figures such as Charles
“Cartoon Charlie” Thorson, Disney ani-
mator and co-creator of Snow White and
Bugs Bunny, celebrated spy and alleged
inspiration for the James Bond movie
series, Sir William Stephenson and arctic
explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Within the
community's popular culture as well as in
their official tributes to important political
and spiritual figures such as Pall
Thorlaksson, Sigtryggur Jonasson, and Jon
Bjarnason, Halldorson appears as one of
very few well-publicised visions of female
Icelandic Canadian leadership and political
Ejodraeknisfelag Islendinga f Vesturheimi
PRESIDENT: Gerri McDonald
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