Nellie McClung
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Canadian activist, feminist, and politician, Nellie McClung, born Nellie Letitia Mooney, was born in Chatsworth, Ontario on October 20th, 1873 and died on September 1st, 1951. Throughout her 78 (though she died at 77) years, she accomplished much more than most have even aspired to. While many in her time looked down upon Nellie because she enforced prohibition, she is still extremely inspiring for a large number of reasons.
One of the main reasons why she is extremely admirable is because she saw a problem, thus, she set out to fix it. She felt as though alcohol was a nuisance to many, but primarily the women around her. She noticed that once the men had come back from the war, they would often drown their sorrows in whatever alcohol that they could afford. Even so, alcohol was fairly easy to gain access of, seeing as in some cases, it was cheaper than water. She found issues with this. Men were throwing away their hard-earned money on alcohol, when it could have been used to provide for their families. Worse still, was that the men would come home after being at a bar for a few hours, fly into a blind, drunken rage and abuse their wives for something that they had no part in. Nellie was clearly disgusted by this, and decided that she would no longer sit around and watch the members of her community being abused by something as foolish as a beverage that twisted inhibitions. She took a stand and found support through the Womens Christian Temperance Union.
Through the WCTU, she tried her very hardest to ban alcohol entirely, the production, sale, and consumption. While it didnt work entirely, due to the speakeasies, bootleg alcohol, rumrunners, and outright stubbornness of everyone around her, she still did the best she could.
Not only was she an enormous part of the WCTU, she was also a teacher, suffragist, lecturer, politician, historian, wife, mother, author and activist. Her main goal in life was just to leave something behind, a legacy. Its clear that she left her mark, otherwise, she wouldnt have been remembered, nor would her name be found in history books today. She would have no relevance to the history of Canada. But due to the fact that she pushed for what she wanted and believed that what she aspired was attainable, she is an inspiration for many women today.
What exactly was it that caused Nellie to raise her voice above the crowd and put her foot down? It was that the Depression was increasingly deepening. She knew that her fellow people were in jeopardy, and something had to be done. This is the primary reason why she decided to thrust herself into the political field, which at the time, wasnt often done by women, if at all. She was mainly bothered because the Government wasnt rushing to the aid of the civilians, which Nellie believed they should have been doing as soon at the Depression hit. In 1921, Nellie was elected as a Liberal. This is when she joined with