A Great Restlessness
Subtitle: The Life And Times of Dorise Nielsen
Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
Published: October 24, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 361
ISBN-13: 9780887556906
Subjects: Political; Biography & Autobiography; Biography / Autobiography; Biography/Autobiography; Women; (Dorise Winnifred); 1902-; Biography; Canada; Communist Party of Canada; House of Commons; Nielsen, Dorise W; Parliament
Description: "Dorise Nielsen was a pioneering feminist, a radical politician, the first Communist elected to Canada's House of Commons, and the only woman elected in 1940. But despite her remarkable career, until now little has been known about her." "From her youth in London during World War I to her burial in 1980 in a hero's cemetery in China, Nielsen lived through tumultuous times. Struggling through the Great Depression as a homesteader's wife in rural Saskatchewan, Nielsen rebelled against the poverty and injustice that surrounded her, and found like-minded activists in the CCF and the Communist Party of Canada. In 1940, when leaders of the Communist Party were either interned or underground, Nielsen became their voice in Parliament. But her activism came at a high price. As a single mother in Ottawa, she sacrificed a close relationship with her family for her career. As a woman in an emerging political party, her authority was increasingly usurped by younger male party members. As a committed communist, she moved to Mao's China in 1957 and dedicated her life's work to a cause that went seriously awry." "Faith Johnston illuminates the life of a woman who paved the way for a generation of women in politics, who tried to be both a good mother and a good revolutionary, and who refused to give up on either."--BOOK JACKET.