Fort Macleod\'92s Henrietta Muir Edwards and other members of the Famous Five are commemorated in a new exhibit at Fort Macleod Library.
A new exhibit paying tribute to the Famous Five and the renowned Persons Case is on display in Fort Macleod.
The exhibit “Now That We Are Persons” was previously located at the Claresholm Museum, and when it came down curator Bill Kells offered it to Fort Macleod Library.
“We jumped at it,” librarian Darlene Hofer said.
The exhibit includes a time line of the Persons Case, as well as biographical details of members of the Famous Five.
The Persons Case won in 1929 by Henrietta Muir Edwards of Fort Macleod and other members of the Famous Five was a turning point for women’s rights in Canada.
This case changed the future for women in Canadian politics, recognizing all women legally as persons.
Henrietta Muir Edwards, Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby and Louise McKinney — known as the Famous Five — fought for two years to expand women’s rights.
In its final decision, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of Great Britain, Canada’s highest court of appeal at that time, rightly noted, “The exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours.”
Henrietta Louise Muir was born Dec. 18, 1849 in Montreal and in 1876 married Dr. O.C. Edwards.
The couple and their three children moved to Saskatchewan in 1883, back to Ottawa in 1890 and came to the Macleod district in 1903.
Following Muir Edwards’ death on Nov. 10, 1931 in Macleod Municipal Hospital from pneumonia, Nellie McClung paid tribute to “her kindness and wonderful character.”
“She was a friend to everyone and laboured earnestly for the welfare and education of all of our people,” McClung said in The Macleod Gazette. “She saw herself as one who was helping to bring order and beauty to earth.”
The exhibit is likely to be on display at the library until the end of May.
