Nimbus Publishing, 2025
When Sharon M.H. MacDonald was doing research for her doctoral thesis in history, she came across information about mother and daughter Mary Russell Chesley and Mary Albee Chesley (known as Polly). Although the women were well-known peace activists and suffragists in Nova Scotia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they had virtually disappeared from the historical record.
MacDonald was interested in these women and their work and puzzled that they had fallen into obscurity. After all, Mary had held an important role in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), writing persuasive reports about peace and suffrage, working actively for women’s suffrage, and encouraging women to vote once suffrage was achieved in Nova Scotia in 1918. Polly ran a school in England and was a supporter of Indian independence, spending time with Mahatma Ghandi.
Later deciding she would tell their story, MacDonald embarked on the considerable challenge of finding source material. She learned that some of the women’s obscurity likely arose from the fact that they were from Lunenburg, when Halifax had been the centre of the province’s peace and suffrage movements. Also, because Polly didn’t have children and was Mary’s only surviving child, family records were harder to find.
Disruptive Women is the fascinating story of Mary and Polly Chesley, but also the equally compelling story of how MacDonald was able to find what she needed to tell their story. A founding member of what is now called the Nova Scotia Women’s History Society, MacDonald has written about historic quilts and women’s volunteer work during the two World Wars, so she is no stranger to the additional detective work so often needed in researching and writing women’s history.
This well-written and beautifully researched book will appeal to anyone interested in Nova Scotia history, women’s history, and the peace and suffrage movements in this province. Over a hundred years after Mary’s death and nearly 90 years after Polly’s, MacDonald has given these Nova Scotia women the prominence they deserve.
Jacqueline White is a retired high school history teacher with a particular interest in women’s history.