ABSTRACT
In 1893 Elizabeth Binmore published an essay on Montreal women teachers in the Educational Record of the Province of Quebec. Explicitly refusing to use the epithet ‘lady teacher’ on the grounds that such a term suggested leisure rather than labour, Binmore identified herself as a ‘female teacher’ and called for better salaries and principalships for women working in Montreal schools. She clearly hoped that organized teachers of both sexes would cooperate in seeking justice for Quebec’s teaching women (cited in Prentice, 1975). Elizabeth Binmore’s plea impressed me when I first encountered it and it impresses me still. It must have taken courage, in a period before women had the vote or were easily accepted on most platforms, to state her case so publicly. Even more impressive was Elizabeth Binmore’s willingness to attack the stereotype of the ‘lady teacher’. Montreal’s female teachers were respectable women. But, Binmore made it clear, they also needed decent wages in order to live.
