The War on Score: Ontarian Women’s Songs during The Great War

Karina Stellato March 29, 2019

HMU499 Professor T. Neufeldt

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In response to Lord Kitchener’s famous 1915 recruitment poster, Muriel E. Bruce, a

twenty-two-year-old Torontonian composed what would become the anthem of local recruitment

leagues for the duration of the Great War: Kitchener’s Question.1 “Why aren’t you in Khaki? /

This means you! / Any old excuse won’t do,”2 flooded the streets during recruitment marches

with the intention of inspiring the enlistment of Britain’s sons.3 The success of Muriel Bruce’s

collection of songs grants her the honour of common historiographical representation as the

token women when discussing entertainment on the Canadian home front. Less commonly

remembered are the multitude of amateur and professional female Canadian composers who

contributed to creating the flourishing musical climate in Toronto and the neighbouring regions

of Anglo-Ontario during the war period. “Doing one’s bit” in the war effort did not only pertain

to enlisted men, rather it was the vital motive behind the composition of the vast library of

popular music published by women throughout the war. Studying the overlooked genre of

commercially popular music by women in Ontario between 1914-1918 provides insight into

common contemporary attitudes; where content, audience and social meaning can be analyzed

through lyrics and cover art.4

Songs composed and sung by women on the home front acted as propaganda in the

pursuit of two objectives: increased recruitment and the cultivation of general approval for the

war. Through the stories told in the lyrics, the women of Ontario targeted four audiences to

maximize their inspirational, pro-enlistment message: the men themselves, their mothers, their

sweethearts/wives and their children. Lyrics pertaining to a woman’s role in the war effort, the

symbolic Khaki uniforms, widespread anti-German sentiment, rising Canadian nationalism and

irreverence towards suffering and death, all converge within the catalogue of themes cultivated

and endorsed by this unique form of propaganda to rouse support for the Empire’s Great War.

1 Jeffrey A. Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship During Canada’s Great War (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1996), 21. 2 Muriel E. Bruce, "Kitchener’s Question" Toronto: Empire Music & Travel Club, 1915. 3 Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship During Canada’s Great War), 21. 4 John Mullen, The Show Must Go On! Popular Songs in Britain During the First World War (Dorchester: Henry Ling Limited, 2015), 4.

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The examination of musical contributions by everyday women during these distressing times

serves to illuminate not only Canadian wartime society as a whole, but also exposes the

overlooked legacy of Canadian women whose effect on that society and the war effort was

profound.

Despite the rise of the suffragette and feminist movements during the late nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries, the commencement of war re-established the deep-seeded tradition of

supportive wartime work that fit with Christian Victorian ideals women as “self-sacrificing,

submissive, sexually pure, docile, and maternal” who functioned as “Mothers of the Nation.”5

The greatest contribution a woman could offer the imperial cause “…remained the donation of a

man close to her for the war effort”.6 However, the level of patriotic dedication expected from

Canadians expanded concurrently with the duration of the war. Women were obliged to become

nurses in the Canadian Army Medical Corp (CAMC) and to contribute as a volunteer or paid

member of industrial sectors traditionally closed to them, including farm labour, munitions

manufacturing or other factory work in addition to their mandatory role as mother and wife.7

According to the first officer to conduct a Toronto based recruitment campaign, Lieutenant Col.

W. B. Kingsmill of the 124 Overseas Battalion, a woman’s contribution to the war effort was

twofold; she encouraged, supported and even guilted male loved ones into performing their

patriotic duty, and freed men for service by replacing them in traditionally male areas of

employment.8 Composing home front entertainment, a recognized male profession, was an

alternative approach for women responding to the growing social responsibilities of war.

However, the reality of the media’s scope and social influence made composing popular music

drastically more impactful than the myriad methods of wartime employment women partook in.

As the composers of popular entertainment, women were given an extensive platform that held

5 Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship During Canada’s Great War), 249. 6 Ian Miller and Hugh Maclean, Our Glory and Our Grief: Toronto and the Great War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 134. 7 Ibid., 134 8 Ibid., 120.

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influence on a national level. Through published compositions, professional and amateur female

composers and lyricists proudly contributed to the war effort by cultivating pro-war popular

opinions.

The outpouring of imperialistic appeals for recruitment, engineered to mobilize and create

a unified, war ready nation, focused not only on the prospectively “khaki-clad”9 husbands,

fathers, and sons needed for combat, but also contained a call to arms aimed at the Empire’s

daughters.10 From the onset of the war it was a requirement for a married man to present a letter

of permission from his wife prior to enlistment, thus reinforcing the cultural role of women as

arbiters of recruitment.11 Since the military was dependent on volunteerism until conscription in

1917, women were therefore targeted by recruitment efforts and proved crucial in promoting the

sense of inherent responsibility and duty present within Britain’s sons.11 Initially, the duty of

women was to endorse the virtues of enlistment in private. Ian Miller, a historian on the Toronto

and the Great War, explained, “…they were to do so in private, in ‘a quiet way’, among their

friends and acquaintances rather than out in the public sphere.”12 This focus on discrete, private

encouragement could explain the publishing of only eight songs by Ontarian women in 1914. As

the months progressed, however, women were encouraged and required to partake in the

recruitment campaign that became a “public phenomenon” after the recruitment crisis of 1915.13

This new recruiting scheme bombarded able-bodied men by embarrassing them in public while

privately pressuring married men into enlistment, all through the actions of women who created

an atmosphere fixated on recruitment.14 The novel advancement of women’s influence into the

public sphere is reflected in their production of songs, particularly during the 1915 crisis when

over one third of the war songs by Ontario women were published (figure 1). As sheet music can

9 Miller and Maclean, Our Glory and Our Grief: Toronto and the Great War, 13. 10 Sarah Glassford and Amy Shaw, A Sisterhood of Suffering and Service (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012), 25. 11 Gaylee Magee, "“She’s a Dear Old Lady”: English Canadian Popular Songs from World War One," American Music (Winter, 2016), 489. 11 Ibid. 12 Miller and Maclean, Our Glory and Our Grief: Toronto and the Great War, 120. 13 Miller and Maclean, Our Glory and our Grief: Toronto and the Great War, 111. 14 Ibid.

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be performed as both a private and public form of entertainment, the expansion of women’s

influence into the public sphere allowed for continued increased composition and publication of

their works, which afforded them a greater influence on the home front listeners.

Yearly Output of Ontarian Women's

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29 28

15

10

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1914 1915 1916 1917 1918

Songs

Figure 1 : Data sourced from personal collection of Ontarian Women's songs available in the Index.

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Often dismissed and almost forgotten in the scope of national history is domestic popular

sheet music and its ability to reflect the pervasive effect of the War fought by Canadians

overseas. Limited scholarship and references to sheet music as “a curious footnote” disregards

the pivotal role that entertainment played for the tens of thousands of people whose loved ones

were overseas in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.15 Popular music’s position within Canadian

society was significant; it represented the majority of the 25 000 works of sheet music published

by or for Canadians between 1850 and 1950.16 The pre-war examples of this music reflect the

Anglo-centric beliefs of the predominantly British Canadian population who modeled themselves

after the British example. The widespread idea of European superiority, particularly that of the

Empire herself, dominated the general opinion of domestic listeners, evident in the dominance of

the market by foreign publishers rather than Canadian product.17 However, as Clifford Ford

makes clear in Figure 1, a significant dip in the importation of overseas music during wartime

resulted in a flood of domestic product as Canadian composers and lyricists filled the void. The

recently established domestic sheet music publishing houses that were founded in Canada at the

turn of the twentieth century responded by publishing amateur and professional composers’

wartime songs for distribution across the nation.18 Ontario was the hub of this activity,

publishing wartime marches, parlour songs, ballads, salon pieces, and dances whose focus on

singularly domestic thematic material created a distinctly Canadian genre of wartime music.19

The many amateur composers who established publishing companies to published their wartime

music serve as an example of the surge in local support for the war effort.20 The dissemination of

sheet music inspired a culture of celebrity that made popular songs and their composers or

15 Wayne Norton, "Music of the Great War," British Columbia Studies, no.182. (Summer 2014), 124. 16 Elaine Keillor, Music in Canada: Capturing Landscape and Diversity (Kingston: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2006), 161. 17 Clifford Ford, Canada’s Music: An Historical Survey, (Agincourt: GLC Publishers Limited, 1982), 60. 18 Ibid. 19 Timothy McGee, The Music of Canada, (Markham: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1985), 64. 20 Gaylee Magee, "“She’s a Dear Old Lady”: English Canadian Popular Songs from World War One," 476.

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Figure 2: Found in Clifford Ford’s, Canada’s Music: An Historical Survey on page 61.

singers famous. Like Muriel Bruce, many of these Ontario composers became renowned for their

musical support of the war effort. The overwhelmingly sentimental and patriotic sheet music was

a “mix of escapism and utility” 21 for families who gathered to sing and play, attendees of charity

events like those held at Massey Hall and gramophone listeners, all united by song.

Similarly hidden from prior historiographical narratives lays the narrative of female

composers and their significant contribution to the founding of Ontario as the center of popular

musical production across Canada. Included in the school of amateur and professional

composers; wives, sisters and daughters wrote wartime popular music for the national cause from

the onset of and after the conclusion of the Great War. The songs composed by the women of

Ontario exemplify John Mullen’s concept of “Do-It-Yourself Propaganda”; the organic popular

expression “not fabricated by some government office, but born from imperial feeling, and

commercial skill, in a patriotic milieu aiming at respectability.”22 Newspaper editorials,

21 Glassford and Shaw, A Sisterhood of Suffering and Service, 176. 22 John Mullen, The Show Must Go On! Popular Songs in Britain During the First World War, (Dorchester: Henry Ling Limited, 2015), 4.

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journalist advertisement, books, movies, songs, classroom lessons and church sermons

throughout the war that helped to cultivate the Dominion’s jingoistic attitudes and its distinctive

brand of propaganda that constantly fed notions of the romanticism of battle. Sacrifice, grit,

honour and other Victorian attitudes were propelled through popular media and dominated

compositions by Anglo-Ontarian women that were designed to increase recruitment and nurture

support for the war. The works featured in this study were not promoted or specifically

encouraged by the home front Militia or government; rather they were born of organic initiative

by women for the home front audience. The contributions of Anglo-Ontarian female composers

attempted to sway opinions of the general public by imbedding propaganda in a fundamental

source of support, music.

Featured in this study is the collection of 87 songs written by Canadian women and

published by Ontario publishing houses or self-published by the composers themselves in the

province of Ontario. The collection is comprised of exclusively Anglo songs gathered from

Library and Archives Canada, the British Archives’ online database, University of

Saskatchewan’s Archives and the Faculty of Music Sheet Music Collection at the University of

Toronto. Unfortunately, due to copyright laws and the incremental process of digitization, I had

access to only 41 scores, therefore making this an incomplete collection of popular wartime

music by female composers in Ontario during the Great War. Even so, I believed this endeavour

too noteworthy to delay and found that even this partial collection represented a plethora of

examples of scores and cover art. The histography of domestic popular music during the war has

suffered from the spread of inaccurate information: historian Jeffrey Keshen in his 1996

contribution to the field, Propaganda and Censorship During Canada’s Great War, only

recognized 300 pieces published in Canada from 1914-1918.23 Due to the improbability of this

figure when compared with the quantity of pieces featured in this analysis alone, there is great

opportunity for further study in this topic. Through the inspection of songs, lyrics and cover art,

23 Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship During Canada’s Great War), 21.

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this study hopes to prove that the female composers of Ontario contributed to the wave of “DoIt-

Yourself” propaganda that swept the Canadian cultural landscape and had a profound influence

on the pro-war culture throughout the War.

Imperialist sentiment underlies practically every song in this collection, while lyrics

asserting the urgency for men, women and children to perform their duty for the British Empire

make up 52% of female Anglo-Ontarians’ music. When the recency of most residents’

immigration from the Motherland is considered, the relationship between Britain and its colony

was understandably solid. Although tainted with leading questions that resulted in

AnglophoneFrancophone disputes, the 1911 census claimed that approximately 54%, of

Canadians were British.24 Catherine Clark’s The Allies are going to Win (1916) (figure 2)

explains the close proximity the Dominion was with the Motherland in the lyrics in Figure 2. The

British stronghold over the population, was invigorated through the “Anglicized colonial nuclear

family.”26 Musicologist Gaylee Magee outlines the familial order as, “consisting of British

motherland, Canadian nation/daughter, and strapping, valiant son/soldiers.”27 The depiction of

Mother England in songs established the cultivation of this imagery in Ontario to strengthen

support for the remote European war.

24 Gaylee Magee, "“She’s a Dear Old Lady”: English Canadian Popular Songs from World War One," 477. 26 Ibid., 488. 27 Ibid., 488.

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Figure 3: Catherine Clark’s The Allies are going to Win (1916), lyricist Laura Lewin was published in 1916 by Hawkes & Harris Music Co in Toronto. Accessed through Library and Archives Canada's online database.

The propaganda songs that encouraged recruitment among Canadian men included in this

collection overwhelmingly stressed duty, honour and patriotism. As sustaining recruitment was

the defining task of Ontario’s women, it’s prevalence in song is representative. At the start of the

war, Marie Tasse’s The Call to Arms (1915) and Ada Beard’s Follow us Along (1915)

contributed to the growing popularity of recruitment songs. Isabel Rutter’s King George’s Men

(1915) directed its attention to men’s recruitment by emphasizing the nations connection to

Empire. The chorus rings out:

Oh, we’re off to fight for our country/ We march to the bugle’s call/ With a thundering cheer for the world to hear/ We are Britons one and all. Oh, we dare to do, and we dare to die/ We lads of the hill and glen/ “God save the King” is the song we sing/ We are all King George’s Men. Oh, we’re Men.25

Sung in first person by the solider himself, the chorus expounds the seamless thematic

connection between being a man and the responsibility of enlistment. The last line, “Oh, we’re

Men,” provides a three-word synopsis into the attitudes endorsed by this song and overarching

societal norms during the war years. Featured in the title of the song as well as the chorus, the

representation of Britain and the intention to strengthen the relationship between Mother country

and colony was featured to promote enlistment for the geographically remote war.

As the war progressed and the necessity for recruits grew, namely during the recruitment

crisis of 1915, women of Ontario published more recruitment songs. For example, in 1916 The

Canadian Soldiers Recruiting Marching Song by Martha Cawley, Don’t You Hear the Call

Laddie? By Alice S. L. May and Were Going There by Helena McDougall contributed to the

genre’s growth that paralleled the declining enlistment figures that subsequently resulted in

25 Isabel Rutter, "King George’s Men," Toronto: Whaley, Rice & Co, 1915.

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Canadian conscription the following year. Charlotte Bonnycastle’s The Recruit (1916) (figure. 3)

comments specifically on the strain in recruitment by this point in the war in her lyrics, “Filling

the gaps of those dear chaps/ The first to face the fight/ Mid shot and shell the bravest fell/ For

Liberty, Home, and Right.”26 The recruitment crisis alluded to in Bonnycastle lyrics and seen in

the explosion of recruitment songs at this point in the war grounds these women in their time.

They were writing about contemporary issues and aimed to inspire both potential young soldiers

and their families to support the war they believed to be vital through these compositions. The

incorporations of contemporary issues in the lyrics regarding one’s duty to enlist would have

been an advantageous strategy to continue to be current and increase the effectiveness of the

propaganda.

26 Charlotte Bonnycastle, "The Recruit.," Campbellford: Mrs. R. H Bonnycastle, 1916.

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Figure 4: Charlotte Bonnycastle, The Recruit, self-published under the name Mrs. R. H Bonnycastle in 1916 in Campbellford, ON. Accessed on Library and Archives Canada's online database.

The songs also target Ontario’s women themselves. Since allowing the men in their lives to

enlist was one of the foremost responsibilities of women on the home front, it held a significant

place in the recruitment songs written by women. Sung in Isabel Rutter’s first verse, the lyrics,

“Hurrah! For the sweethearts left behind/ Hurrah for the hearts of Gold,”27 were aimed at the

sweethearts of the soldiers in uniform. The lyrics celebrated women who had a partner overseas

in the hope of convincing other women to make the same sacrifice. The third verse of Mrs. Jean

Mulloy’s Johnnie Canuck’s the Boy (1915) is another example that spoke solely about the

sweethearts of those in uniform:

Blue eyed, brown eyed, twenty/ Makes you count the hours. And she’s staunch and steady/ Makes you be a man/ She’ll be waiting ready/ To take you heart and hand.28

This verse made reference to the societal understanding that a boy was not a man until he had

proven himself in battle, and only then was he mature enough to marry. This Victorian

understanding being revered as the country descends into war is possibly due to its recurrence in

wartime and its potential fuel for increasing recruitment.

In addition to sweethearts, recruitment songs also featured, the sacrifice of mothers,

which was seen as the greatest testament to a woman’s loyalty to the war effort, and thus granted

them a higher station in the recruitment songs. Mothers Only Boy (1917) by Margaret A. Creyke

begins a touching story of a mother and son who, “… has grown to manhood, pure and true, his

mother’s pride and joy.”32 His enlistment is followed with lyrics professing his bravery and

courage ending with the refrain repeating, “Mother’s only boy/ He’s now gone up to the battle

27 Isabel Rutter, "King George’s Men," Toronto: Whaley, Rice & Co, 1915. 28 Mrs. Jean Mulloy, "Johnnie Canuck’s the Boy," Toronto: Mrs. Jean Mulloy, 1915. 32 Margaret A. Creyke, "Mother’s Only Boy," Toronto: Musgrave Boys, 1917.

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field/ to save but not destroy/ Mothers only boy…”29 Creyke’s lyrical story and the repetition of

“Mother’s only boy” would have had a sentimental effect on listeners in Ontario. Other mothers

experiencing a similar fate would have related to Creyke’s message of humanity present in the

song. However, the underlying message is that a mother’s love is an inexcusable reason for

preventing or lamenting the enlistment of one’s son since even the “Mother’s only boy” made the

honourable decision to enlist in the war effort.

29 Ibid.

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Figure 5: Elizabeth Roworth, Grit, Published in 1917 by the Musgrave Bros in their offices in Toronto and Winnipeg. Accessed through the Library and Archives Canada.

The depiction of the family, particularly the response of the daughter to their father’s

departure was the ultimate tool exercised to entice women to encourage their men to enlist.

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Lyrics and cover art centered on the innocence of children were symbols of the future generation

and represented what was at stake in the Great War.30 In Elizabeth Roworth’s cover art for her

song Grit (1917) (figure 5) she featured two little boys in khaki uniforms symbolizing the

innocence of children, the depth of their sacrifice and the underlying reason for the fight: to

preserve the Canadian future. The most influential composer of this thematic genre was Mrs.

Jean Mulloy, wife of a Canadian Boer War veteran, who composed Nursing Daddy's Men and

Knitting Socks for Daddy's Men in 1915.31 Highlighted in the naïve style of a child’s thoughts,

these two songs expressed a persuasive example of the quick maturity of a soldier’s daughter to

understand firstly, the patriotic pride of her father’s decision to enlist and the child’s own

increased sense of responsibility and contribution as a part of a society in total war. In Nursing

Daddy's Men (figure 7), Mulloy crafts a story of a young girl re-enacting the role of a Canadian

Army Medical Corp (CAMC) nurse, the highest form of duty a girl could provide to the Empire,

by caring for her dolls as wounded soldiers.

Softly, softly, gently, I’ll try to soothe their pain/ I’ll try to make them well and strong/ So they’ll come home again;32

The intended influence of this composition was not to affect the peers of the protagonist of the

story, but rather the wives and mothers who had allowed their husbands to go to battle and who

therefore had to cultivate their child’s support of a war they could not comprehend. The song

sheds light on the oft-overlooked plight of children on the home front who had to negotiate the

loss of family members on a temporary or even permanent basis and the mothers who were faced

with an unprecedented level of responsibility as sole provider and caregiver in addition to that

which accompanied their expanded social status in the workforce and public sphere.

30 Susan R. Fisher, Boys and Girls in No Man’s Land (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2011), 10. 31 Magee, "“She’s a Dear Old Lady”: English Canadian Popular Songs from World War One," 489. 32 Mrs. Jean Mulloy, "Nursing Daddy’s Men," Kingston, ON: Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers Association 1915.

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Furthermore, the naïve innocence of the young girl in the lyrics contributed to the frequently

stressed idea that the future of children was worthy of the sacrifices made overseas.33

Figure 6: Mrs. Jean Mulloy, Nursing Daddy's Men, published in 1915 by Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers Association in Kingston, ON. Accessed through Library and Archives Canada's online database.

The Khaki uniforms first introduced during the Boer War and subsequently reinstated in

the Great War were a major theme in the compositions of Ontario women.34 The uniforms

represented the shared military culture of Britain and its colonies that was in the process of being

modernized for the twentieth century.39 The historian Jane Tynan explained, “The concept of

33 Fisher, Boys and Girls in No Man’s Land, 10. 34 The khaki uniforms can be observed in Charlotte Bonnycastle’s The Recruit cover art in Figure 4. 39 Magee, "“She’s a Dear Old Lady”: English Canadian Popular Songs from World War One," 485. 40 Ibid., 485.

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modernity is key to making sense of the changes in the relationship between war and society,

changes that are reflected in the move from military spectacle to uniforms made not only for

utility but also for mobilizing the mass production of army clothing.”40 Not only was the khaki a

sign of the modernization of the Empire’s military, it was a major propaganda symbol aimed to

increase recruitment and represent the unified British military. In song, soldiers were often

referred to as “Khaki Lads” or “men in khaki” which had the effect of synonymizing the

individual soldier with their khaki uniform, and thus the empire. The self-published song’s What

the Khaki Lads can do for Dear Old England (1917) and Hurrah! For the Lads in Khaki (1917)

by Alice Surl are both testaments to all that “khaki” was designed to represent. In the former tune

Surl exclaimed that responding to the call of service and the khaki lads marching against “a

tyrant foe” was the responsibility of every British subject. Although she never overtly mentioned

Canada, the fond opening reference to “Old England” localized this composition for a colonial

audience and was, therefore, an example of the Khaki as a vehicle for the unification of military

culture. In the latter song, “khaki” was featured in every line celebrating the brave young men in

uniform. Mentioned in many recruitment songs, such as Charlotte Bonnycastle’s The Recruit,

Muriel Bruce’s Knitting and Kitchener’s Question and Isabel Rutter’s King George’s Men

“khaki” was used to highlighting the bravery and patriotism of young enlistee’s and encourage

others to aspire to the same. Alice Surl’s songs are just one of many examples of the

unambiguously positive image of the khaki uniform on Canadian recruits that were produced to

sway popular sentiment in favour of the Great War.

In Canadian cities far removed from the conflict, recruitment was not only aimed at men;

military language like enlistment was used towards women as they signed up to support the

War.35 Songs by Ontario women targeted like-minded female listeners and urged them to enlist

for volunteer work, in new occupations and to take on responsibilities considered dutiful under

wartime conditions. Although women throughout Canada undertook a vast range of tasks

35 Pat Staton, It Was Their War Too: Canadian Women In World War I (Toronto: Green Dragon Press, 2006), 17.

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previously monopolized by the male workforce, song’s written by Ontario’s women in regard to

fulfilling a civilian’s wartime obligations were limited to the domestically associated job of

knitting. The fixation with the knitting mother, daughter and even son became a persistent

symbol of the engaged home front.36 Muriel E. Bruce’s, Knitting (1915) became such a hit

during the War that the publisher, Empire, Music and Travel Club, boasted, “The melody song

that the world is singing,”43 when included in a list of the season’s greatest successes. The cover

art (figure 7) displayed a young woman knitting while fashionably dressed and was intended to

be relatable to the workforce of volunteer knitters in cities and towns across Ontario. Dedicated

to the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE), a group of women leading fundraising

and war efforts at home, this quick march outlined the duality of duty in the time of crisis and

focused primarily on knitting as the mothers, sisters, daughters and sweetheart’s contribution to

the war effort. The second page of music (figure 5) highlighted the inner conflict pertaining to

women whose loved ones had enlisted in the lyrics, “Knitting with a smile/ Knitting with a

sigh,”44 and offered a solution in the form of knitting comforts for soldiers overseas.

36 Sarah Glassford and Amy Shaw, A Sisterhood of Suffering and Service (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012), 12. 43 Muriel E. Bruce, "Knitting," Toronto: Empire Music & Travel Club, 1915. 44 Ibid.

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Figure 7: Muriel E. Bruce, Knitting, published in 1916 by Empire Music & Travel Club in Toronto. Accessed on Library and Archives Canada's online database.

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Figure 8: Muriel E. Bruce, Knitting, published in 1916 by Empire Music & Travel Club in Toronto. Accessed on Library and Archives Canada's online database.

Themes of women’s contributions as well as their toil with war are presented as well in

Muriel Farrell’s Here’s to the Boys of the 1-6-0 (1916) and Florence Ballentyne’s The Call we

Must Obey (1916) where she wrote,

Women are working and planning all day/ And oft’ into the night/ While knitting and stitching for lads far away/

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They sigh but keep bright/37

Sarah Glassford and Amy Shaw, historians on the impact of The Great War on women in

Canada, stress the greater widespread impact of propaganda like Bruce’s Knitting as uniting the

familiar domestic activity to the overseas objective.46 The link between ordinary women who

knit by their hearths and the soldiers and specifically their own loved ones in combat both

serving to advance the war effort, “…had the potential to transform their views of themselves

and the humble tasks they undertook,” 38 and displayed the power of the images presented in the

media.

Besides reinforcing enlistment, musical propaganda contributed to the developing general

encouragement of the war. Encouraging Anti-German sentiment throughout the war was one of

the propaganda themes consistent throughout the war. Beginning in 1914, songs and recruitment

posters villainized the nation and recounted atrocities committed by the “Huns” to legitimize

Germany as the Empire’s moral antithesis. References to Germany in the songs of Ontario

women fell into one of two categories; the promotion of anti-German sentiment through the

exposure of atrocities attributed to them and their triumphant defeat in the name of justice. The

third verse of Corinne M. Shaw’s song, Down with the Prussian Tyrant (1917), recapitulates the

Belgian invasion and the genesis behind the Allies’ declaration of war: “Shame! Shame! You

Teuton cowards/ who murder the undefended/ You’ll get your punishment swift/ From Allied

ranks extended.”39 By labelling the Germans as tyrants on the offensive, the Allies obtained the

contrary position as the defenders of moral law and therefore legitimized the conflict and turned

enlistment into an act of the courageously ethical citizen. Another image frequently called upon

in song to villainize the Germans is the allusion to “Little Belgium” as helpless and in need of

saving. Sadie Edwards’ To Arms! Canadian Boys (1916), reminds Canadians of the suffering of

Belgium at the hands of the Germans, “Shall Belgium’s call for rescue/ Unheeded still a rise?

37 Florence Ballantyne, "The Call We Must Obey," Toronto: Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers, 1916. 46 Glassford and Shaw, A Sisterhood of Suffering and Service, 12. 38 Ibid. 39 Corinne M Shaw, "Down with the Prussian Tyrant," Toronto: Corinne M. Shaw, 1917.

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Can we forget the wrecking of their homes, their mothers’ cries? No!”40 Overall, the inclusion of

references to Germany was integral in defining the two sides of the war and created the essential

evil enemy. An example of how the Germans were pitted as the national enemy was frankly

incorporated in the chorus of Catherine Clark’s The Allies are going to win (1916): “The

Germans and Austrians started the fight/ but we’ll show them what’s right from wrong.”41 This

excerpt blatantly labeled the enemy as morally corrupt and contributed to the contemporary

propaganda subgenre of anti-German sentiment within the larger effort of mobilization.

The majority of German references contain the tone of jingoistic cheer at the downfall of

the enemy. Elizabeth Tennant Andrews’ Tommy Call your Dog Off and say Goodbye (1915),

Mrs. Jean Mulloy’s Johnnie Canuck’s the Boy (1915), Corinne M. Shaw’s, Down with the

Prussian Tyrant (1917) and Ada Beard Follow us Along (1915) all referred to Germany, and

specifically Berlin, as the jewel of Allied victory and the location where the forces of

righteousness would “… level their pride to the dust.”42 Grace Thomas Wallace Are we beat?

No Sir! (1916) intended to cultivate pride and courage in the confidence of the troops on the

home front by writing,

They know the German soldier will be huffed/ When they find how very nicely they’ve been bluffed/ And the Kaisers stately knees will feel week and ill at ease/ When he hears our boys all shout: Hurrah! Lord Kitchener’s there/ Cheer boys Kitchener’s square.43 Finaly, Charlotte Bonnycastle’s The Recruit (1916) sung of the noble sacrifice of local soldiers and the hope of the ruin of their enemies: “Men of the North, the South, the West/

Eagerly forth they go/ To follow the Hun til’ he’s undone/ or die for Ontario.”44

Gayle Magee, a Canadian musicologist, states, “the Great War has been portrayal as a

defining moment in Canada’s emergence from its British colonial past to an independent and

unified nation on the world stage.”45 Music of the period, specifically Ontario’s female

40 Sadie Edwards, "To Arms! Canadian Boys," Cataraqui, ON: Sadie Edwards, 1916. 41 Catherine Clark, "The Allies Are Going to Win," lyrics by Laura Lewin. Toronto: Hawkes & Harris Music Co, 1916. 42 Florence Ballantyne, "The Call We Must Obey," Toronto: Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers, 1916. 43 Grace Thomas Wallance, "Are We Beat? No Sir!" Toronto: Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers Association 1916. 44 Charlotte Bonnycastle, "The Recruit.," Campbellford: Mrs. R. H Bonnycastle, 1916. 45 Magee, "“She’s a Dear Old Lady”: English Canadian Popular Songs from World War One," 474. 55 Josie A Smale, "Canada, the Land of the Brave," Toronto: Musgrave Bros, 1916.

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composers undoubtedly helped this nationalism emerge and reflected the greater change in

domestic attitudes. The Maple Leaf Forever, the unofficial anthem of the dominion at the time,

was filled with lyrics proclaiming the new Canadian nationalism, extolling its virtues as the

“…land of the brave”.55 Such music supported the national propaganda movement that sought to

define Canada and promote the country to an integral role in the British Empire. Documented in

the 1911 census, a growing number of citizens now insisted on being recorded as ‘Canadian’ in

response to the question of origin, another indication of the emergence of a national

consciousness.46 When war began, the flood of new patriotic songs converged with the existing

effort to create an Anglophone Canadian national identity to contribute to the cultivation of

popular reaction to total war. Irene Humble’s We’re from Canada (1915) contains the chorus

lines:

We’re from Canada/ We’re from Canada/ A land beyond compare/ Where the sun shines bright and the stars at night/ Look down on our fields so fair/ On to victory, on to victory/ We will help to fight the foe/ And the Maple Leaf is our Emblem dear/ As marching on we go.47

Pauline Hahn Oh! Canadians! Oh! (1917), Mrs. Jean Mulloy Johnnie Cancusk’s the Boy (1915),

Josie A. Smale’s Canada, the land of the brave (1916) all examples of courageous language and

exclamation of a readiness to define Canadian soldiers and, more generally, the nation itself.

The foremost icon in the construction of a Canadian identity was the Maple Leaf, which was

included in many songs by Anglo-Ontarian women, such as Humble’s We’re From Canada

(1915), and soon became synonymous with the Dominion. Composer Muriel E. Bruce and

lyricist Margaret E. Harrison’s Choosing our Emblem (The Maple Leaf) (1916) ingeniously

crafted a story of two beavers (who represented Johnnie Canuck, the nickname for Canadian

46 Magee, "“She’s a Dear Old Lady”: English Canadian Popular Songs from World War One," 477. 47 Humble, Irene. "We’re from Canada." Toronto: Whaley, Rice & Co, 1915.

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soldiers) who decide on the Maple Leaf as the ideal symbol of Canada. The chorus highlights the

meaning of the icon;

Oh, the Maple Leaf, yes, the Maple Leaf, We’ll have non other than the grand old leaf, For our King and Country it stands al-way, For justice and truth may it stand for aye.48

The tie between the Maple Leaf and the nationalization campaign by the Dominion’s citizens is

interdependent and many examples of songs referring to the Maple Leaf are present in this study,

including Alta Lind Cook Boys from Canada (Patriotic song) (1915) and Isabel Rutter King

George’s Men (1915). This genre of propaganda aimed to cultivate a unified national image

under the banner of the Maple Leaf as a new icon that symbolized the essential components of

Canadian identity.

The image of triumphal marching bands, spontaneous outbursts of 'Rule Britannia' and

'God Save the King', crowds of eager young enlistees and women mobilized into wartime service

groups provide a snapshot into Anglo-Toronto’s immediate reaction to Britain’s declaration of

war in August 1914.49 As the War progressed news of the unprecedented horrors, specifically

concerning the Second Battle of Ypres, reached home, civilians were confronted with the

exceptional expenditure of human life and the terrible conditions overseas. Met with this reality,

society began to promote the Victorian ideal of outward emotional resilience, a quality

commonly referred to as having a “stiff upper lip.”50 Songs composed by women of Ontario

exhibited this connection between the carnage reported in newspapers and letters and the

composed expression necessary in public life on the home front. Verse one and two of Annie J.

Barrie’s We’ve All Got Someone At The Front (1915) (Figure 9) is the definitive example of the

resolute stiff upper lip attitude that was expected of a population told to toughen up. Similar to

Barrie’s composition, Mulloy’s Nursing Daddy’s Men (1915) extended this view to the voice of

48 Muriel E. Bruce, “Choosing Our Emblem (the Maple Leaf)," Toronto: Empire Music & Travel Club, 1916. 49 Miller and Maclean, Our Glory and Our Grief: Toronto and the Great War, 16. 50 Ibid., 126.

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a child. As the child in the lyrics was taking care of a particularly sick doll she says, “God takes

away the fear/ And then I see her eyes are closed/ I know it’s wrong to cry/ But that is how our

soldiers sleep/ With none to say “Good-bye.”51 This attitude of stiff resoluteness and chilling

unemotionality served as a survival tactic to counter the distress of the war and was integral to

songs that sung of its suffering and pain.

Figure 9: Annie J Barrie, We've all got someone on the Front (Patriotic Song), published in 1915 by Whaley, Rice & Co in their publishing houses in both Toronto and Winnipeg. Accessed on Library and Archives Canada's online database.

The train station was the setting for a display of the true testament to a woman’s iron will.

51 Mrs. Jean Mulloy, "Nursing Daddy’s Men," Kingston, ON: Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers Association 1915.

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A newspaper report stated that, “The scenes at the train station were women’s Second Ypres.”52

Society demanded that women who made the sacrifice of their enlisted men “not impose their

concerns and fears upon the men leaving to fight the Empire’s battles,”53 especially at the

sendoff. Ian Miller indicated that the scene at the train station, “was a British fare-well,”64 once

again connecting their behaviour to the ideals of the Motherland that forbade shows of emotion.

In Sadie Edwards’ To Arms! Canadian Boys (1916), she gave voice this scene in the second

verse, saying, “The fare-well to our loved ones/ Requires an iron will/ Yet many of our boys

have gone/ But more are needed still.”54 The calculative order that Edwards used in her lyrics

reflected the cyclical pattern of warfare on the home front by this point in the war: the necessity

of the “iron will” followed by a subtle undertone of the immense casualties finally succumbs to

the desperate need of recruits. Her lyrics offer the reader a window into public sentiment in 1916

that dealt with the pain of grief and longing through outward composure and lack of emotional

commonly linked with Victorian sentiment.

The lyrics of Anglo-Ontarian women’s popular songs illuminate the publicly cultivated

pro-war propaganda effort that bombarded Canadians for the duration of the Great War.

Primarily focused on encouraging the spirit of volunteerism until the conscription crisis 1917, the

lyricists targeted every faction of society that exerted influence over prospective enlistees: the

men themselves, their wives/ sweethearts, mothers, and even children, in order to entice recruits

and cultivate support for the cause within the family unit. The composers aimed to garner

popular support for the overseas war by promoting a synthesized message created to appeal to

the masses that included various combinations of several key themes. Namely, the increased

opportunities for women on the home front, the symbol of the khaki uniforms that represented

the unified British military force, the villainization of the central European enemies, the

burgeoning concept of Canadian nationalism and an outward irreverence towards the mounting

52 Miller and Maclean, Our Glory and Our Grief: Toronto and the Great War, 127. 53 Ibid., 126. 64 Ibid., 126. 54 Sadie Edwards, "To Arms! Canadian Boys," Cataraqui, ON: Sadie Edwards, 1916.

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casualty rates and suffering experienced by the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Despite their

formal objective and severe tone, one must remember that they were also composed for the

simple joy and pleasure of those listening for entertainment. Therefore, the songs were written

and listened as both a propaganda vehicle and an escape: to contribute to the war effort and

influence the listener as well as to make them feel involved in the overseas war while they

enjoyed listening to light-hearted music during an extremely stressful time. This relationship

between utility and escape provides historians with a meaningful window into the experience on

the home front during total war. When discussing the music and its uses for historians, I am

reminded of this simple quote, “Somehow these songs have a timeless quality, an ability to

capture the sadness and poignancy of the War of 1914-1918, the loss of lives and the unique

nature of the experience.”55 The Canadian music of the Great War, especially by those left at

home, should be valued for its ability to unbox this “timeless quality” and historiographically

respected as a meaningful resource for this purpose. The musical contributions by everyday

women during these distressing times gives hold not only to a glimpse into wartime society as a

whole, but also exposes the disregarded musical legacy of Canadian women and their

contributions that were instrumental in maintaining moral within a despairing society.

55 Canada and the Great War 1914-1918: A Nation Born. Vol. 3, Ottawa: Veterans Affairs Canada.

29

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———. "Knitting." Toronto: Empire Music & Travel Club, 1915.

———. "Choosing Our Emblem (the Maple Leaf)." Toronto: Empire Music & Travel Club, 1916.

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———. "Johnnie Canuck’s the Boy." Toronto: Mrs. Jean Mulloy, 1915.

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