The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2009, Blaðsíða 38

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 62 #3
adoption of William D. Herridge’s propos-
al for the creation of a broader “union of
Anglo-Saxon peoples” within Canada. Yet,
in addition to her conscious editing of
Jaques’ work in her own publication,
Halldorson’s work also seldom focussed
on the role of Christianity in Social Credit,
a hallmark of anti-Semitic expression in
party literature. She also appears to have
condemned the targeting of “racial and reli-
gious groups” in the movement during the
early 1940s, the period in which, according
to Stingel, the anti-Semitic sentiment with-
in the party was becoming both common-
place and increasingly vicious. Halldorson
wrote of this blame not as unjust, but as
divisive and counterproductive.
So instead of laying the blame on
the actual cause of the trouble, i.e.
(The) monetary system ... we turn on
each other. The poor blame the rich,
and the rich blame the poor; the
employers blame the workers and the
workers blame the employers; the east
blames the west and the west blames
the east; the city blames the country
and the country blames the city. Not a
few blame some other racial or reli-
gious group. We are all pulling in dif-
ferent directions, and there is no unity
in our demands . . .
This somewhat contradictory vision of
anti-Semitic theory in Halldorson’s writing
makes it difficult to establish a definite con-
clusion regarding her own beliefs. Yet it is
clear that despite her discomfort with
explicitly anti-Semitic language and cam-
paigns, she did not oppose this element
within the party as part of an imagined tra-
dition of Icelandic Canadian inclusivity. In
this respect, Halldorson's career and per-
sonal politics illuminate the parameters of
interwar inclusion and xenophobia. Her
failure to extend Anglo and Scandinavian
privilege to other Manitoba ethnic commu-
nities is disappointing, yet hardly surpris-
ing, given the broader political and cultural
atmosphere in the Canadian West. It is per-
haps important to note, however, that for
Halldorson Social Credit philosophies
appeared as an important “humanitarium
(sic) conception.”
In contrast to the relatively main-
stream references to "pioneer settlers from
the land of the Vikings" and financial con-
spiracy theories in public, Halldorson
employed more radical and subversive gen-
der imagery in her campaigns for increased
female political participation. Only the sec-
ond woman ever elected to the Manitoba
Legislative Assembly, Halldorson
appeared as a popular female figure as well
as a curiosity to the Winnipeg media in the
first few years following her election.
Halldorson, wrote The Winnipeg Evening
Tribune’s Lillian Gibbons was “a friendly
little person by nature...(who) can milk the
cows, bake bread and ‘send the men out to
the fields well-filled’.” Winnipeg newspa-
pers even reported what kinds of flowers
she had on her desk, noting that she offered
“a pleasing touch” to the Assembly. Such
coverage suggests that the “only lady mem-
ber” assumed an interesting but ultimately
unobtrusive place in the Manitoba
Legislature. Halldorson herself appeared to
embrace these traditional gendered images,
frequently employing domestic references
in her English writing on the role of
women in politics and economics. This
political usage of domestic imagery was
part of a longer tradition for Manitoban
women and was an integral part of provin-
cial suffrage campaigns. Other Icelandic
Canadian women played an integral role in
this earlier movement including Margret J.
Benedictsson, founder of the first women's
suffrage organization in Winnipeg and edi-
tor of the Icelandic Canadian women's
magazine Freyja. Although Halldorson's
sister, Maria, was the first president of the
Lundar Women’s Institute and her mother
co-founded the Lundar Ladies Aid Bjork,
it appears that no members of her family
were directly involved in Icelandic
Canadian suffrage campaigns. However,
her writing clearly illustrates her familiari-
ty with traditional maternal feminist lan-
guage evident in her depiction of female
economic and political participation as a
natural extension of traditional women’s
labour. “(Women) have been for centuries
the holders of the family purse and man-
agers of the homes, and on the whole they
have managed well,” she announced to the
members of the assembly and a packed