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Historical Context: Schooling

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The McQueens and most other farm families in Pictou County would not have approved of their children seeking work in mines and factories. If they could manage it, the McQueen progeny would take up professional positions and marry well. A son might ideally become a doctor, lawyer, pastor or engineer. Daughters were denied admission to these occupations and to universities generally but were developing their own professional careers as teachers and nurses. In either case, a good public school education was increasingly the foundation for professional success and upward mobility.

Early in the nineteenth century, the citizens of Pictou County had taken advantage of provincial government incentives to establish public schools and the much-praised Pictou Academy. Only boys were admitted to the latter and, if family resources were few, boys were more likely than girls to be sent to public schools. According to the reasoning of the time, girls were likely to marry and raise a family in the protection of the domestic sphere. Boys, in contrast, were responsible for making a living for the family in the public sphere of work and politics.

The growth of public education following the passage of the provincial Public School Acts in 1864 and 1865 not only ensured that both boys and girls had access to formal schooling but also opened the door to a new female profession. Although school trustees continued to be men, their parsimony made them open to hiring young unmarried women as teachers because they were habitually paid less than men. With the establishment of a Provincial Normal School in nearby Truro in 1854, both men and women in Pictou County had relatively easy access to teacher training that could lead to a job in one of Nova Scotia's fastest growing professions.

The educational goals that Daniel and Catherine McQueen sought for their children reflected the gendered conventions of their class and culture. While both daughters and sons were sent to public school, only George received a university education. The most that the girls could hope to achieve was Normal School training to help them earn a higher level teacher's license. In the 1870s Mount Allison College in Sackville, New Brunswick, became the first university in the British Empire to admit women but the number of female students remained minuscule until the turn of the century. The financial woes of the McQueen family meant that their daughters would not be pioneers in seeking university education. Significantly, Mary Bell's daughters, Katharine and Jennie, were counted among the first generation of women to graduate from McGill University.

Of all the grandchildren, Eric Valentine Gordon, known in the family as Dal, had the most successful academic career. Annie's much beloved son studied at Oxford and taught at the universities of Leeds and Manchester. His work on the Norse language, published in 1927, earned him a knighthood from the King of Denmark. From our point of view today, his close academic relationship with J.R.R. Tolkien - they co-published an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in 1925 - is noteworthy. The two collaborated on their research until Dal's sudden death in 1938.