lub and was named its secretary. She said of her role there: “Little did I think as I accepted the position that I was taking the initial step that was going to plunge me into many years of public life, for which I had no ambition at all.”
One of Parlby’s first initiatives with the Women’s Club was to establish a local library. It was made possible by donations from readers of the London Spectator. They had seen Parlby’s advertisement for books in the paper.
In 1913, Irene Parlby organized the first women’s local of the UFA. She was elected president of the UFA Women’s Auxiliary in 1916. As president, Parlby was instrumental in transforming the auxiliary into an independent organization, the United Farm Women of Alberta (UFWA). In her new role, Parlby travelled the province. She called for better health care and social services, as well as better schools and libraries for rural families. (Parlby was president until 1920.)
In 1916, Parlby presented a paper at a joint UFA/UFWA convention in Calgary titled “Women’s Place in the Nation.” In it, she argued that women should insert themselves in all areas of society.
Along with leading feminist activists in Alberta — Louise McKinney, Henrietta Edwards and Emily Murphy among them — Irene Parlby helped push the Dower Act through the Alberta legislature in 1917. (See also Dower.) The act was a vital piece of legislation that protected married women’s property rights. (See also Irene Parlby and the United Farmers of Alberta.)
The Board of Directors of the United Farmers of Alberta in 1919. Irene Parlby sits in the front row, third from the right.
The UFA transformed into a political party in 1921. It sought to regulate the grain trade and opposed the privatization of transportation while also highlighting other concerns of the western province.
Irene Parlby was nominated as a UFA candidate in the Lacombe district. She reportedly only agreed to run because she thought the UFA had little chance of success. Parlby described the ensuing campaign as “nasty.” She said that the “only thing which seemed to concern my opponents was that I am a woman — and worse, an Englishwoman who, although I came to Western Canada when it was still an undeveloped wilderness, could not possibly know anything about it!”
On 18 July 1921, the UFA won a majority in the Alberta legislature, and Parlby was elected MLA for her district. Premier Herbert Greenfield appointed Irene Parlby to cabinet, making her the second woman in the British Empire to hold such a position. (The first was Mary Ellen Smith, elected to the British Columbia legislature a few months earlier.) Parlby was named Minister without Portfolio, with special responsibility for advising the government on issues of particular concern to women and children. However, she was without a mandate or budget to take any action. Popularly known as the “Women’s Minister,” Parlby was particularly active on issues related to health care, improved wages for working women and married women’s property rights.
Lacombe constituents returned Parlby to office in 1926 and again in 1930. Over her 14 years in the Alberta Legislature, Parlby’s persistence and patience served her well. As she once said, “evolution cannot be brought about by the use of dynamite.”
Women’s Rights Legislation
As “Women’s Minister,” Irene Parlby sponsored successful legislation for a minimum wage for women, mothers’ allowance grants, and improvements to the Dower Act and the Official Guardian Act, among others. Parlby advocated for mobile dental and medical services as well as municipal hospitals.
Not all of Parlby’s bills were successful, however. In 1925, she introduced the Community of Property Bill. It proposed that all property brought into a marriage by a woman, or acquired as an inheritance or gift, remain in her name. It also stipulated that all other property gained during the marriage would remain community property. The bill was considered too radical and failed. (See also Property Law.)
Parlby had a positive reputation in politics. Nearly 20 laws concerning the welfare of women a