As a bit of background, our plaque program was started in the late 1950s to stimulate interest in the history of Oakville and its residents and to provide a bit of history about them including the range of occupations in Town. That was long before the days of the Ontario Heritage Act and heritage designations of individual properties and districts. Our plaques do not imply any kind of designation. Until about 15 years ago, the plaques were only provided to property owners who could prove that their house was at least 100 years old and the property owner was responsible for doing the research. We think there are about 300 houses that had or now have them and many people have been involved over the years. For many years they were simply painted on either pine or plywood and some were done with stick-on letters. A former member, now deceased, started hand carving them and some of his are still around. Now there are two of us who do most of the work. Our researcher, Janet Godber, has over 30 years experience in genealogical research and does all the research including confirming that done for plaques that are now being replaced. Fortunately most of the information is now available on line. She uses assessment records, tax records, censuses, registry documents and genealogical databases. I design and cut all the plaques using a Computer Numerical Controlled router and a more modern material, Extira Board, for the blanks. It doesn't warp, crack, separate or bleed and is impervious to moisture. I also paint just about all of the plaques and install them for those who want them installed. There has been increasing interest over the past few years and we're now making about 30 per year.
There are some plaques that have a woman's name but I agree, not many. There are two main reasons why most plaques don't feature women's names. Generally there is very little information available on the spouse. Registry documents, when they give the spouse's name, list something like "John Smith and Hannah Smith, his wife" and they don't list occupations. Our other sources include assessment and tax records, censuses, birth and death records, books, Ancestry.com and other websites. Until recently very few women had a paid occupation outside the home. When a woman was the homeowner, her occupation is usually listed as “spinster” or “widow” or is left blank. We've offered that to the person wanting a plaque. One woman owner was a serial volunteer. I suggested “Volunteer” as an occupation. The homeowner generally doesn't want those occupations listed.I have used “independent” but then got questions as to what that meant. If the husband's occupation was something like merchant, there was a pretty good chance that the spouse helped out in the store so it's fair to list both with that occupation but good luck proving it. The documentation just doesn't exist. Janet points out to me that in many cases the children were involved in brining income into the household as well. In the end, the homeowner makes the decision on the plaque wording.
The other reason has to do with the size of the plaques and what I can fit on them. The standard size is 24” x 12”. I cut them on my Computer Numerical Controlled router in my basement. It has a maximum size of 24” x 16”. Anything higher than 12" looks off in proportion and very few people are interested in having a large plaque on their house. Some are smaller to fit the space available. Our standard plaques have 3 lines of text – date, name and occupation – with a text height of 2". I can fit about 14 characters on a line. Above that I have to compress the text horizontally. Once I get to about 19 characters compressed, the text looks squashed. If I use Mr & Mrs that's 8 characters used up. Some of our plaques now have 4 lines with the extra line reading “Brantwood Survey” or “Tuxedo Park” or something else. I have to cut the text height down to fit that in vertically. I have made a couple of plaques with 5 lines of text, most recently for Walton Church in Bronte. The text height was down to 1.3". Smaller letters are harder to paint and take more time. If I created a plaque, as an example, that read "1870, Sam & Hannah Smith, Cordwainer", that wouldn't be correct because she wasn't a Cordwainer (shoemaker). An increase in letters and a decrease in height both lead to an increase in difficulty painting and the time involved. The 1/2” “Oakville Historical Society" in the bottom right of each plaque is a pain to paint. A standard plaque takes me about 4 hours to communicate about, create, paint and install. It takes at least nine sessions of painting for each plaque. Janet puts in several hours to several weeks of research most of which, fortunately, can now be done online. Let's say it takes 10 hours all in. I've been making the plaques for close to ten years now and the price, $200, hasn't gone up. Subtract the cost of materials, that's pretty close to Ontario minimum wage. Don't get me wrong, the two of us who do most of the volunteer work enjoy it. While we don't do the plaques for the income to the Society, it is a factor. Some done for charitable organizations are done at no charge.
A couple of years ago we started posting information on our Facebook page whenever a new plaque went up. There's much more information there and, whenever possible, we include information on the spouse. Frequently, unfortunately all we can find is "...daughter of...". Very few women worked outside the home and most volunteer work was done at their church. We've been working recently on an online exhibit on our plaques which, eventually, will list all of them with photos and narrative. When the information is available, we usually include it. Very recently, as a result of a suggestion by a woman who purchased a plaque, we've been discussing the creation of an app that will refer smart-phone users to further information on a plaque they're looking at and indicate other plaques in the area.
Our board and I very much agree with you that the woman of the community played and play a huge part in its development. It wouldn't have happened without them. Our Society was started by Hazel Chisholm Mathews in 1953 and has always had a large number of female volunteers and on the board. Right now it's a 50-50 split. Most of our Thomas House museum volunteers are women. Over the past few summers we have used federal grants to hire at least 11 students to work in our archives. One has been male. There are many women's stories featured in our newsletters over the years. Those are mostly available on our website along with other information there, on our Facebook page, our Instagram account, exhibits at our office and in the Thomas House Museum. While there is always room for improvement, we feel that overall we're doing a pretty good job of portraying the role of women historically in the community.
There are some plaques that have a woman's name but I agree, not many. There are two main reasons why most plaques don't feature women's names. Generally there is very little information available on the spouse. Registry documents, when they give the spouse's name, list something like "John Smith and Hannah Smith, his wife" and they don't list occupations. Our other sources include assessment and tax records, censuses, birth and death records, books, Ancestry.com and other websites. Until recently very few women had a paid occupation outside the home. When a woman was the homeowner, her occupation is usually listed as “spinster” or “widow” or is left blank. We've offered that to the person wanting a plaque. One woman owner was a serial volunteer. I suggested “Volunteer” as an occupation. The homeowner generally doesn't want those occupations listed.I have used “independent” but then got questions as to what that meant. If the husband's occupation was something like merchant, there was a pretty good chance that the spouse helped out in the store so it's fair to list both with that occupation but good luck proving it. The documentation just doesn't exist. Janet points out to me that in many cases the children were involved in brining income into the household as well. In the end, the homeowner makes the decision on the plaque wording.
The other reason has to do with the size of the plaques and what I can fit on them. The standard size is 24” x 12”. I cut them on my Computer Numerical Controlled router in my basement. It has a maximum size of 24” x 16”. Anything higher than 12" looks off in proportion and very few people are interested in having a large plaque on their house. Some are smaller to fit the space available. Our standard plaques have 3 lines of text – date, name and occupation – with a text height of 2". I can fit about 14 characters on a line. Above that I have to compress the text horizontally. Once I get to about 19 characters compressed, the text looks squashed. If I use Mr & Mrs that's 8 characters used up. Some of our plaques now have 4 lines with the extra line reading “Brantwood Survey” or “Tuxedo Park” or something else. I have to cut the text height down to fit that in vertically. I have made a couple of plaques with 5 lines of text, most recently for Walton Church in Bronte. The text height was down to 1.3". Smaller letters are harder to paint and take more time. If I created a plaque, as an example, that read "1870, Sam & Hannah Smith, Cordwainer", that wouldn't be correct because she wasn't a Cordwainer (shoemaker). An increase in letters and a decrease in height both lead to an increase in difficulty painting and the time involved. The 1/2” “Oakville Historical Society" in the bottom right of each plaque is a pain to paint. A standard plaque takes me about 4 hours to communicate about, create, paint and install. It takes at least nine sessions of painting for each plaque. Janet puts in several hours to several weeks of research most of which, fortunately, can now be done online. Let's say it takes 10 hours all in. I've been making the plaques for close to ten years now and the price, $200, hasn't gone up. Subtract the cost of materials, that's pretty close to Ontario minimum wage. Don't get me wrong, the two of us who do most of the volunteer work enjoy it. While we don't do the plaques for the income to the Society, it is a factor. Some done for charitable organizations are done at no charge.
A couple of years ago we started posting information on our Facebook page whenever a new plaque went up. There's much more information there and, whenever possible, we include information on the spouse. Frequently, unfortunately all we can find is "...daughter of...". Very few women worked outside the home and most volunteer work was done at their church. We've been working recently on an online exhibit on our plaques which, eventually, will list all of them with photos and narrative. When the information is available, we usually include it. Very recently, as a result of a suggestion by a woman who purchased a plaque, we've been discussing the creation of an app that will refer smart-phone users to further information on a plaque they're looking at and indicate other plaques in the area.
Our board and I very much agree with you that the woman of the community played and play a huge part in its development. It wouldn't have happened without them. Our Society was started by Hazel Chisholm Mathews in 1953 and has always had a large number of female volunteers and on the board. Right now it's a 50-50 split. Most of our Thomas House museum volunteers are women. Over the past few summers we have used federal grants to hire at least 11 students to work in our archives. One has been male. There are many women's stories featured in our newsletters over the years. Those are mostly available on our website along with other information there, on our Facebook page, our Instagram account, exhibits at our office and in the Thomas House Museum. While there is always room for improvement, we feel that overall we're doing a pretty good job of portraying the role of women historically in the community.
Persons Day in Canada – October 18, 1929, women were recognized as persons in Canada.
Suffrage - On April 25, 1940, Quebec was the last province to give women the right to vote.