Elegance and expression, sweat and strength: Body training, physical culture and female embodiment in women's education at the Margaret Eaton Schools (1901-1941)

This thesis examines the history of the Margaret Eaton School, a private institution of higher learning which was designed to train young upper and middle class women in the field of dramatic arts and physical education in Ontario between 1901 and 1941. The three organizational phases of the school, the School of Expression (1901-1906), the Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression (1906-1925) and the Margaret Eaton School (1925-1941) is examined through the directorship of the school's three principals: Emma Scott Raff Nasmith, Mary Hamilton and Florence Somers.; This investigation examines the changing image of the Margaret Eaton girl, as training in elegance and expression for the theatre shifted to training in athletic skill and pedagogic knowledge for the field of physical education. From Emma Scott Raff Nasmith's Delsartean techniques of body movement, to the camping experiences of Mary Hamilton's Algonquin wilderness, to Florence Somer's maternal vision of women's athleticism; each phase added yet another dimension to the evolving portrait of the Margaret Eaton girl. Elegance and expression and sweat and strength were aspects of this body experience. Each director forwarded her own vision of women's education which carried both elements of consistency and facets of difference from her predecessor This thesis examines the uneven contours of this community experience, and analyzes how faculty and students both extended the borders of possibilities for women and, also, conformed to prescriptive patterns of gender appropriate behaviour.; An examination of the school's archival documents is augmented by interviews with faculty and students of the school, and provides the basis for this investigation of over forty years of body training in women's higher education. Through this body experience, students were both transformed and empowered, restricted and stereotyped. The thesis concludes with the closure of the school in 1941, and its absorption into the nation's first co-educational degree program--the School of Physical and Health education at the University of Toronto--in 1942. A glimpse into the benefits and costs of this next stage in the "evolution" of women in higher education is offered, as lost autonomy and a dramatically altered vision of what it meant to be "physically educated" were exchanged for the hope of academic legitimacy.