GELLEY GIRLS IMPORTED TO BE DOMESTICS IN CANADA : MAIDEN VOYAGES

 

EXCERPTS: Conditions in third class transatlantic ships had continued to improve markedly during the early 1920's, and now bore little resemblance to the horrors of the notorious steerage class before the Great War.  On the Zeeland, hot seawater baths were available with special soap that would lather in brine. The women could clean themselves and wash their clothes.  On one occasion an impatient chief steward tried to speed up the process by making two girls share the same bath. Edith insisted each woman should bathe alone, in privacy, and her argument prevailed.  Her tussles on behalf of her charges, who were looked down on by some of the crew as racially inferior, often  made her unpopular.  When she insisted that the third class women and children were moved to better quarters in the Zeeland, to minimizes the likelihood of them getting seasick, she encountered hostility from some of the crew, though she won her case...  (page 122)

Quote from Edith (page 123)

We had many Jews - all types -traveling as emigrants from Europe.  The looked as if a terror was behind them, running away with a real sense of fear... all the tragedies of the world seemed to be in their melancholy eyes.  They also seemed to have an awful fear of the sea on this, the first time they had ever seen the ocean, or  experienced what it could do when in the the mood.  How terrible it was for those poor, ground-down peasant types, and the persecuted Jews, to be storm-buffeted on a rolling ship, knowing little of what they might expect, only that it was a land of opportunity that awaited them - a strange land, a better life. Others had gone before and written home to say so....

Many of Edith's adult female charges had been recruited in their hone countries to be domestics, and were known as Gelley Girls, after the Commissioner of the Canadian Immigrations who had invented the assisted places scheme.  However, some would try to escape their escorts before their intended destination, having arranged clandestinely to meet a boyfriend or a family member.  They didn't get far...

*****

Edith also safeguarded unaccompanied children from possible sexual predators on board ships.  She would sometimes encounter very young girls who were being sent alone to a distant relative in the far country, and who had been laced, with the relevant photograph, on the passport of some unrelated male.  The man accompanying them was usually form the same home town or village, and of course this arrangement might be entirely innocent.  However, Edith would step in if she discovered that any young girl or boy had been booked into the same cabin as an unrelated adult male....

Picture Brides were another intriguing feature of Edith's shipboard life.  These were European born women who had consented to marry men already living in Canada or the USA without ever having met them. These women took life-changing decisions after answering a newspaper advert, then exchanging letters and photos, arranging their marriages by post... (page 125)

The Canadian immigration system was well organized' having interviewed each woman and noted her details, Edith would giver her a colour-coded piece of ribbon which showed her eventual destination: red for Manitoba or Saskatchewan, blue for Ontario, white for the maritime provinces.  The women proudly wore these ribbons like badges of honor, or campaign medals, pinned to their clothes....  They were grouped according to their ribbon colors  and then taken to their various destination all over Canada by so-called 'train girls.

(Page 126)

THE ROLE OF A CONDUCTRESS : MAIDEN VOYAGES

Edith Sowerbutt was one of a small but influential group of women who traveled the North Atlantic as a conductresses,  She started working for the Red Star Line, which was owned by White Star, in 1925, and continued in that role for six years, when assisted immigration to Canada ceased and she was made redundant, although that was not the end of her maritime career.  (page 118)

She had a great deal of practical experience of intercontinental travel, as well as fellow feeling for people who were prepared to travel to better their lives.  Edith was also a natural champion of those who were discriminated against on the grounds or race, class, or gender. Her innate sense of justice made her a formidable advocate on behalf of the passengers in her care, and she was delighted to be taken on as a conductress by Red Star in 1925  (page 119)

While Edith was available to unaccompanied women in all classes, her primary role was looking after the interest of those in third class, and processing their immigration applications.  She would introduce herself to each one, explain that she had a list of official questions, and record the answers by hand, then type up the details later.  On each voyage Edith complied detailed lists of all unaccompanied women immigrants across all three classes for the Canadian authorities.  To extract this information from each woman was often a race against time, because third class passengers were housed in the least stable section of the ship, and were therefore prone to seasickness....

(on the open Atlantic which was rougher) Edith relied on the services of interpreters, and was particularly fond of a remarkable character called Terps, an Orthodox Jew who spoke fourteen languages.  (page 120)

MAIDEN VOYAGES by SIAN EVANS : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT BOOK REVIEW

 Excellent!

This book by Sian Evans is a must read if you're interested in what it was for women to work or travel on steamships. Following the careers of a few of the women who worked on these ships as well as celebrities who were passengers on them, we almost wish we could travel back in time and experience a historical voyage. There is much to learn here for anyone interested in writing a family history book that you can spice up with some research about the conditions of travel in the great steamship era, the 1890s through the World War II era.

When it came to accommodations, women and men employees were to lodge apart on board, when it came to women and children passengers traveling alone, male crew might keep an eye out for their safety, but it was female crew, stewardesses, who there for them, staving off sea sickness, even helping deliver babies.

In this book, you learn about the Unsinkable Violet Jessop who, in a career on ships of over four decades, survived three maritime disasters! One of them being the Lusitania. Another heroine of the seas was Edith Sowerbutt who among many other tasks, interviewed women who were traveling alone with the help of a translator.

You'll read about the people in steerage as well as the buyers traveling back and forth to Europe and the rich who were on board for adventures. Tallulah Bankhead, Thelma Furness and her twin Gloria Vanderbilt, and Spanish war journalist, Martha Gellhorn, and many more are mentioned. Ships like the Queen Mary, the Zeeland, the Aquitania, and the Lusitania... The health inspections and the card sharks and con artists.... Since shipboard romances took place, the blackmailers...

Although an easy and delightful read, I think some the information presented in Maiden Voyages is important and I've decided to do some excerpting over the next few weeks to give you a feel for the book and entice you to buy a copy since this is definitely a book for my own collection.

Quite an accomplishment for author Sina Evans, I've never come across anything like it.

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