Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

History General

Agents of Empire

British Female Migration to Canada and Australia, 1860-1930

by (author) Lisa Chilton

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
May 2007
Category
General, Social History
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442691667
    Publish Date
    May 2007
    List Price
    $35.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802092748
    Publish Date
    May 2007
    List Price
    $90.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802094742
    Publish Date
    May 2007
    List Price
    $45.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442685499
    Publish Date
    Dec 2007
    List Price
    $80.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

The period between the 1860s and the 1920s saw a wave of female migration from Britain to Canada and Australia, much of which was managed by women. In Agents of Empire, Lisa Chilton explores the work of the women who promoted, managed, and ultimately transformed single British women's experiences of migration.

Chilton examines the origins of women-run female emigration societies through various aspects of their work and the responses they received from emigrants and settled colonists. Working in the face of apathy in the community, resistance by other (usually male) managers of imperial migration, and agency exerted by the women they sought to manage, the emigrators endeavoured to maintain control over the field until government agencies took it over in the aftermath of the First World War.

Agents of Empire highlights the aims and methods behind the emigrators' work, as well as the implications and ramifications of their long-term engagement with this imperialistic feminizing project. Chilton provides tremendous insight into the struggle for control of female migration and female migrants, aiding greatly in the study of gender, migration, and empire.

About the author

Lisa Chilton is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Lisa Chilton's profile page