The Women of Calgary City Council

*Lang Grist Mill and bridge over waterfall dam at Pioneer Village near Keene, Ontario.*

Early Years

Pansy Louise Pue was a descendent of United Empire Loyalists. She was born in Keene, Ontario, the daughter of Isabel Howson and John Thomas Pue; another source noted that Pue’s mother was “a widowed Englishwoman who cared for her five young children and managed a farm at Keene, near Peterborough, Ontario.”

Pue moved to Calgary with her family in 1911, when Pue and her siblings were still all in their teens. While the older children found work, Pansy finished her high school course. All four of her older brothers would later enlist for the Great War.

Pue was a teacher, but was also a businesswoman – prior to her election to city council, she worked at Garbutt’s Business College (1912-16), the city law office (1916-20), and with the Chautauqua, a cultural program for adults that combined lectures with music and theatre (1920-23). Pue eventually became manager of the western circulation work of the Chautauqua. With its headquarters in Vancouver, she supervised and traveled over an immense territory.

Before running for a seat on city council, Pue was highly active in public circles. In 1927 she founded the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Calgary, alongside Nellie McClung and Della Jones. The club was originally called the “Current Events Club” before adopting its new more recognized name in 1929. The purpose of the club was to stimulate interest in government business and elections, promote the equality of women with men, and to promote an awareness of the complexity of women's lives both in and out of the home. Club members were actively involved in public speaking, community support and various social functions.

Endorsement & First Campaign

Pue was an active member of the Women’s Civic Organization (WCO), a non-political organization established in 1927, for the purpose of running a woman candidate for the school board and developing a larger sense of civic responsibility on the part of women electors.

The WCO was established by women like Pue, including influential Calgary women such as Nellie McClung and Gertrude Hindsley, who felt that “in civic matters there should be no party bias, but all should work together for the public good”. However, by 1929 the WCO was preparing to branch out into civic politics. Hindsley stated:

“… we are beginning to realize that it is our business to cooperate with men in the management and regulation of city affairs. We are still often told that woman’s place is in the home. But has it ever struck you that the boundaries of our homes have widened? We live much more of a community life than our grandparents did, and we want our civic home to be a clean, safe place for our children to live in.”

*Miss P. L. Pue is endorsed as candidate for council by the Civic Women’s Organization. Calgary Herald, 18 October 1929.*

On October 18, 1929, Pue was “nominated unanimously as a candidate for aldermanic honors in the forthcoming civic elections. Miss Pue received her nomination at a meeting of the Civic Women’s Organization on Thursday evening”. A week later, Pue received a second, co-endorsement from the Civic Government Association (CGA). The Civic Government Association was formed in 1920 in opposition of growing influence of labour groups on municipal politics. The rise of the CGA and the Labour Party in local politics had great impact on local elections for decades to come – election campaigns, especially between 1920 and 1923, were advertised in the press as struggles between business and labour, and as such were replete with class rhetoric”.

Pue’s established relationship with Nellie McClung proved invaluable as the 1929 election drew close. By that time McClung was a significant figure in the women’s suffrage movement in Canada, and so when her endorsement of Pue came during the campaign, her words carried significant weight. At a tea arranged by the Liberal Women’s Association at the end of October 1929, McClung stated: “In Miss Pue are combined the dignity, poise, and womanliness of the oldfashioned woman, and the energy, alertness and sparkle of the modern woman”. In another article McClung noted Pue’s “splendid record and unquestioned ability”.

Unlike Gale and Patterson, Pue seemed to embrace the nomination for civic office whole-heartedly. She was quoted as saying: “It was the greatest surprise, the greatest compliment, and the greatest responsibility I ever had come to me, when the Women’s Civic Government Association asked me to be its candidate”.

During the campaign Pue was lauded for her previous experience – she was noted as being “a successful business woman in this city” and having “much experience in work with … the Board of Public Welfare; has a first-hand knowledge of conditions which exist in the poorer sections of Calgary, and has taken a keen interest in the housing conditions brought about by the suddenly increased population”.

Like her council predecessors Gale & Patterson, Pue did not hold back when it came to expressing her thoughts about achieving gender parity on Council. During her initial campaign in October 1929, Pue addressed the Central High School PTA, declaring the need for women on city council. She pointed out that a city is merely a collection of homes, and that many of the principles needed in good housekeeping would be of value in meeting the problems of civic affairs. She stated: “The matters handled by the council: housing, schooling, care of the sick and the general safety of members of the community, are all similar to domestic problems … there is no more desolate place on earth than a house without a woman’s guiding hand, and the same can be said of civic matters”.

It was clear that some believed that women moving into positions that had previously been dominated by men was a slight against or reproach of the sex that had, to date, fulfilled the job. Pue was both strident and comical in her rejection of this idea – during the campaign she stated: “The nomination of a woman for alderman is in no sense a criticism of the way the men have done things … the men have done as well as could be expected, with so little assistance from the women.”

Pue was elected to council as the Civic Government Association won its “greatest victory” since its formation. She was “elected on the first count with a plurality of 1497 first choice votes”. It was an outrageous success – the Herald reports that Pue was “surrounded by [a] hysterical mob” as her election was assured. “Friends and supporters formed a dense ring about her, offering congratulations, and enthusiastically assuring her that it has been assured from the start”. Pue was quoted as saying: “I am very glad to see that the people of Calgary recognize the justice of further representation for women on the city council… and the heavy vote recorded for me I take not so much a personal tribute as a recognition of this principle. I owe everything to my friends … the women, and the men as well, have given me every possible assistance from the start … I pledge myself to give my best judgement and care to every problem with may arise.”

Time on Council

Pue commonly voted along CGA ideological lines in alignment with the interests of the business community, often putting her at odds with her fellow female member of council, Edith Patterson, a staunch Labour supporter. She became active in the local temperance movement and spoke regularly on the topic at organizational meetings and functions. Her activity in the temperance movement sometimes dovetailed with CGA interests – in 1932, Pue advanced a recommendation that council send a request to the provincial legislature “that beer parlours and government vendors’ stores be closed during the financial depression”.

Circa 1930s. Women's Group, Central United Church, Calgary, Alberta. Pansy Pue is circled middle of the 3rd row. (CU1151826) – courtesy of Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.

A major issue Pue and her fellow aldermen were forced to deal with during her tenure on council was a public inquiry into the overspending on the development of the Glenmore Dam, the largest infrastructure project that had ever been undertaken by the City of Calgary. The deal was originally approved after a city plebiscite in November 1929, in which the electorate voted “4,279 to 1,679 in favour of spending $3,779,000 to pay for the purchase of land, construction of the dam, pumping station, treatment plant, new mains and a water tower on the North Hill”. The project was celebrated as an important milestone for the city, but by 1932 the expensive land purchases, growing project costs, and operational delays led to a significant public backlash.

Pue was unfazed by the criticism volleyed at her and her peers – at an October council meeting Pue said: “There may have been a lot of talk about this and that in connection with the Glenmore Dam, but personally I don’t give a rap what anyone says. I never received a five cent piece from anyone and I’m sure no one else on this council did or anyone else connected with the city … I’m not prepared to vote in favor of an inquiry that will cost the city thousands of dollars just for the pleasure of listening to a judge telling the people that I as an alderman of the city did not receive any money from anyone in connection with the dam contracts”.

Regardless of Pue’s thoughts on the matter, council was tired of the relentless attacks “being directed against civic employers, former mayors, present aldermen and former aldermen, land owners and any person that had anything to do with the purchase of the site for the Glenmore Dam and the construction of the Dam itself”. At the end of that October council meeting, “over the protests of Alderman Miss P.L. Pue and Alderman J.R. Miquelon”, council voted 9 to two in favour of a requested a judicial investigation into the circumstances surrounding the purchase and construction of the dam site.

The inquiry was headed by Supreme Court of Alberta Justice Albert Ewing. Every major aspect of the project was probed, from the purchase of the land to the awarding of contracts and labour practices. Former mayor Fred E. Osborne described the “extreme caution [the City] had exercised to prevent the news of the selection of the Glenmore dam site leaking out”, including withholding the name of the city in negotiations. The mayor was further questioned if he personally sold any land to the City in the reservoir land purchasing deals, and further denied that he had ever been offered a bribe in connection with the sale of land for the dam project”.

By the end of the year, days after initial tests of the dam proved satisfactory, the Glenmore dam inquiry report was submitted by Justice Ewing which found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Later Years

*Personality of the Week: Miss Pansy Pue. Calgary Herald, 18 October 1956.*

After her tenure on council, Pue did not disappear from the public eye. Her time on various committees and investment in numerous organizations made her a stalwart public figure for years. She was the secretary to the Progressive Conservative Party in Alberta (1952) and the secretary of the provincial women’s organisation in the party (1948), a Sunday school teacher at Central United Church for a 25 year tenure, and even a noted member of the Regent Ladies’ Hockey team from 1917-1920 (in 1950, she once again donned skates for a skating party by the Alpine Club – “it was a disastrous undertaking for she fell and broke her arm”.

January 1953. Attendees, women's sessions of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Association meeting, Calgary, Alberta. Pansy Pue is standing in the centre of the back row. (CU1201856). Courtesy of Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.

According to the Alberta PC Party: “She had the ability to arrange meetings at a moment’s notice, to be able to produce data on any subject and to answer the questions of many a puzzled party worker who was not fully conversant with the details of an election campaign. More importantly, Pansy Pue had a ready smile for all and there were few, even from far-scattered country points, who visited the office that she could not welcome by name.”

In later years Pue reminisced about her time on council – an article from 1956 noted that council during her tenure was “far from a ‘tame’ affair and Council meetings in her day often stretched far into the night. ‘You have to remember,’ she says, ‘that those were the lean years when times were terribly tough and we had our wrangles then just as members of Council have today’.” Pue noted that there was one thing in particular about her time on council she would always recall, saying: “I will never forget the SUSTAINED ORATORY of [fellow aldermen] Harry Humble, Robert Parkyn, Jack Russell and Fred White”.

Pue felt she had “one cross to bear – one unfairly thrust upon her” – that being her name, Pansy. The article noted that “her Christian name was bestowed upon her by a poetic relative who, needless to say, could not have foreseen the opprobrium expressed by that now popular slang epithet”. The article concludes:

“But recalling that the greatest of poets dwelt on the inconsequence of a name where quality is, we believe that in Alderman Pansy Pue we have a public servant who is a happy combination of briskness and humour, of alert business sense and unaffected friendliness”

Sources

United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada – History Archives. http://www.uelac.org/UELAC-history/Branching-Out/Branching-Out-Calgary.pdf

Calgary Herald, 21 October 1933, p. 27. https://www.newspapers.com/image/480079471/

“Business & Professional Women’s Club of Calgary Fonds.” University of Calgary Digital Archives. https://searcharchives.ucalgary.ca/business-and-professional-womens-club-of-calgary-fonds

Calgary Herald, 16 November 1931, p. 3. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481681031/

1921 Census of Canada – Norman Hindsley. https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/8991/images/1921_004-E002856792?usePUB=true&_phsrc=RnI103&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=6615464

Calgary Herald, 10 May 1929, p. 25. https://www.newspapers.com/image/479079011/

Calgary Herald, 18 October 1929, p. 19. https://www.newspapers.com/image/479079011/

Calgary Herald, 31 October 1929, p. 21. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481619866/

Calgary Herald, 25 October 1929, p. 19. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481617457/

Calgary Herald, 30 October 1929, p. 23. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481619480/

Calgary Herald, 30 October 1929, p. 26. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481619509

Calgary Herald, 30 October 1929, p. 23. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481619480/

Calgary Herald, 31 October 1929, p. 21. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481619866/

Calgary Herald, 21 November 1929, p. 130 https://www.newspapers.com/image/478947420

Calgary Herald, 21 November 1929, p. 12. https://www.newspapers.com/image/478947404/

Calgary Herald, 12 January 1932, p. 14. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481546600

Glenmore Dam, Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Folded). https://calgarypubliclibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p280501coll15/id/1571/

Calgary Herald, 12 October 1932, p. 15. https://www.newspapers.com/image/479640537

Calgary Herald, 07 November 1932, p. 11. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481592718

Calgary Herald, 17 March 1956, p. 5. https://www.newspapers.com/image/481621575/