Beatrice Brigden

rdf:langString Beatrice Brigden

rdf:langString Beatrice Brigden

rdf:langString Beatrice Brigden

rdf:langString Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

rdf:langString Hastings, Ontario, Canada

rdf:langString Canadian

rdf:langString

rdf:langString politician

rdf:langString Social activist

rdf:langString feminist

rdf:langString Beatrice Alice Brigden (1888-1977) was a Canadian social reformer, feminist and politician. She was a radical for her time, advocating for birth control, the intellectual parity of men and women, and economic security among many other issues. She began her career as a social reformer under the guidance of the Methodist church's Social Gospel but moved more radically to the left when it became apparent from her work with immigrants and laborers that the church was not supportive of social and economic reforms. She was one of the early members of the and was a founder of both the People's Forum Speaker's Bureau and the Labor Women's Social and Economic Conference, the latter of which was merged into the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Manitoba Section). Though she was one of the founders of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation she was unsuccessful in several attempts to win a seat in the Manitoba legislature. In addition to her many programs for women, Brigden also was one of the founders of the . Her biographer, Allison Campbell wrote of her: "By the standards of her time, to be ambitious, deliberately single, determinedly self-supporting and continuously outspoken was cause enough to be labeled as a radical." Social reform was not a side-line to her wifely duties, it was her career.