Gender, Canadian Nationhood and 'Keeping House': The Cultural Bureaucratisation of Dundurn Castle in...

Gender & History ISSN 0953-5233Andrea Terry, ‘Gender, Canadian Nationhood and ‘Keeping House’: The Cultural Bureaucratisation of Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario,1900–1960s’Gender & History, Vol.25 No.1 April 2013, pp. 47–64.

Gender, Canadian Nationhood and ‘KeepingHouse’: The Cultural Bureaucratisation ofDundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario,1900–1960s

Andrea Terry

This article explores how the reincarnation of historic houses as national historic sitesmakes them agents of Canadian cultural politics. I examine how nation-building frame-works not only inform but also determine the parameters of what Kathleen McCarthycalls women’s ‘cultural custodianship’ in Canadian house museums.1 More specifi-cally, I investigate the work of ‘women volunteerists’ involved in the museumificationof Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario, the former home of Prime Minister andFamily Compact leader Sir Allan Napier MacNab (1798–1862).2 Developed as a pri-vate residence, historic house and Canadian Centennial project respectively, Dundurn’sdomestic character enabled women to monumentalise particular aspects of Anglo-Canadian nationalism. From 1901 to the 1960s, a host of women worked as curatorsand administrators to establish the site as a house museum, refurnishing rooms sothat they reflected what might have been in place during the MacNab family’s res-idency. These efforts ultimately recommended the site as Hamilton’s contribution toCanada’s Centennial, a celebration that marked a decisive climax in state-produced na-tional commemoration exultations.3 Following the restoration in 1967, city councillorsdetermined that Dundurn’s official reincarnation required that men manage the admin-istrative affairs while women should focus on the maintenance of the period rooms andguided tours. Accordingly, I explore how the house’s restitution as a state-sanctionedmuseum ultimately activated its function as a microcosm of gendered dynamics, onethat allowed government officials, cultural workers and the Hamilton community atlarge to debate larger socio-political issues.4

Given this article’s focus on women’s labours in one particular Canadian historichouse museum, it aims to bring a new perspective to existing studies of such sites, whichlargely focus on the United States. Cultural historian Patricia West, in her seminalanalysis of the house museum movement, argues that the movement began in mid-nineteenth century America and was developed by ‘disenfranchised though politicallyengaged women’. Based on her chronological analysis of the formation of historical

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sites – such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Louisa May Alcott’s family home,Orchard House, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and the replica birthplace of BookerT. Washington – the process of establishing a house museum, according to West,provided a vehicle for women to negotiate the shifting relationship between women’scustomary power base (the home) and the public realm (the state).5 While West’swork reflects an important contribution to the growing body of critical literature thatexamines connections between the American house museum movement and women’sinvolvement in the public sphere, her case studies concentrate on how, between theyears 1850 and 1950, women’s clubs, historical associations and voluntary societiescame together to bring about the movement.6

Significantly, more recent scholarship regarding women’s involvement inCanadian museum formation also assesses roles played by collectives.7 For exam-ple, art historian Anne Whitelaw considers the historical roles and status assumed bywomen volunteers in the Edmonton Art Gallery (now the Art Gallery of Alberta) fromthe 1920s to 1970s. While other contemporary scholarly accounts typically producenarratives about elite philanthropists, such as Isabella Stewart Gardner and Abby Rock-efeller, Whitelaw’s study, by way of contrast, explores the duties carried out by thosewhom she identifies as ‘ordinary women’ – middle- and upper-middle class womenwhose efforts ultimately allowed the Edmonton Art Gallery to remain in operation.8

Women curators, administrators and members of voluntary societies wound up raisingmore than a million dollars over the course of five decades and thus funded, for themost part, the gallery’s programmes and acquisition practices. The fact that the mu-seum board went on to replace these women by employing men who were paid regularsalaries underscores, for Whitelaw, the perception of women’s work as ‘a voluntarycontribution rather than as a professional endeavour’.9

I seek to expand the frames of reference surrounding examinations of women’smuseum work, using the lens of Dundurn to call attention to the state’s prolific involve-ment in Canadian heritage site formation and the subsequent effect on women’s dutiesin such cultural affairs. In other words, this article signals how such sites might be un-derstood – in terms of their institutional histories – as elements within a larger process.As historian Ian McKay explains, Canada’s historical distinctiveness lies not in any‘foundation’ or ‘essence’ but in its shaping of the liberal order, one inspired by bothBritain and the United States, which it had to ‘preserve, cancel, and transcend’. More tothe point, its uniqueness depends upon the liberal imperative, harmonising ‘older wayswith its new underlying conception of the world’.10 The classical nineteenth-centuryliberal model is one in which the individual is assigned primacy: a ‘true individual washe who was self-possessed – whose body and soul [and land] were his alone’.11 Thequalifications of self-possession and property ownership excluded women, workers,ethnic minorities and Indigenous peoples from the liberal model and so they becamemarked as ‘Other’.12 Analysing Canada as a historically and geographically specificproject of liberal rule therefore locates the ‘problem of Canada’ in annals of powerrelations, more particularly those dealings that aim to (re)construct and solidify a givenhegemonic ‘social’.13 Accordingly, this article uses a case study to demonstrate howCanadian heritage sites might be analysed as governmental tools, products of mon-umentally momentous processes that facilitate normalisation of liberal assumptionswithin the dominion’s subjects.14

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The Cultural Bureaucratisation of Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario, 1900–1960s 49

Charting how middle-class white women galvanised the museumification ofCanadian residences, particularly ones connected with nation-building endeavours,demonstrates the complex nature of women’s perceived roles in the state’s culturalmatters. I examine women’s contributions to Dundurn’s development, interrogatingthe degree to which monuments were (re)contextualised in seemingly ‘national’ termsas part of Canada’s past, a location from which they served in turn as bases of na-tional identity. The home’s institutionalisation, I suggest, signals both how and whyrelationships between nation-building endeavours and women’s cultural custodianshipevolved over the course of the twentieth-century, most particularly in the 1960s. Dun-durn’s restitution as a state-sanctioned site prompted decisions designed to legitimiseits institutional professionalism, decisions ‘typically informed by historical articula-tions of . . . gender’.15 More specifically, its ‘Canadianisation’ in the context of theCentennial celebration and the municipal government’s subsequent decision to ‘reg-ulate’ Dundurn’s administration points to the types of patriarchal assumptions boundup in decisively nationalistic cultural endeavours.16

In order to probe these gender dynamics, I draw not only on the work of Westand Whitelaw but also Lianne McTavish, who characterises the relationship betweenwomen workers and museums as a complex one in that women were ‘simultaneouslysignificant and subordinate’.17 In this type of work, there is a distinct class affiliation;movements dedicated to Canadian socio-political, as well as cultural, reform routinelyattracted middle-class women, more so than elite philanthropists, as involvement de-pended upon interests rather than economic capital.18 Women, as West points out,characteristically initiated the development of house museums. Their institutionali-sation often signalled a contemporary preoccupation with ‘“great men and events”credited with establishing the nation’ and so women’s work often remained ‘enmeshedin the “cult of domesticity”’.19 Accordingly, this article considers the range of women’sactivities throughout the site’s development attending to the roles of gender, ethnicity,class and nationhood in house museum formation. In so doing, it makes evident theway such sites – particularly in Canada – act as ‘contested discursive mechanisms thatenable as well as erase gendered identities’.20 In other words, I explore the paradoxicalfunction(s) of the modern Canadian house museum. More broadly, I interrogate thecomplexity of women’s engagement with Canada’s liberal order.

In examining how nation-building designs informed Dundurn’s institutionalisa-tion, I focus on three phases of its development and women’s involvement in them.21

Over the course of its existence, Dundurn has acted as a private residence, historichouse museum, Centennial project and, most recently, fully-restored living historymuseum that offers guided tours led by period costumed interpreters who identify forvisitors particular objects and deliver stories spun around those objects, narratives thatrecount both the lives and lifestyles of the home’s original inhabitants, the MacNabfamily and their servants. First, in my examination of Dundurn as Sir Allan MacNab’sfamilial residence, I investigate how MacNab managed the construction of the houseso that it would function as an architectural manifestation of his affluent lifestyle.Second, I examine how, in the 1950s, women reconceptualised it as a house museumso that it acquired a distinctly pedagogical role, one that sought to propagate amongstthe local citizenry admiration for the ‘Britishness’ of the site. Third, in terms of thesite’s institutionalisation as Hamilton’s Centennial project in the 1960s, I explore how


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contemporary articulations of nationhood seemingly necessitated the instalment of‘constraining ideological limits’ on women’s work.22

While Dundurn Castle has been a familiar part of Hamilton’s cultural landscapesince its construction in 1832, it initially functioned as a private residence, one deliber-ately designed to reflect its owner’s cultural predilections. Lawyer and land speculatorAllan MacNab commissioned British-trained architect Robert Wetherall to design thehouse in the Picturesque style. To that end, Wetherall designed the eclectic exteriorso that the building would blend with the landscape, which overlooks the waters ofBurlington Bay on Lake Ontario. The eclecticism of the style, which is also character-istic of the Picturesque, is evident in the combined use of diverse architectural elementssuch as Greek mouldings, Italianate-style watch towers, Gothic details, French win-dows and a Doric porch, which is located in the back of the house.23 As a result, thehouse simultaneously emulated and maintained elite British architectural preferenceswithin the colony.24

At the time of its construction, Dundurn also reflected its owner’s personal andpolitical preferences. Erected in the early years of MacNab’s political career, Dun-durn proclaimed its owner’s intention to align himself with those dedicated to theLoyalist tradition of government. During the late 1820s and early 1830s, he cultivatedconnections with members of the Family Compact, a political faction comprised ofinterlocking networks of wealthy individuals who maintained the Loyalist tradition ofsocial hierarchy and opposed the importation of republican institutions. MacNab wenton to act as the faction’s head and subsequently assumed a military role in support ofthe Loyalist cause in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Credited with suppressingrebel forces, led by William Lyon Mackenzie who fought for governmental reform,MacNab was later knighted by Queen Victoria. His political career, however, reachedits highest point when he was elected Prime Minister of the United Canadas (1854–1856).

Despite his political successes and affluent ambitions, MacNab wound up deplet-ing his finances, which in turn had a decisive effect on the fate of his home. Ultimately,his accomplishments provided little in terms of financial security for his dependents.25

Following his death on 8 August 1862, the family furnishings were sold at variousauctions to pay off his debts, and Dundurn stood empty.26 As the years passed, variousowners and institutions used the building for different purposes. In October 1899, themunicipal government of Hamilton purchased Dundurn Castle and turned the houseinto a civic museum and the grounds into a park, thereby marking the second stage inDundurn’s development during which the home increasingly took on the trappings ofa museum.27

During the site’s tenure as a community-based house museum, those employedat the institution sought to cultivate the ‘Britishness’ of Dundurn. In 1901, ClementinaTrenholme Fessenden (1843–1918) – an advocate of the imperial connection betweenBritain and Canada – was appointed curator, the first woman to hold what was de-scribed at the time as this ‘important position’ within the public realm. Determined toadvance the British presence in Canadian life, Fessenden campaigned to bring aboutthe observance of Empire Day in Canadian schools (1898).28 She was also the found-ing secretary of Hamilton’s first chapter of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of theEmpire (1900), known as the Fessenden chapter, and soon became a councillor in theLeague of the Empire in 1903. Her propensity for historical preservationist activity is



evident in her membership in both the Brome County Historical Society in Quebec andthe Wentworth Historical Society, within which she acted as the recording secretary.29

Her employment at Dundurn thus allowed her to advance her Anglo-Canadian nation-alist commitment, using local historical material culture.

Under her supervision, Dundurn took on a distinctly pedagogical role, one thatsought to propagate a sense of devotion to particular cultural ideals. Consequently, thepopular press described her as being ‘patriotic to the core’.30 As one local journalistexplained,

[T]he castle will always be the chief attraction, or its associations at least be the chief theme . . .We can see the very character of the owner in the building . . . [and] visitors can gain more than amere outing by making themselves familiar with the historical associations of the spot.31

Connecting the architecture – ‘essentially a British point of view’ – with the perceivedcharacter of the owner, the writer suggests that, from Dundurn Castle, visitors mightlearn about and come to appreciate the history of the Hamilton area and, by extension,Canada as a whole.32 Moreover, such ethnicised projections, as literary scholar andhistorian Daniel Coleman points out, functioned to promote not only the ‘privileged,normative status of British whiteness in English Canada’ but also the ‘gentlemanlycode of Britishness’.33 The ensuing proliferation of women’s cultural custodianship atDundurn thus posits a complex gender dynamic in relation to the male historical figurecommemorated in the site.34

While Fessenden worked as Dundurn’s first professional curator, her work wasoften couched, particularly in the popular press, in the idiom of domesticity. As onejournalist wrote,

The management [at Dundurn] was fortunate in having secured the services of so capable a womanas curator . . . [One] important trait in Mrs Fessenden’s composition is her social and affablemanner; seek her out for any information desired – it will be willingly and pleasantly imparted . . .The curator has been very busy lately getting her house in order and attending to the many littlethings incidental to the welfare of her daughters – the Daughters of the Empire.35

In keeping with West’s argument, the journalist’s language not only downplays theprofessional aspects of Fessenden’s occupation but also likens her actions to thosethat are associated with the private sphere. Notably, Fessenden herself held staunchviewpoints regarding women’s agency and the state, paradoxical ones that reflectedher intention to uphold the patriarchal assumptions of state bureaucracy and Canadiannationhood. In 1913, she began to publically oppose women’s suffrage in a seriesof newspaper letters, describing votes for women as ‘an empty promise of power,since only men were in positions to enforce legislation’, and the possibility threatenedto ‘dismember’ imperial advancement.36 Fessenden’s curatorial successors, however,continued making decisive contributions to Dundurn’s museumification and, morebroadly, the Canadian government’s cultural affairs.

It was the women curators, in fact, who first recognised not only the historical valueof Dundurn but also the potential it held as a tourist destination, and they developedexhibition policies specifically designed to draw in visitors. In the 1950s, for example,then-curator Gwen Metcalfe identified the one thing ‘most lacking’ at Dundurn as the‘human touch’. Born in Ford Dodge, Iowa in 1913, Margaret Gwendolyn Carley’sparents moved to Hamilton, where her father worked as the Physical Director of the


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YMCA.37 In 1936, she married Albert Metcalfe and took on a ‘summer job at thedesk’ of Dundurn Castle. She carried out various projects, training the birds in theon-site aviary, scrubbing floors and clearing turrets and, in 1954, took on the curatorialpost.38 She described the position as one she felt well-equipped to assume, writing‘In doing this type of work I’m beginning to feel that either one has the ability orone doesn’t. Technical knowledge is desirable of course, but no amount of technicalknowledge would give one the necessary, natural inborn knowhow’.39 And so shewent on to conceive of ways to develop exhibition policies at the museum in order todraw in more visitors. As she explained to Dundurn’s Museum Committee ChairmanDr W. S. T. Connell,

Sir Allan’s political life is known but the everyday happenings and way of life in Dundurn Castleis completely lost. Those are things people are most interested in when visiting a Historical House,the whys and wherefores.40

Having thus identified aspects of the site that might be explored and perhaps rep-resented as a means to encourage people to visit Dundurn, Metcalfe proceeded toenact a proposal her predecessor, Agnes Mundie, had made, ‘to refurnish the roomsin Dundurn Castle in the period when Sir Allan MacNab lived there’.41 Beginningin 1954, Metcalfe spent the next three years refurbishing various rooms so that theydisplayed ‘lived-in touches’.42 The site’s reincarnation as a historic house museumspurred a significant rise in visitor attendance and, subsequent to that, a third stage in itsdevelopment.

Given Dundurn’s increasing presence in the civic landscape, city officials pro-posed that it be restored in its entirety as Hamilton’s Centennial project to consolidatethe museum’s cultural profile within a decisively nationalistic framework. An article inthe Toronto Globe and Mail of 31 July 1959 reported that Dundurn’s visitor attendancehad increased from 26,000 in 1956 to 27,000 by September 1957. Significantly, thearticle credited the increase to ‘the new policy of more interesting fashion displays’such as had been undertaken in the bedroom.43 By the end of 1957, the number ofvisitors had increased to 31,000 – a 13 per cent growth – and so Dundurn Castlehad become a major tourist destination.44 Accordingly, in January 1961, Mayor LloydDouglas announced that it might be possible to restore the site as a ‘period piece’ asHamilton’s contribution to the Centennial celebrations.45

The 1960s marked a watershed decade for Canada’s burgeoning heritage industry.Nation-building frameworks that emerged during this time informed not only the pur-pose, but also the development and operation of heritage sites. The federal governmentrapidly acquired a vast range of historic places across the country and turned them intomuseums.46 Knowledge of the past came to be viewed as a source of political, eco-nomic and cultural renewal.47 These actions, Anne McClintock points out, indicate the‘singular power of nationalism’ – its intention to foster ‘a sense of popular, collectiveunity through the management’ of objects and national celebrations.48 Most prominentin the 1960s were the 1967 Centennial celebrations, which Eva Mackey characterisesas a ‘high point in Canadian state-produced national sentiment’.49 In the context ofthese celebrations, events and activities such as historical re-enactments, Expo ’67 andthe Confederation Train sought to educate the nation’s citizens. As Mackey explains,‘Learning to “be Canadian” meant being educated about the specific qualities and



characteristics being constructed at that time: cultural pluralism and tolerance’, andstate-sponsored activities strove not only to establish but also to promote Canada as acountry that had reached political, economic and socio-cultural maturation.50 In thiscontext, the ‘material legacy of history’ was also pressed into service.51 The recon-stitution of historic sites aimed to showcase concrete evidence of the nation’s pastaccomplishments, to celebrate its present and to encourage hope for the future, thusorganising a particular ‘story of the nation’.

In keeping with this national framework and in order to secure funding for theproject, those vested in restoring Dundurn determined that the site would serve adidactic function. In 1961, architectural consultant Anthony Adamson recommendedthat, to finance the restoration, the municipal government apply for a grant offeredunder the National Centennial Projects Act.52 The restoration would require the city’sfinancial involvement as well; grants were provided on the condition that the provincialand municipal governments each contribute one-third of the funds required for theproject, with the federal government providing the remaining third. To receive funds,however, the project would have to be of a ‘lasting nature’ and completed by 1967.53

Adamson therefore advocated that the house be restored ‘to show its original conditionwhen in use by Sir Allan MacNab’ and that a terminal date of 1856 be established; 1856‘is thought the most suitable date on which to base an application for a grant under theNational Centennial Projects Act’, Adamson wrote at the time, adding, ‘[T]he heydayof Dundurn was probably in the 1850’s when Sir Allan, though a widower, was notonly a Prime Minister but wealthy and a baronet’.54 In other words, he thought thatfunding for the restoration might be secured by emphasising MacNab’s contributionsto the nation, an approach that would in turn set the house up as a concrete exampleof MacNab’s accomplishments.55 It was a successful strategy; on 18 August 1964, thefederal government announced its approval of the application and, with it, financialcommitment to the restoration project.56

Because the project represented Hamilton’s contribution to the Centennial – a cel-ebration that marked a pinnacle in state-sponsored laudatory projects – those involvedhad to determine how to make the dwelling a cultural institution that would be bothpleasing and credible to Canadian citizens.57 Over the next three years, they workedto unearth sources that could shed light on MacNab’s tastes, character and family.Because information relating to MacNab’s family life was scant at the time, Adamsonadvocated that the committee use whatever historical sources it could find to ‘interpretthe house’ as a heritage site.58 The Restoration Committee therefore conducted an ex-tensive search procuring both architectural evidence and primary documents to providescholarly validation of the site; the committee also surveyed, excavated and examinedthe house’s infrastructure to determine what wallpaper, paint, carpets, curtains or roomlayout had been in place. The artefacts and furnishings placed in the various roomshad not belonged to the MacNab family but were chosen, as historian Marion MacRaeexplains, because ‘they were consistent with the social pattern of the city in theirday’.59 In short, committee members strove to construct what Edward Bruner calls a‘historically accurate’ environment.60

Given the federal government’s determination that state-sponsored Centennialprojects be of a ‘lasting nature’, Dundurn’s recontextualisation within a decisivelynationalistic framework required that it take on a particular pedagogical function. Therestoration process extended from the heritage site to MacNab as a historical figure.


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Scott Symons, then Curator of Canadian Art at the Royal Ontario Museum, articulatedthe relationship that was being established between the two. There were, as he explainsit, mythologising aspects to the restoration process. As he put it to Metcalfe,

Old Sir Allan MacNab represented all that was good and walrus-hopeless in the Family Compact.He has been maligned; and I feel is due for a ‘restoration’. Whatever the compacters may or maynot have done, they did establish here in Canada a cultivated, dignified rich life. Their homes showit. Very few Canadians are aware of the Regency culture in Canada, or think of it as Canadian.When they do awake to it, they may then no longer feel it a sin to read, to think, or wish to improvethemselves.61

As Symons suggests, those involved in the restoration sought to rework the nega-tive associations commonly drawn in historical studies of the Family Compact. Morespecifically, they aimed to highlight, as Coleman writes, ‘the formulation and elabora-tion of a specific form of whiteness based on a British model of civility’ made manifestin the architecture of the site and the perceived conduct of its owner.62 These strategicreconceptualisations of both the home and personae of the original owner demonstratehow those involved in the restoration project collectively sought to render Canada’spast appealing to visitors. Notably, they aimed to distinguish not only the site’s culturalprofile but also its professional standing.

Likewise, Metcalfe sought to distinguish herself as a museum professional dur-ing the restoration period. It was not until 1969 that Canadian universities, such asthe University of Toronto, began offering Museum Studies programmes, providingstudents with a theoretical background in and professional understanding of modern-day museum practices.63 Prior to this time, therefore, many in the Canadian museumworld sought out various educational resources to buttress their on-the-job training,experience and expertise.64 Metcalfe, for instance, took ‘extension courses’ at boththe University of Toronto and McGill University and also earned a Canada CouncilGrant to attend a Canadian Museums Association conservation course.65 By 1966,she acted as Dundurn’s Curator and had gone on to assume the ‘authoritative’ role ofBusiness Administrator.66 Keenly aware of the rapidly developing professionalism ofmuseum curatorship, conservation and administration, Metcalfe articulated her visionof historic house museum management. As she put it to Dundurn Castle CommitteeChairman William McCullough,

A historic house is a business and must have a trained staff . . . There are techniques and businessprocedures in a museum that should be part of the daily routine. Nothing has been accessioned inthe Dundurn Castle collection. Every single item should have an identifying number, but there hasbeen no staff to concentrate on that one aspect alone.67

She went on to advise McCulloch that the city council should advertise for ‘trainedmuseum staff’ – a matter in her mind of ‘prime importance’ – so that, upon reopeningfollowing the restoration, Dundurn might make a ‘lasting impression’ on visitors. Thesite’s sacralisation thus led to its professionalisation.68

The reincarnation of Dundurn Castle as a state-sanctioned historic site soughtto mark it as emblematic of the nation’s past, even as it advanced the site’s functionas a tourist destination.69 When the castle reopened to the public on 18 June 1967,offering guided tours by young women posing as Upper Canada housemaids, gov-ernment officials characterised the site as representative of Hamilton’s contribution to



nation-building efforts. At the opening-day reception, Solicitor-General Larry Pennellpraised the project and identified what he perceived to be the site’s primary purpose. Hestated that ‘[o]ne of the difficulties in finding national identity [stemmed] from a lackof understanding [of Canada’s] history’ and declared that, as a product of that history,Dundurn would make Hamiltonians ‘better citizens and richer human beings’.70 ToPennell, the museum visit was, to use art historian Carol Duncan’s term, a ‘civilizingritual’.71 In visiting Dundurn, the museum visitor performed the role of citizen, thusmaking evident that the restoration project represented, as Jill Vickers terms it, a ‘Cana-dianisation project’: visitors might, upon entering and touring the site, learn about thehistory, culture and values that would unite them with other Canadian citizens.72 Insuch a construction, Duncan explains, the museum stands as a ‘keeper of the nation’sspiritual life and guardian of the most evolved and civilized culture’.73

Significantly, Dundurn’s sacralisation became a gauge by which city officials notonly measured but also regulated women’s duties within the site. Within its first monthof operation following the restoration, Dundurn’s attendance averaged about 1,000visitors per day.74 Despite – or perhaps in light of – the fact that Metcalfe managed thesite’s administrative affairs, the onslaught of visitors and increased revenue spurredthe City of Hamilton to put out a call for a Business Administrator in October 1967in the ‘Help Wanted Male’ section of the Hamilton Spectator.75 Metcalfe herself ap-plied for the position, which was listed as paying $CDN1,290 more than the curatorialposition, the equivalent of approximately $CDN8,400 in today’s currency.76 The gov-ernment’s decision to ‘masculinise’ Dundurn’s administrative affairs and subsequentevents indicates the degree to which state-sanctioned sites function as hegemonic cul-tural tools. In other words, nationalist frameworks frequently inform the managementof Canadian museums. Dundurn’s sacralisation arguably motivated the municipal gov-ernment to prescribe a gendered institutional hierarchy, one that dismissed as secondarythe responsibilities carried out by women.77

It is significant to point out, however, that various individuals – government of-ficials and cultural workers alike – went on public record expressing their oppositionto these prescriptions. On 29 November 1967, an article in the Hamilton Spectator an-nounced that the city council had selected Willis J. Moogk, a retired army brigadier, tobe Dundurn’s ‘first’ business administrator. Council, the article reported, held a forty-five minute debate – during which then-Hamilton mayor Victor Copps and DundurnCastle Committee Chairman William McCullough ‘pressed strongly for the appoint-ment’ of Metcalfe – before voting 9-8 in favour of Moogk’s appointment.78 Subsequentto that decision, some councillors went on record stating that the job ‘should have gone’to Metcalfe, and so the Spectator ran an editorial, entitled ‘Castle Controversy’, thatexplicitly outlined the respective duties of the business administrator and the cura-tor so as to ‘[make] clear that two entirely different positions are involved here’.79

According to the article, the business administrator is to keep the books, managepolicies and handle public relations; the curator, on the other hand, must know ‘ev-erything there is to know about the castle and its contents and be able to explain it toguides and visitors’. It went on to stipulate that because Dundurn, upon restoration,brought in an annual income of $CDN100,000, the museum was a ‘sizable businessoperation’. It concluded, stating, ‘Hamilton has one expert in Mrs Metcalfe and theother in Mr Moogk. Let these two, in their respective spheres, carry Dundurn to newheights’.80


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The author’s invocation of the separate spheres ideology, I suggest, meant tolegitimise the city council’s installation of a cultural bureaucracy, one in which nation-alist discourse buttressed constructions of gender. Men, the article stated, ‘needed’ tosupervise business-related affairs to ‘maintain Dundurn’s high standards as a museumand historical monument’ so that women might look after the historical research, tours,displays and other items associated with the domestic – and therefore more suitable –realm of the house itself.81 As feminist historian Amanda Vickery explains, how-ever, ‘the separation of the spheres, and the construction of the public and privateare all different ways of characterising what is essentially the same phenomenon: themarginalisation of middle-class women’.82 Accordingly, Dundurn’s reconstitution asa ‘Canadianisation’ project and the municipal government’s subsequent regulation ofits administration makes evident the types of patriarchal assumptions bound up instate-sponsored cultural endeavours and, by extension, nationhood.83

To apprehend how national frameworks affected Canadian women’s culturalpursuits, one might consider how their experiences ‘modified’ their subjectivities.Women’s outlooks, Dianne Sachko Macleod writes, are ‘molded by historical and situ-ational circumstances. Like gender, identity shifts and mutates in response to individuallife experiences’.84 Furthermore, because women en masse, particularly in the 1960s,publically disputed ‘hegemonic definitions of womanhood and work’, these strugglesgenerated profound changes in both individual and collective valuations of women’swork.85 Metcalfe herself recorded the trajectory of her experiences in great detail. Shehad a long-standing practice of slipping sheets of carbonated paper beneath lettersshe wrote during the course of her curatorial career and so she produced an extensivearchive that, upon her death in 1997, was willed to the Hamilton Public Library’sSpecial Collections Department.86 Her correspondence reveals a profound shift in herviews regarding museum work and cultural affairs.

While Metcalfe initially believed house museum curatorship required a so-calledintuitive knowledge of domestic culture, her subsequent accomplishments broughtabout an acute transformation in her opinion. Upon beginning her tenure as Dundurn’scurator in 1954, she wrote that she had secured employment by ‘accident’. By thelate 1960s, however, Metcalfe referred to herself as a ‘museologist’, thus indicatingher awareness that house museology requires ‘skilled people with the dual perspectiveof history and modern management’.87 Moreover, she assumed the roles of Curatorand Business Administrator to maintain the site’s operation, particularly during thethree-year-long restoration period. Upon Dundurn’s re-opening to the public as Hamil-ton’s Centennial project, city council took decisive steps to regulate Dundurn’s admin-istration, demanding Metcalfe formally apply for the Business Administrator position.The government effectively enacted measures to prohibit her from full participation inDundurn’s affairs, thereby indicating the degree to which Metcalfe’s management notonly provoked but also challenged male authority.

Furthermore, Metcalfe recognised city councillors’ efforts to standardise women’swork options. Expressing her frustration with the city council’s dictates to HamiltonMayor Copps, Metcalfe stated,

I’d not been concerned about ‘having’ a position, when I suddenly found it necessary to apply forthe position of Business Administrator for Dundurn Castle. You do the work and then you apply forthe position? . . . If I had wanted to be a Curator, would I have applied for the position of Business



Administrator? You’re darn right, I wouldn’t! First being that the curatorial work has been done byanother member of the staff for quite some time. Secondly . . . I might just as well save time andenergy and keep on with the job myself.88

Elsewhere, she identified with the struggles of second wave feminists, writing, ‘Malesthink themselves superior to females, but I’ve me doubts . . . Even in this enlightenedage, the women in the public life have to work much harder than men for a place inthe sun’.89 Despite the fact that house museum curatorship required informed manage-ment, historical research and documentation skills, the ability to construct artefactualarrangements for interpretive purposes and knowledge of strategic, preventative mate-rials conservation, the constraints of ‘domestic’ life affected her status.90 Accordingly,her encounters with the gendered realities of ‘professional’ museum work, as well asher personal financial circumstances, informed her socio-political consciousness, hersubsequent course of action and Hamiltonians’ estimation of their local government.Proclaiming her refusal to conform to what she called the ‘strange unethical ideas [and]policies’ of the city council, Metcalfe resigned as curator on 13 January 1968, whichthe local press reported on shortly thereafter.91

Both Metcalfe’s resignation and the ensuing coverage by the popular press sig-nalled to the Hamilton community how the government relied on articulations ofgender to marginalise women. Upon resigning, Metcalfe was quoted in the HamiltonSpectator, saying, ‘In no way could I convince myself that remaining would be a wisedecision . . . I would be without a voice in the policy of Dundurn and I would beforced to condone things that I knew were not correct’.92 In light of the 1963 passingof Metcalfe’s husband Albert and her decision, as she puts it, to ‘wave good bye to asalary that had been a decent one, but only since June of 1967’, Metcalfe struggled forthe next few months to maintain a single-income household.93

While economic difficulties forced her to return as curator, Metcalfe maintainedthat she had been seriously discriminated against by those in City Hall because of hergender.94 Following her retirement as curator in 1971, Metcalfe reflected on the ‘CastleControversy’, writing,

It was rather forcibly brought to my attention that I was a local woman. As it so happened that I’dbeen saying to myself, and to anyone else who would listen during my years of working alone – ‘ifit takes two men to do whatever I was about to accomplish, I could do it myself’ . . . What [the citycouncil] thought was so right, was very wrong for the Castle.95

By taking stock of her abilities, cultural capital and the city council’s prejudices,Metcalfe publicly confronted the government’s bureaucratic chauvinism.

The publicity surrounding Metcalfe’s resignation called the community’s atten-tion to issues of gender that permeated not only the museum but also, more broadly, theworkplace and governance. Over the course of January and February 1968, the localmedia’s coverage of the event was prolific; one journalist even reported overhearingpeople on the street discussing Metcalfe’s resignation as opposed to, for instance, thewinter storm that hit Hamilton earlier that year, spewing winds of 180–251 kilometresper hour and leaving forty people homeless.96 Metcalfe herself stated that her res-ignation had set off a ‘chain reaction’, one that caused members of the communityto seethe ‘like a hornet’s nest’; numerous people applauded her for the ‘stand’ shetook.97 Others wrote in to the Hamilton Spectator, expressing their outrage with the


58 Gender & History

‘distasteful’ designs of the city council. As Burlington resident Marjorie D. Kilgorestated in her letter published on 8 February 1968,

Unfortunately there are, on the Dundurn Castle committee, some elective representatives of thepeople of Hamilton who appear to have little sense of justice and fair play. They fail to appreciatethe years of honest, hard work, faithfully performed on a meagre salary. They have neither thewisdom nor the grace to allow Mrs Metcalfe at least one year to prove her competence in continuingto conduct the affairs of the Castle . . . By one vote the city council rejected her application tocontinue at Dundurn as administrator. In the opinion of many fair-minded citizens, this decision ispremature, short-sighted and unjust.98

Kilgore’s assessment of the city council’s ‘unjust’ tactics seems aimed at callingpublic attention to the government’s practice of gender discrimination.99 Metcalfe’sexperiences therefore index how women’s positions in house museums were oftendemarcated by the patriarchal assumptions embedded in nationalist discourse and, byextension, governmental bureaucracy. Metcalfe’s staunch opposition to city councildictates, however, indicates how women confronted these demarcations, and how theydemanded the right to have their education and experience taken into account andvalued accordingly. Thus, her public stance encouraged members of the community toactively reflect on their socio-political sensibilities.

In examining the contributions of women to Dundurn’s development, this articleinterrogates the tension between women’s custodianship, nationalist frameworks andcultural bureaucratisation. It also underscores the significance of women’s experiences.Metcalfe’s contribution to Dundurn’s institutional history is paramount in that, amongother things discussed above, she was not only the first one to suggest the restorationof Dundurn Castle, she also created an archive that recorded in extraordinary detail thetrajectory of her museological career.100 She, in fact, expressed her intention to writeabout her experiences at the Castle, stating,

The events of 1967 did not hurt me, as much as it did – and always will – Dundurn Castle. Theloss was Dundurns’ [sic]. I happen to know a great deal about Dundurn Castle, museology, people,human relations – but how could a woman know anything? Someday I’ll get around to writing . . .I know quite a bit that has never gotten down on paper – just because there hasn’t been the time.101

The fact that she donated her records upon the occasion of her death suggests that sherecognised the broader implications of her experiences and that she wanted her storynot only preserved but also told. As such, this article endeavours to (re)cover this story,arguing that women actively sought to resist and combat patriarchal norms imposedupon their cultural work, thereby fostering public awareness of the problematics ofgender, ethnicity, class, nationhood and governmental cultural affairs.

Dundurn’s institutionalisation reflects the paradoxical function of house museums.Its institutional history reveals how house museums offered opportunities for womento enact agency both personally and professionally in the public sphere, even as itsbureaucratisation brought about the installation of a professional gender hierarchy, aconstruction prevalent in many North American museums at the time. While one mightbe tempted to suggest that Metcalfe’s return to her curatorial post following the ‘CastleControversy’ indicates women’s acceptance of their subjugation, such a hypothesishinders a more nuanced understanding of the complex history of house museumformation and the achievements of women cultural workers. In Metcalfe’s case, she



actively recognised, confronted and challenged these hierarchies. Accordingly, onemight suggest that Dundurn’s development highlights the adaptability of the museumas a site of gendered power, one that simultaneously encouraged and constrainedwomen’s agency and subsequently provoked public awareness of larger socio-politicalissues such as the problematic of civic achievements and gender.102

NotesThe Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada generously funded the research for this article.I thank Lynda Jessup and Taryn Sirove for their careful reading of the text and their helpful suggestions, aswell as David Greene, Eva Mackey, Donna Patrick, Anne Whitelaw, Kristina Huneault, Alison McQueen andMargaret Houghton, Archivist at the Hamilton Public Library. Finally, I thank the three anonymous readers; theirinsightful comments were pivotal in the compilation of this article.

1. Kathleen D. McCarthy, Women’s Culture: American Philanthropy and Art, 1830–1930 (Chicago andLondon: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. xi.

2. Patricia West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums (Washingtonand London: Smithsonian Press, 1999).

3. Eva Mackey, The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada (London andNew York: Routledge, 1999), p. 58.

4. Jordanna Bailkin, ‘Picturing Feminism, Selling Liberalism: The Case of the Disappearing Holbein’,Gender & History 11 (1999), pp. 145–63, here p. 148.

5. West, Domesticating History, pp. 159–60.6. For this literature, see Faith Davis Ruffins, ‘“Lifting as We Climb”: Black Women and the Preservation of

African American History and Culture’, Gender & History 6 (1994), pp. 376–96; Marla R. Miller and AnneDigan Lanning, ‘“Common Parlours”: Women and the Recreation of Community Identity in DeerfieldMassachusetts, 1870–1920’, Gender & History 6 (1994), pp. 435–55; Maria Grever, ‘The Pantheon ofFeminist Culture: Women’s Movements and the Organisation of Memory’, Gender & History 9 (1997),pp. 364–74; Debra A. Reid, ‘Making Gender Matter: Interpreting Male and Female Roles in HistoricHouse Museums’, in George Foy McNicholl and Jessica Foy Donnelly (eds), Interpreting Historic HouseMuseums (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2002), pp. 81–110; Linda Young, ‘A Woman’s Place is in theHouse Museum: Interpreting Women’s Histories in House Museums’, Open Museum Journal 5 (2002),pp. 1–24.

7. See Brian Young, The Making and Unmaking of a University Museum: The McCord 1921–1996 (Montrealand Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), pp. 80–111; Lianne McTavish, ‘Learning to Seein New Brunswick, 1862–1929’, Canadian Historical Review 87 (2006), pp. 553–81; Lianne McTavish,‘The Rewards of Professionalization: Alice Lusk Webster and the New Brunswick Museum (1929–1953)’,in Kristina Huneault and Janice Anderson (eds), Rethinking Professionalism: Essays on Women and Artin Canada, 1850–1970 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012), pp. 83–105.

8. Anne Whitelaw, ‘Professional/Volunteer: Women at the Edmonton Art Gallery, 1923–1970’, in Huneaultand Anderson (eds), Rethinking Professionalism, pp. 357–79, here p. 374. The other studies includeMcCarthy, Women’s Culture; Janice B. Yablonski, Museum Women: A Century of Women’s Employmentin Art Museums (New York: Columbia University, 1992); Carol Duncan, Aesthetics and Power: Essaysin Critical Art History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Isabella Stewart Gardner Mu-seum, Cultural Leadership in America: Art Matronage and Patronage (Boston: Trustees of the IsabellaStewart Gardner Museum, 1997); Mary V. Dearborn, Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy Guggen-heim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004); Dianne Sachko Macleod, Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects:American Women Collectors and the Making of Culture, 1800–1940 (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2008).

9. Whitelaw, ‘Professional/Volunteer’, p. 571.10. Ian McKay, ‘The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History’,

Canadian Historical Review 81 (2000), pp. 617–45, here p. 640.11. McKay, ‘The Liberal Order Framework’, p. 625.12. McKay, ‘The Liberal Order Framework’, p. 626.13. McKay, ‘The Liberal Order Framework’, p. 622.14. McKay, ‘The Liberal Order Framework’, p. 621.


60 Gender & History

15. Lianne McTavish and Joshua Dickison, ‘William MacIntosh, Natural History and the Professionalizationof the New Brunswick Museum, 1898–1940’, Acadiensis 36.2 (2007), pp. 72–90, here p. 88.

16. Jill Vickers, ‘Feminism and Nationalism in English Canada’, Journal of Canadian Studies 35 (2000), pp.128–48, here p. 134.

17. Lianne McTavish, ‘Strategic Donations: Women and Museums in New Brunswick, 1862–1930’, Journalof Canadian Studies 42 (2008), pp. 93–116, here p. 110.

18. Celia Morgan, ‘Gender, Commemoration, and the Creation of Public Spheres: Ontario, 1890s–1960s’, inDamien-Claude Belanger, Sophie Coupal and Michel Ducharme (eds), Les idees en movement: Perspec-tives en histoire intellectuelle et culturelle du Canada (Saint-Nicolas: Les Presses de l’Universite Laval,2004), pp. 225–46.

19. Parks Canada, National Historic Sites of Canada System Plan (Ottawa: Parks Canada, 2000), p. 5; West,Domesticating History, p. 1.

20. McTavish, ‘Strategic Donations’, p. 94.21. Elizabeth Vallance, ‘Enshrining Past Lives: House Museums and the Lessons of Objects’, History of

Education Quarterly 42 (2002), pp. 112–21, here p. 112.22. Joan Sangster, Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Post-War Canada (Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 2010), p. 51.23. Picturesque buildings such as Dundurn were to be ‘viewed as an integral but subsidiary part of the overall

scenic composition’. Janet Wright, Architecture of the Picturesque in Canada (Ottawa: Minister of theEnvironment, 1984), p. 7.

24. Wright, Architecture of the Picturesque, pp. 8, 39, 80.25. Donald Beers, Sir Allan Napier MacNab (Hamilton: W. L. Griffin Limited, 1984), p. 404.26. Marion MacRae, MacNab of Dundurn (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin and Co. Ltd., 1971), pp. 188–90.27. Donalda Badone, Dundurn Castle (Erin: Boston Mills, 1990), p. 45.28. After three years of campaigning, in which she used her own money, Fessenden celebrated the es-

tablishment of Empire Day, 23 May, the day before Queen Victoria’s birthday. On Empire Day, theschool children of Canada celebrated the Queen’s birthday. T. Melville Bailey and Charles AmbroseCarter, Hamilton Firsts (Hamilton: W. L. Griffin Limited, 1973), p. 12. Schools in every province of theDominion celebrated Empire Day, as did Commonwealth countries such as New Zealand and Australia.The celebration of Empire Day slowly died out by the 1940s. See Manitoba Education Archives, ‘VictoriaDay and Empire Day: A Canadian Tradition’, Manitoba Education (1997), Powerpoint, pp. 7, 14<www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/iru/access/archives/victoriaday.ppt>.

29. Molly Pulvar Ungar, ‘Trenholme, Clementina (Fessenden)’, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online,vol. 14 (1911–1920), <http://www.biographi.ca/009004–119.01-e.php?BioId=41864>.

30. Hamilton Public Library (HPL), Dundurn Castle Scrapbooks (DCS), vol. 1, p. 8b: ‘Dundurn Park andCastle’, Herald (Hamilton), 23 May 1902, p. 11; HPL, DSC, vol. 1, p. 8b: ‘Dundurn Castle and Park’,Herald, 23 May 1902, p. 3.

31. HPL, DCS, vol. 1, p. 7z: ‘Dundurn and Its Memories’, Globe and Mail (Toronto), 11 July 1901, n. p.32. Wright, Architecture of the Picturesque, p. 8. In the early twentieth century, various politicians, cultural

producers and historians took note of the increasing numbers of non-British immigrants coming to Canadaand, as a result, came to regard commemorative endeavours as tools through which to instil and enhancea sense of developing nationalistic pride and patriotism. For instance, President of the Canadian ClubA. A. Manning explained at the opening of Dundurn Park, ‘In a country so young as Canada, with apopulation drawn from such varied sources, with a population which, however rich in energy, intelligenceand industry, is as yet absorbed in the production of wealth and the development of our natural resources,national and patriotic feeling must of necessity be in its infancy . . . History should ever be held in gratefulremembrance. It is our duty to see that the names of these men and women are plucked from oblivion;that the memory of their great and heroic deeds are handed down to posterity, to teach our children thatthe liberty of thought, speech and conscience which we enjoy is not ours as are the God-given light andair, but is the priceless heritage secured to us by the tears and blood of the founders of our country; and,above all, to see that these liberties are handed unimpaired to the generations who follow us’. HPL, DCS,vol. 1, pp. 7d–7f: ‘How the Canadian Club Honoured the Occasion in the Early Morning’, Spectator(Hamilton), 25 May 1900, pp. 2–3. Concrete examples of ‘Britishness’, such as Dundurn, ‘representedthe most advanced form of political and social life in the world, it was therefore assumed as the civil normto which non-British Canadians should assimilate’. Daniel Coleman, White Civility: The Literary Projectof English Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), p. 19.

33. Coleman, White Civility, pp. 6–7, 10.34. McCarthy, Women’s Culture, p. xi.



35. ‘Dundurn Park and Castle’, p. 11.36. Pulver Ungar, ‘Trenholme’.37. HPL, Gwen Metcalfe Files (hereafter GMF), personal letter from Metcalfe to the Iowa State Department

of History and Archives, Des Moines, Iowa, USA, 14 July 1971.38. HPL, GMF, personal letter from Metcalfe to Fred Mann of Rous and Mann Press Limited, 12 January

1961.39. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to unidentified individual named ‘Art’, 22 January 1963.40. HPL, GMF, personal letter from Metcalfe to Dr W. S. T. Connell, Chairman of the [Dundurn] Museum

Committee, Hamilton, 13 November 1958.41. Because Mundie, upon announcing her intention, criticised ‘the fact that Dundurn Castle and its contents

of antiques and pictures are not sufficiently advertised so that visitors to the city can find it more easily’,I would argue that she wanted to refurbish the site to increase visitor attendance. HPL, DCS, vol. 1, p. 57:‘Dundurn Castle: Show Little Interest in Own History’, Spectator, 8 November 1952.

42. HPL, DCS, vol. 1, p. 81: Joyce Goodman, ‘Sir Allan’s Ghost Still in Castle?’ Spectator, 13 April 1957.43. HPL, DCS, vol. 1, p. 84: ‘A Bedroom of 1850’s is Dundurn Attraction’, Globe and Mail, 16 September

1957.44. The article also reported that most visitors were from the Hamilton district; see HPL, DCS, vol. 1, p. 111:

Godfrey Scott, ‘1,400 Visitors a Week, Dundurn Castle Record Seen, Hamilton’s Museum Having BusySeason’, Globe and Mail (Toronto), 31 July 1959.

45. HPL, DCS, vol. 1, p. 129: ‘Check Ordered: Face Lift Suggested For Castle’, Spectator, 12 January 1961.46. Christina Cameron, ‘The Spirit of Place: The Physical Memory of Canada’, Journal of Canadian Studies

35.1 (2000), pp. 77–94, here pp. 78–80.47. Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture

(New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 537.48. Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context (New York and

London: Routledge, 1995), p. 374.49. Mackey, House of Difference, p. 58.50. Mackey, House of Difference, pp. 59–60.51. Richard Handler, Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec (Madison: University of Wisconsin

Press, 1988), p. 17.52. Adamson was considered an expert consultant not just because he was an architect; he was also an as-

sociate professor of town planning in the School of Architecture at the University of Toronto and hadbeen awarded a United Nations fellowship for the study of town planning and municipal government.Adamson suggested that the $CDN167,000 could be raised through public subscription and govern-ment grants. See HPL, DCS, vol. 1, p. 133: ‘$167,000 Dundurn Castle Development urged’, Spectator,20 September 1961. Additionally, Adamson had been credited as being ‘instrumental in the restoration ofUpper Canada Village’. HPL, DCS, vol. 1, p. 135: ‘Dundurn Castle Pageant: Challenge for City’, Spec-tator, 1961, p. 29. He also co-authored the book, The Ancestral Roof: Domestic Architecture of UpperCanada (Toronto: Clarke and Irwin, 1963), with Marion MacRae, an instructor of design and museumresearch at the Ontario College of Art. The book details the styles of architecture that became prevalentin Ontario during the nineteenth century, and the authors included a brief study of Dundurn.

53. HPL Special Collections, Anthony Adamson, A Proposal for the Restoration of Dundurn as the Core ofa Centennial Project for the City of Hamilton (Hamilton, 10 February 1962), p. 6.

54. HPL Special Collections, Anthony Adamson, Dundurn Castle: An Undeveloped Asset (Toronto, Ontario,Submitted to Parks Board of Hamilton, 12 September 1961), p. 3; Adamson, Proposal: Core, p. 13.Adamson stipulated that the collection to date, containing ‘objects of interest and documents’, detractedfrom the formation of a cohesive institutional policy. Adamson, Dundurn: Asset, p. 2. As far as program-ming was concerned, Adamson believed that what he termed the ‘historical value’ of the objects related toMacNab’s life and lifestyle would be greatly increased if they were placed in a dramatic context. Adam-son, Dundurn: Asset, p. 12. It is significant that, in this particular context, he states that the ‘director’,presumably Metcalfe, has ‘with remarkable skill arranged the displays, which are available to her’. AsMetcalfe was the acting Curator and Business Administrator, and Adamson refers specifically to a womanin this position, this assumption seems most reasonable. Adamson, Dundurn: Asset, p. 1.

55. Adamson’s approach, as a result, linked achievements that some historians suggest ‘contradict’ eachother. While MacNab’s election as Prime Minister solidified his place in Canada’s national narrative, inthe early years of his political career, MacNab favoured British culture, a preference that manifested itselfin the style and design of his home. ‘Belief in the British connection’, MacNab biographer Donald Beersexplains, ‘implied . . . support for a “British” type of society, especially a hierarchical social system. In


62 Gender & History

his own life, MacNab expressed that support as powerfully as any man in Upper Canada. Dundurn wasthe symbol of it’. Beers, Sir Allan, p. 71.

56. HPL, GMF, ‘Ottawa Approves Dundurn Project’, Spectator, 18 August 1964, n. p.57. Mackey, House of Difference, p. 58.58. Finding such sources proved to be a difficult task. In 1965, Adamson himself wrote, ‘Our searches into

the field of [MacNab taste] have been unsuccessful. All we can say about Sir Allan is that he was asconservative in his cooking and heating methods as he was in his politics . . . He was a romantic, a Scot,and a man who was trying to build a seat for his family in Upper Canada. He was proud of his ancestryand without doubt felt the importance of a baronetcy and the prime ministership. He was a spendthrift andalternated between periods of wealth and poverty. In interpreting his house, these things should be kept inmind’. HPL, GMF, Anthony Adamson, ‘Preliminary consideration for the furnishing of the ground andsecond floors of Dundurn – March 30, 1965’, (Hamilton, 30 March 1965), p. 1.

59. MacRae, MacNab of Dundurn, p. 211.60. For a discussion of historical accuracy, see Edward Bruner, ‘Abraham Lincoln as Authentic Reproduction:

A Critique of Postmodernism’, American Anthropologist 96 (1994), pp. 397–415, here p. 399.61. HPL, GMF, Personal letter to Metcalfe from Scott Symons, Sigmund Samuel Canadian Gallery Curator,

Royal Ontario Museum, 7 September 1961, emphasis in original.62. Coleman, White Civility, p. 5.63. In 1967, Anthony Adamson produced a ‘Position Description Form’ for a Director of Dundurn Castle,

a museum administrator who would control ‘all matters of policy implementation and expenditure’. Interms of educational requirements for the position, he stated, ‘There are no universities or schools whichgive adequate training for directorships of museums. There are no courses for museology in Canada’. Hewent onto declare that the ‘chief educational requirement . . . is practical experience in museum operationplus attendance at, or certificate from, museum courses put on by the Canadian Museums Association;The National Trust for Historic Preservation of the United States and the New York Historical Societyat Cooperstown. An extensive study of the operation of historic restorations in the United States andCanada is also desirable’. Notably, the Director was to be charged with the supervision of all museumstaff, including the curator. HPL, GMF, Anthony Adamson, ‘Position Description Form: Dundurn CastleDirector’, (9 March 1967).

64. McCarthy, Women’s Culture, p. 106.65. HPL, GMF, ‘Training Course at Woodbridge: Dundurn Curator to Study on Canada Council Grant’,

Spectator, 25 September 1961, p. 2. Metcalfe was also the first and only Canadian to attend the two-weeklong National Trust Conference on Historic Museum Associations in Mount Vernon, Virginia. HPL, DCS,vol. 1, p. 165: ‘Tour Reinforces Pride in Dundurn: “It’s in a Class by Itself”’, Spectator, 5 March 1964.Following the conference, she also visited historic homes in Washington, Maryland, Pennsylvania andDelaware. Furthermore, with the exception of the Canadian Council Grant, Metcalfe personally fundedboth her training and travel expenses. HPL, DSC, vol. 2, p. 321: ‘“Intolerable to Continue”, DundurnCurator Resigns’, Spectator, 15 January 1968. Finally, she, along with other museum workers DorothyDrevor of the Sharon Temple and Ruth Home of the Jordan Historical Museum of the Twenty, foundedthe Museum Section of the Ontario Historical Society, a group aimed at culling and organising museumcollections. Mary Elizabeth Tivy, The Local History Museum in Ontario: An Intellectual History 1851–1985 (Unpublished doctoral thesis: University of Waterloo, 2006), pp. 158–88, here p. 152.

66. According to Metcalfe herself, Dundurn Castle Committee Chairman William McCulloch approvedMetcalfe’s acting as the Chief Administration Officer. She explained that ‘[t]his came about because Iasked [Anthony Adamson] about a matter one day and he explained that he wouldn’t always be aroundand someone else would have to know the answer. The answer I knew – but the authority I didn’t have,or so I thought. Now I have. Fun and games!’ HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to JeanneMahinnick, Curator and Historical Collections Consultant on the Dundurn Restoration Project, 19 August1966. Because the city council formally classified the position using the title Business Administrator, Iuse the ‘official’ title for the sake of consistency.

67. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to William McCulloch, Dundurn Castle Committee Chairman,10 April 1967.

68. McCarthy, Women’s Culture, p. 115.69. Within its first month of operation following the restoration, Dundurn Castle attendance averaged about

1,000 visitors per day. HPL, DCS, vol. 2, p. 299: ‘Dundurn Castle Packs ‘em In. Averages 1,000 PeopleDaily’, Spectator, 17 July 1967.

70. HPL, DCS, vol. 2, p. 292: ‘Dundurn Opens in Blaze of Colour’, Spectator, 19 June 1967.71. Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 44.



72. Vickers, ‘Feminism and Nationalism’, pp. 137–8.73. Duncan, Civilizing Rituals, p. 26.74. HPL, DCS, vol. 2, p. 299: ‘Dundurn Castle Packs ‘em In’.75. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to William McCulloch, Dundurn Castle Committee Chairman,

5 December 1967. Moreover, the notice stipulated, ‘Preference will be given to an applicant with aprofessional background and with several years of previous administrative experience in the museumor historical or preservation field’. HPL, GMF, ‘City of Hamilton requires Business Administrator forDundurn Castle’, Spectator, 31 October 1967.

76. HPL, GMF, Hamilton Board of Control, Notice #2538 of Staff Vacancy (Hamilton, 19 April 1967).77. Amy Levin, ‘Introduction’, in Amy K. Levin (ed.), Gender, Sexuality and Museums (London and

New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 1–12, here p. 7. See also Sandra Alfoldy, Crafting Identity: TheDevelopment of Professional Fine Craft in Canada (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UniversityPress, 2005); Hilde Hein, ‘Looking at Museums from a Feminist Perspective’, in Levin (ed), Gender,Sexuality and Museums, pp. 53–64.

78. HPL, DCS, vol. 2, p. 318: ‘Dundurn Appointment Stirs Controversy’, Spectator, 29 November 1967.According to the article, Mayor Copps argued, ‘Metcalfe was an applicant and deserves an opportunityto demonstrate whether she can fill the position before we go outside of the city’. In a similar vein,McCulloch went on record, saying, ‘[I]n the choice between persons, Mrs Metcalfe had the weight onher side’. On the other side, Alderman Stan Dudzic who agreed with Moogk’s appointment countered,stating, ‘Mrs Metcalfe is probably the best curator the Castle will ever have, but this is for an administratorand she doesn’t fit that particular bill’. Councillor Jack MacDonald characterised the city council’s role inthe management of Dundurn’s affairs, declaring that ‘it was the duty of the board of control to nominatemen to head departments’. Spectator, 29 November 1967.

79. More specifically, the article stipulated that, given the ‘controversy [that] erupted . . . [a]t this point itshould be made clear that two entirely different positions are involved here’. HPL, DCS, vol. 2, p. 319:‘Castle Controversy’, Spectator, 30 November 1967.

80. ‘Castle Controversy’, emphasis added.81. ‘Castle Controversy’.82. Amanda Vickery, ‘Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronology of

English Women’s History’, Historical Journal 36 (1993), pp. 383–414, here p. 412.83. Vickers, ‘Feminisms and Nationalism’, p. 134.84. Sachko Macleod, Enchanted Lives, p. 5.85. Sangster, Transforming Labour, pp. 274–5.86. Margaret Houghton, Archivist, Local History and Archives, Hamilton Public Library, Hamilton, personal

communication with author, 30 June 2011.87. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to Victor K. Copps, Mayor of Hamilton, 13 January 1968;

Lynda Young, ‘Is There a Museum in the House? Historic Houses as a Species of Museum’, MuseumManagement and Curatorship 22 (2007), pp. 59–77, here p. 75. Elsewhere, Metcalfe points out that shehas ‘highly specialized training for Dundurn Castle’. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to VictorK. Copps, Mayor of Hamilton, 3 January 1968. It is significant to point out that contemporary scholarsrecognise the significance of the experiences and training accrued by those cultural custodians of historichouse museums. For example, Young takes into account that the house museum movement began in theVictorian period and, as a result, characterises house museum management as that which provided notonly a precedent but also a practical foundational knowledge base for contemporary heritage management.The house museum, she writes, ‘has been something of a laboratory of modern heritage management’.Young, ‘Is There a Museum in the House?’, p. 73.

88. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to Victor K. Copps, Mayor of Hamilton, 3 January 1968.89. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to unidentified person, 24 February 1968.90. Here I draw on the argument put forth by Young who states that ‘[t]he revival of old housekeeping

techniques is not adopted uncritically, and is far from uninformed by knowledge of materials conservation,but the rhythms and constraints of household life and maintenance have reasserted a role in the conservationof house museums’. Young, ‘Museum in the House’, p. 74.

91. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to Lord Albermarle, 21 January 1968.92. HPL, DSC, vol. 2, p. 321: ‘“Intolerable to Continue”, Dundurn Curator Resigns’, Spectator, 15 January

1968.93. Writing to Ottawa MP, Lincoln Alexander, Metcalfe states, ‘The grass grows, and needs to be cut.

[My] house, like its owner is showing signs of age, and is beyond my many skills . . . Someday,someone – not me – should be finding out what is under the various piles of dust in the house. That


64 Gender & History

takes money’. Spectator, 15 January 1968. On the passing of her husband, see HPL, GMF; Personal letterfrom Metcalfe to Lord Albermarle, dated 18 November 1963.

94. One month following the submission of her resignation, the Spectator ran an article, entitled ‘CuratorBack at Dundurn’, reporting that, following ‘many requests [made by] Hamiltonians that [she] return toDundurn and [with] the efforts of Mayor Vic Copps’, Metcalfe decided to return to Dundurn and resumeher duties as curator. HPL, DCS, vol. 2, p. 324: ‘Curator Back At Dundurn’, Spectator, 12 February 1968.

95. HPL, GMF; Personal Letter from Metcalfe to Lincoln M. Alexander, M.P., 29 November 1971. Signifi-cantly, she articulated this viewpoint even during the beginning of the controversy. On 16 January 1968,she wrote, ‘The situation is unbelievable. Being a local woman during all the formative years of Dundurndidn’t matter. Now that Dundurn is a success, there were two strikes against me’. HPL, GMF; Personalletter from Metcalfe to Les Gray, 16 January 1968.

96. HPL, GMF; Personal Letter from Metcalfe to Andrew Taylor, 24 January 1968; Hamilton CommunityAwareness and Emergency Response Group, ‘Historical Emergencies’, Types of Major Emergencies(Hamilton CARE Group, 2011), <http://www.hamiltoncaer.com/>. Hamilton was ‘one of the hardest-hitareas’, buried under thirteen inches of snow, mixed with sleet and freezing rain. ‘Snow Storm on IcyHighways Sweeps Across Province’, Globe and Mail, 16 January 1968, p. 5.

97. HPL, GMF; Personal Letter from Metcalfe to Andrew Taylor, 24 January 1968. Elsewhere, she stated that‘[i]f more people had the courage to stand up for what is right, the world would be a better place today’.HPL, GMF; personal letter from Metcalfe to Lord Albermarle, 21 January 1968.

98. HPL, DCS, vol. 2, p. 324: ‘Mrs. Metcalfe Should Stay On At Dundurn’, Spectator, 8 February 1968. In asimilar vein, an editorial in the Burlington Gazette criticised the city council’s choice, stating, ‘It seemsthe reward Hamilton council pays for a job well done is a boot down the stairs. A man from out-of-townwho to our knowledge has had nothing to do with Dundurn before, was approved as administrator forDundurn Castle’. HPL, GMF; ‘The Editorial Page’, Gazette (Burlington), 7 December 1967, p. 4.

99. Janice Streitmatter, Towards Gender Equity in the Classroom: Everyday Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices(Albany: State University of New York, 1994), p. 2.

100. It is important to point out that Dundurn Castle’s archival records, the Dundurn Castle Scrapbooks locatedin the Hamilton Library Special Collections branch, do not contain the newspaper notice advertising forDundurn’s Business Administrator listed in the ‘Help Wanted Male’ section of the Hamilton Spectator.This particular piece of evidence, along with records documenting the various roles assumed by Metcalfe,appears only in Metcalfe’s files.

101. HPL, GMF, Personal letter from Metcalfe to Mr. Thomson, 18 January 1972.102. The term ‘gendered power’ is from Bailkin, ‘Picturing Feminism’, p. 158.


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