"You're not a qualified person." With these dismissive words, the Canadian government repeatedly denied women access to the Senate based on a narrow interpretation of constitutional language. But in 1927, five determined women gathered over tea in Edmonton to launch a legal challenge that would reverberate throughout the British Empire.

The story begins with Lizzie Cyr, a sex worker arrested for vagrancy in Calgary, whose case inadvertently exposed the precarious legal standing of women in public office. This leads us to the Famous Five: Emily Murphy (the first female magistrate in the British Empire), Louise McKinney (temperance advocate and women's suffrage champion), Henrietta Edwards (legal expert called "Otter Woman" by Indigenous communities), Irene Parlby (rural women's advocate and cabinet minister), and Nellie McClung (fiery novelist and suffragist).

Facing constant opposition from men who disrupted their political meetings, these women cleverly rebranded their gatherings as "Pink Teas" – social events men typically avoided. Their petition asked a simple question: does the word "persons" in the constitution include women? When Canada's Supreme Court ruled against them in 1928, they appealed to Britain's Privy Council, which overturned the decision in 1929. Lord Sankey's landmark ruling established the "living tree doctrine" – the principle that constitutions must evolve with changing times.

Yet the Famous Five's legacy carries a troubling contradiction. While fighting brilliantly for women's legal recognition, all five supported eugenics – advocating for policies that led to thousands being sterilized without consent in Alberta until 1972. Their story reminds us that historical figures rarely fit into neat categories of hero or villain, often reflecting both the progressive and regressive ideas of their time.

Listen and decide for yourself how we should remember these complex women who fundamentally changed the legal standing of women while simultaneously promoting ideas we now recognize as deeply harmful.

https://www.famous5.ca/

The Famous 5 and the infamous Lizzie
By Diane Woollard
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC80555/


The Canadian Encyclopedia by Catherine Cavanaugh, Susanna McLeod, Mary E. Hallett, Eliane Leslau Silverman, Susan Jackel
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/henrietta-louise-edwards#Eugenics

Send us a text

Support the show

This website contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and purchase a product, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of this website and allows me to continue providing valuable content. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I believe in and have personally used or researched.

Did you know a murder mystery novel once helped solve a real-life poisoning case? Agatha Christie's meticulous research and personal experience created stories so scientifically accurate they've saved actual lives.

Join us as we dive into "The Pale Horse," Christie's 1961 novel that introduced many readers to the deadly poison thallium. We explore how Christie's wartime experience as a nurse and pharmacy worker gave her intimate knowledge of toxicology that she wove into her mysteries with chilling accuracy. Her detailed descriptions of thallium poisoning symptoms – hair loss, nerve damage, and gastrointestinal distress – later helped medical professionals recognize and diagnose real cases that might otherwise have been fatal.

But Christie's detailed portrayal of this obscure poison had darker consequences too. We examine two disturbing true crime cases: Graham Young, who poisoned family members and colleagues in England, and George Trepal, who used thallium-laced Coca-Cola to murder his Florida neighbor after threatening her family. When investigators searched Trepal's home, they discovered something chilling – a copy of "The Pale Horse" among his possessions.

The story takes a remarkable turn with the case of a desperately ill toddler whose life was saved when a nurse recognized symptoms from Christie's novel. When conventional diagnosis failed, literature succeeded – proving that fiction sometimes has very real consequences.

Can words kill? Should authors censor their knowledge? Or does saving even one life justify sharing potentially dangerous information? Listen now for this fascinating exploration of how the Queen of Crime's work transcended fiction to impact real-world medicine and criminal justice.

The true story of how The Pale Horse caught a criminal and saved lives by Morgan Jeffery
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/pale-horse-true-story-saved-lives/

The Home of Agatha Christie
https://www.agathachristie.com/stories/the-pale-horse

Science Direct
Hachamovitch, Rory and heppard, M. N.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/thallium

How Agatha Christie mystery The Pale Horse may have inspired a murderer by Betsy Reed
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/09/how-agatha-christie-mystery-the-pale-horse-may-have-inspired-a-murderer

A truly poisonous plot twist by Sam Leith
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20200220/281852940590602?srsltid=AfmBOoqYZwgQrPo0jrrJswWzD6-3wHQNL94NCOy6LKT9eO7GhiCk17yP

https://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/trepal-george.htm

Send us a text

Support the show

This website contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and purchase a product, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of this website and allows me to continue providing valuable content. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I believe in and have personally used or researched.

The fascinating case of Lizzie Cyr begins with a simple arrest for "vagrancy" in 1917 Calgary and transforms into a landmark legal battle that would permanently alter women's rights in Canada.

When Lizzie Cyr, a 29-year-old woman of First Nations and European heritage, found herself homeless and accepted temporary lodging from an acquaintance named John James Ryan, she unknowingly stepped into legal history. After Ryan paid her for sex, claimed she infected him with gonorrhea, and attempted to blackmail her for medicine money, Cyr found herself arrested and standing before one of Canada's first female magistrates, Alice Jameson.

Enter John McKinley Cameron, Cyr's eccentric lawyer known for representing society's most marginalized people. With his trademark mismatched suits and sometimes rubber boots, Cameron skillfully exposed Ryan's hypocrisy during cross-examination, revealing that Ryan regularly visited sex workers and had contracted gonorrhea before. Despite this compelling defense, Magistrate Jameson abruptly sentenced Cyr to six months hard labor without allowing her to testify.

What happened next would change Canadian legal history forever. Rather than simply appealing the verdict, Cameron pursued a bold strategy – challenging Jameson's very right to serve as a magistrate on the grounds that women couldn't legally hold such positions. This challenge reached the Alberta Supreme Court, where Justice Stewart declared "in our province and in our time there is no legal reason to disqualify women from holding public office," making Alberta the first Canadian province to officially recognize women as legal persons with the right to hold public office.

While Lizzie Cyr disappeared from historical records after serving her sentence, her case became crucial in establishing women's legal personhood – a concept that would be further developed in the "Famous Five" case detailed in next week's episode. Join us for the conclusion of this unexpected legal journey that helped secure fundamental rights for Canadian women.

The Person Behind the Persons Case Written by Sarah Burton

http://canadashistory.ca/explore/women/the-person-behind-the-persons-case

Send us a text

Support the show

This website contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and purchase a product, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of this website and allows me to continue providing valuable content. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I believe in and have personally used or researched.