Migrants in Montreal: managing British female immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century

Examines the work of various religious organizations, such as the Women's Protective Immigration Society and the British Women's Emigration Association (BWEA), in assisting female emigrants to Canada around the turn of the 20th century. Groups like these were headed by middle- and upper-class women whose views were informed by Victorian gender norms, which encouraged the well-off to help working-class women. They also saw themselves as part of the imperial enterprise, bringing English civilization to former colonial locations. However, these ideas, in the Canadian migration context, ran afoul of Anglican men from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), who wanted the church to be the main organ of settlement for female emigrants arriving in Montreal, thus shielding Englishwomen from the influence of Catholicism.