By Honor Neve

As it is Mother’s Day it is natural to look back on the role of motherhood and the way in which the image of motherhood has changed in the last 150 years.

At Fort Steele we recreate the late 19th Century when the ‘Angel in the Home’ was the romanticized vision of womanhood. Motherhood was central to this late Victorian vision of the ideal woman, and was considered to be a woman’s highest achievement, albeit within marriage. Indeed, it was in this period that motherhood was believed to be the peak of a woman’s emotional and spiritual fulfillment and even immortalized in poetry and literature.

At the same time, however, motherhood was becoming a social responsibility, a duty to the state and thus a full-time job, which could not easily be combined with work outside the home. Of course only well-off households could afford for the women in the family to not work. Women as an essentially maternal figure became a fundamental cultural ideal, which persists to this day.

The expectations for pioneering women in a frontier town such as Fort Steele would have been very different from the metropolitan areas. Although they were still expected to maintain some semblance of the traditional Victorian Angel many women found it necessary to break away from the traditional role, sometimes just to survive.

We have many such stories of Fort Steele women who broke the conventional mould in order to pursue their careers, support their families, and even participate in their husband’s business ventures. Many of these women still managed to raise large families. At the Fort Steele Wasa Hotel Museum a new display has been installed celebrating the lives of some of the amazing women who helped establish the area.

Today at Fort Steele the traditional role of womanhood the Victorians were so obsessed with is all but gone. Although they may have the fine manners and dress of Victorian ladies there is no doubt today’s women of Fort Steele are 21st Century ladies.

Most of the departments within Fort Steele Heritage Town are run by these exceptional women; including Curatorial, Education, Dress-Shop, Bakery, and Visitor Reception. Of course leading the way and managing the entire site are two outstanding working mothers; Kathy Allison and Jessica Marusyk.

The pioneering women and mothers of the East Kootenay who chose to have careers, run businesses, and break trails lead the way for the transformation of the role of women both inside and outside the home.

To these mothers we say “Thank You.”

Today (Sunday, May 8) is the Mother’s Day Tea and Victorian Fashion Show at Fort Steele Heritage Town, at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

– Honor Neve is Assistant Curator at Fort Steele Heritage Town

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