The Canadian Girl at Work: A Book of Vocational Guidance

Willison, Marjory MacMurchy, Lady, -1938Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.0

Word count: 260K words
Chapters: 27

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Canadian Girl at Work: A Book of Vocational Guidance by WillisonAuthor: Willison, Marjory MacMurchy, Lady, -1938,Language: English, Class: HD: Social sciences: Economic history and conditions, Production, Release Date: Apr 11, 2008

Editor's review

This is an early twentieth-century vocational guidance book written for young Canadian women, discussing preparation for entering the workforce, available career directions, and attitudes toward work. Its value lies not in current industry information but in presenting the social imagination and advisory discourse surrounding women's employment in a specific historical period: which occupations were considered respectable, which abilities were repeatedly emphasized, and how work and family were reconciled. For readers studying the history of vocational guidance, women's labor history, or Canadian social history, this book offers a primary discursive sample. General readers can also treat it as a historical document, observing the tone and assumptions of career advice from a century ago. Read with historical distance, distinguishing the specific vocational advice from today's circumstances, and focus on how it organizes discourse about occupations "suitable for women." The electronic edition is a public-domain English text, suitable for slow, section-by-section reading with note-taking.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Researchers interested in women's labor history and the history of vocational guidance
Students studying Canadian social history or reading English historical sources
Historical readers curious about early vocational advice discourse
Teachers needing public-domain English historical sources for course materials

Not a good fit for

Practical readers seeking current job-hunting skills and industry information
General readers wanting a Chinese-language career planning guide
Those uninterested in historical context who want quick answers

Reading tips

Read the table of contents first, mark chapters discussing occupation types and women's abilities, and prioritize close reading of those.
Prepare an excerpt table recording the book's assumptions about women's occupations, then write down today's contrasts.
Separate specific vocational advice from historical context and focus on the value judgments behind the advice.
If used for a course, select one chapter for group discussion comparing vocational guidance discourse across eras.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can this book be used for career planning today?

Not recommended for direct application. It reflects early twentieth-century career concepts and employment conditions, and its specific advice differs greatly from today. Its main value is as historical research material, not a contemporary job-hunting guide.

Why is this book worth reading today?

It preserves the original discourse of early vocational guidance, helping readers understand how ideas about women's employment were expressed and shaped. For readers studying social history, educational history, or gender and labor, such texts provide analyzable samples.

What background knowledge is needed to read it?

Basic English reading ability is sufficient. Some familiarity with early twentieth-century Canadian society and women's employment will make it easier to judge which advice reflects period limitations and which still has discussion value.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Willison, Marjory MacMurchy, Lady, -1938 Author · Canadian

Lady Marjory MacMurchy Willison (Willison, Marjory MacMurchy, Lady, -1938) was a Canadian journalist and writer, and the wife of Sir John Willison. Her writing and public concerns centered largely on the status of women and on social issues, reflecting a sustained interest in social reform and women's advancement. Her representative work, The Canadian Girl at Work: A Book of Vocational Guidance, is a vocational guide addressed to young Canadian women, intended to help them understand the kinds of work open to them and to prepare for entering the workforce. The book links practical career advice with women's self-reliance and social participation, combining usefulness with the concerns of its time. Publicly available information on the details of her life, such as the dates of her birth and death, her education, and specific positions she held, is limited; the present sketch can therefore only outline her and her work on the basis of the known facts above.