The Trouble with Teamwork: Doukhobor Women’s Plow Pulling in Western Canada, 1899

Abstract

Pictures of Doukhobor women cooperating to pull plows in 1899 in Western Canada served at the time and since as evidence of immigrant homesteaders’ work ethic and of their cultural differences. The Doukhobor women’s agricultural initiative offered an unusual and powerful demonstration of women’s capacity to complete farm work normally assigned to men or draft animals at a time when first-wave feminists were arguing for improvements to women’s rights in Canada. This article argues that images of Doukhobor women pulling plows resonated so deeply because they challenged four assumptions concerning agricultural development in Canada’s Northwest: that it should be led by men rather than women; that farmers should work independently rather than cooperatively; that white settlers should prove to be culturally superior to Indigenous and racialized people who were excluded from the homesteading project; and that animals, and not women, should perform draft labour. The Doukhobor women’s hard work and resourcefulness proved that they were good agriculturalists. Whether they were a good cultural fit or not was another question entirely.