Français

Help us take action to advance social justice and equality for all women.

Donate

Muriel Duckworth

Muriel Duckworth, née Muriel Helena Ball, was born October 31, 1908, to Anna Westover and Ezra Ball in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. 

From 1925 until her graduation in 1929, Muriel attended Royal Victoria College at McGill University, where she graduated with a high school teaching diploma and a Bachelor of Arts degree. During this period, Muriel joined the Student Christian Movement (SCM) through which she met Jack Duckworth, who she later married in 1929. That same year, she enrolled at the Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York.  Muriel’s time as UTS introduced her to the concept of the Social Gospel, specifically that “Christianity required a passionate commitment to social justice”. 

Following her time at UTS, she returned to Montreal where she joined the League for Social Reconstruction, a precursor to the New Democratic Party (NDP).  Between 1933 and 1938, Muriel gave birth to three children, Martin, Eleanor, and John. Even while raising three young children during the Depression, Muriel was committed to community service, founding three Home and School Associations to support parents in shaping the curriculum of their children. In keeping with the lessons she learned at UTS, Muriel was also an outspoken pacifist during World War Two, a position she maintained even after the death of her brother, who was killed in an air raid returning from Germany.  

In 1947, the Duckworths relocated to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The following year, Muriel took a position as a part-time parent education advisor for the Nova Scotia Department of Education, eventually becoming a full-time secretary in 1962. All the while, she continued to delve deeper into social justice work, becoming a  founding member of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Halifax Branch (1950); the Canadian Conference on Education (1958); the Nova Scotia Education Association (1959); and Voice of Women (VOW) in 1960, where she eventually became President in 1967. 

Through her work at VOW, Muriel acted as the organization’s delegate to the United Nations International Conference on Women for Peace in 1967 and the United Nations International Women’s Year Tribune in 1975.  In 1971, she also became a founding member of the Movement for Citizens’ Voice and Action (MOVE), a coalition of citizens who were committed to regional development in Halifax and Dartmouth.  

Given her considerable experience as a local leader and organizer, in 1974 she joined the provincial race as the NDP representative for Halifax-Cornwallis, becoming the first woman in Halifax to run in a provincial election. While she placed third in the polls, she successfully increased the party’s share of the vote in the riding by 11% .

Through her experience as community leader, pacifist and feminist, Muriel understood “that for the status of women to improve and for women’s views to be valued, research by and for women was essential.” For this reason, in 1976, she became a founding member of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW-ICREF). Initially she was uncertain of the role that she might play in an organization “begun primarily by academic women.” After attending the organization’s inaugural conference, however, Muriel understood that CRIAW-ICREF’s objective was to act as “a bridge between academic researchers and community activists”.  She was eventually elected as the representative for Nova Scotia on the organization’s first board of directors, as well as treasurer. She continued on the board until 1981, serving as president from 1979 to 1980. 

As the representative for Nova Scotia, Muriel influenced the character of the regional network. In its first year, 500 members joined CRIAW-ICREF, including 50 women from Nova Scotia. As the organization sought funding, as treasurer, she was pivotal in sharing information with her local cohort, encouraging members to secure alternate sources of funding. 

She also helped foster CRIAW-ICREF’s participatory action research model, encouraging female academics to share their research with the greater community in informal meetings, including homes and community spaces. Through her leadership, the Nova Scotia network also funded and hosted provincial conferences that often mirrored the themes of the organization’s national conference, but were more accessible to those who could not attend the national conferences due to travel and financial cost. Notably, in 1978, the network developed and produced “a thirteen-part television series which presented a wide cross-section of Nova Scotia women, specifically about those whose lives were seldom profiled.” Muriel played an integral role, conducting interviews and managing the logistics for the telecasts”.

 As president of CRIAW in 1980, Muriel was an outspoken critic of the government, critiquing the lack of funding for feminist scholarship and reiterating a call for peace in response to various global conflicts. At the fifth annual general meeting and conference of CRIAW-ICREF at Dalhousie University in 1981, “Muriel was honoured by the inauguration of the Muriel Duckworth Award, to be presented annually to a feminist woman who had contributed significantly to the advancement of women within Canada through action-research in the field of social justice, including peace.” In recognition of her dedication, Muriel became an honorary member of CRIAW-ICREF in 1983, the same year in which she became a Companion to the Order of Canada.  

As a feminist and a pacifist, Muriel continued to fight for peace, education, security, and the rights of marginalized peoples until her death in 2009.

References 

Ball, Christine. 1988. “Muriel Duckworth, Peace Worker: An Interview”. Canadian Woman  Studies Les Cahiers De La Femme 9 (1). https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/view/11848.  

Kerans, Marion D. 1996. Muriel Duckworth, a Very Active Pacifist: A Biography. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood. 

“Muriel Duckworth.” 2014. In The Nova Scotia Nine: Remarkable Women, Then and Now, 39-45. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Advisory Council on the Status of Women. https://women.novascotia.ca/publications-resources/nova-scotia-nine. 

“Muriel Duckworth honoured.” 1993. Pandora 7, no. 4 (July) :10.  https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/periodical/pandora-07-04-july-1993

“Subversive leadership honoured.” 1986. Pandora 1, no. 4 (June): 2.  https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/periodical/pandora-01-04-summer-1986

Tastsoglou, Evangelia, and Welton, Marie. 2003. “Building a Culture of Peace: An Interview With Muriel Duckworth and Betty Peterson”. Canadian Woman Studies Les Cahiers De La Femme 22 (2). https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/view/6497.