In 1980, I traveled - hitchhiking with my girlfriend - for a year through North America. We had bought a one-way ticket from Brussels to Boston and travelled on from there on spec. In just under four months we travelled from coast to coast and in July of that year we arrived in Vancouver. I still remember standing there on the beach of the Pacific Ocean and having this intense feeling of having reached the edge of the world. After a few days we took the ferry from Vancouver to Vancouver Island, an idyllic Pacific island off the coast of British Columbia, the westernmost province of Canada. The provincial capital Victoria is also located there.
In Victoria we met Gwen Cash. We saw an advertisement in the newspaper, looking for a "companion for woman writer". From the YMCA where we were staying, we called the number in the advertisement. We got no answer, but after a few hours of trying, a young woman, Kathy, finally answered. She explained that it was for an old lady of 90, who was in the hospital. She would be allowed to go home if she had company at home for 24 hours a day. We could come straight away for an introductory meeting.
Canada's first female reporter
We walk the long way along the Gorge Road to the Gorge Hospital. The old woman is sleeping and the nurse wakes her up. Her name is Gwen Cash and soon someone points out to us that she is the "first female reporter in Canada". That is not entirely true, because there have been female journalists for much longer, even in the 19th century, but she is said to be the first "general reporter" who did not only write for a women's section or specifically female subjects. The claim is the subtitle of her book, which was published in 1977 but which I only discovered today (23 May 2025): "Off the record: the personal reminiscences of Canada's first woman reporter".
Gwen Cash wanted to go home, but that was only allowed if she had permanent company. She tried to arrange that herself. My girlfriend and I had a long talk with her. She was very interested in us. I remember her specifically asking me if I had any objection to helping an old lady in the bath. No, I didn't, but I did feel a little anxious about that responsibility. After consulting with her son Jack and her friends Liz and Gladwell, we all agreed that my girlfriend and I would take care of her in her house for a month.
It wouldn't work out
The next morning we walk to the hospital again. There we are met with disappointment. Or maybe it is a bit of a relief. "It wouldn't work out", we are told. The doctor does not agree and we would not fit in her apartment together, the plan is canceled. In the meantime, an older and experienced lady has been found who can take care of her. Unfortunately, we missed a unique opportunity to get to know her better. We traveled further along the rural coastal area of Vancouver Island, where new adventures awaited us.
Today I thought of her. I didn't really know anything about her and couldn't even remember her name. I went online to look for the "first female reporter of Canada", but that took me much further back in history. I found quite a few Canadian female journalists from the past, but not the woman we met. But when I found her name in our diary entries and with the quick help of Google's Gemini, I quickly found her.
This is her story (edited by me based on a search report from Gemini).
Gwen Cash - a Canadian journalistic pioneer
Gwen Cash was born Gwen Goldsmid in 1891 and she died in 1983, three years after we met her at the age of 90. She was indeed an important figure in Canadian journalism, I read. Her career, which spanned several decades, was marked by an independent spirit and pioneering work as a "general reporter" in the early 20th century.
Gwen was the daughter of Howard J. Goldsmid, an author and leader of the left-wing Young Liberal Party in England. She trained as a teacher at Stockwell Teachers Training College in London and emigrated to Canada with her mother during the First World War, joining her brother Gervas, who had settled in British Columbia in 1912.
In Vancouver she soon found that she could not continue teaching without additional training at the teacher training college, and she did not want to do so. She began writing freelance articles for local newspapers about war-torn England. Teaching was a respected profession for women, journalism was not, but it offered flexible access for educated women, as there were no strict qualification requirements. As a journalist she quickly became successful because of her innate talent and undoubtedly her father's literary background.
Gwen Cash began her journalism career on March 23, 1917, as a junior reporter for Walter Cameron Nichol, the influential owner and publisher of the Vancouver Daily Province. Her appointment was conditional on her learning to type. She began writing about the war in Europe, but expanded her reporting to a wide range of subjects, including celebrity profiles and travelogues.
In addition to her work for the Vancouver Daily Province, she also wrote for the Prince George Citizen, Victoria Times-Colonist, About Town, Canadian Home Journal, Maclean's Mayfair, Panorama, Post Intelligencer, Vancouver News Advertiser, Vancouver World and The Victorian.
In addition to her journalistic work, she also served as head of public relations for the prestigious Empress Hotel in Victoria and published a number of books: I Like British Columbia (1938), Turkeys Have Charming Faces (c. 1939), A Million Miles from Ottawa (1942) and her memoir Off the Record: The Personal Reminiscences of Canada's First Woman Reporter (1977).
She was independent and critical. Her critical view of British Columbia in her book A Million Miles from Ottawa cost her her job at the Empress Hotel and, as a socialist, she was also a strong critic of the social-democratic New Democratic Party.
The claim in the subtitle of her memoir that she was Canada's first female reporter - which we were also told during our interview with her in the hospital - is dubious. ABC Book World states: "She was not Canada's first female reporter, but she did have a remarkable career as an independent journalist for the province". She could be described as "Canada's first female general reporter". Early female journalists were often confined to specialized women's pages, focusing on domestic, fashion and society news. These were often referred to as the "lace-collar ghetto". The claim in her memoir to be the "first" therefore applies primarily to her personal experience as a pioneer in this broad role in the newsroom.
>>> More Pioneering female Canadian journalists
Sources:
Gwen Cash | Database of Canadian Early Women Writers, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://doceww.dhil.lib.sfu.ca/person/779
Cash Gwen - ABC BookWorld, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://abcbookworld.com/writer/cash-gwen/
Gwen Cash Archives | Eve Lazarus, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://evelazarus.com/tag/gwen-cash/#:~:text=Gwen%20Cash%20(1891%E2%80%931983)&text=When%20Gwen%20Cash%20went%20to,in%20Victoria%20in%20January%201935.
Gwen Cash | CWRC/CSEC - Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://cwrc.ca/islandora/object/ceww%3Aff0059c7-d435-4544-bea1-27f72417f340
Meet the Queens of the Gilded Age Who Pioneered Women's Journalism in Canada, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://www.sandstoneam.com/blog/meet-the-queens-of-the-gilded-age-who-pioneered-womens-journalism-in-canada
Women who made the news : female journalists in Canada, 1880-1945 - TCS Education System Libraries, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://search.tcsedsystem.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991000287381106756&context=L&vid=01TCSEDSYSTEM_INST:TCSPP&lang=en&search_scope=TCSPP_and_CI&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything_tcspp&query=sub%2Cexact%2C%20Journalists%20&offset=0
Female Journalists in Canada, 1880-1945, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/article/download/185218/184579/192179
Women who made the news : female journalists in Canada, 1880-1945 - TCS Education System Libraries, geopend op mei 23, 2025, http://search.tcsedsystem.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991000287381106756&context=L&vid=01TCSEDSYSTEM_INST:TCSPP&lang=en&search_scope=TCSPP_and_CI&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything_tcspp&query=sub%2Cexact%2C%20Journalists%20&offset=0
Women Who Made the News: Female Journalists in Canada, 1880-1945: 9780773518384: Lang, Marjory - Amazon.com, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://www.amazon.com/Women-Who-Made-News-Journalists/dp/077351838X
Women Who Made the News: Female Journalists in Canada, 1880-1945 9780773567740, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://dokumen.pub/women-who-made-the-news-female-journalists-in-canada-1880-1945-9780773567740.html
Twenty Pioneering Newspaperwomen in Canada | The Canadian Encyclopedia, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/twenty-pioneering-newspaperwomen-in-canada
Helen Gregory MacGill | The Canadian Encyclopedia, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/helen-gregory-macgill
Famous Canadian Women's Historic Timeline - 1850-1899, geopend op mei 23, 2025, http://www.famouscanadianwomen.com/timeline/1850-1899.htm
Victoria Hayward (journalist) - Wikipedia, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Hayward_(journalist)
City Research Online, geopend op mei 23, 2025, https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/4648/1/we%20agreed%20revised%20JS%20article.pdf
The Woman Journalist of the 1920s and 1930s in Fiction and in Autobiography - Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, geopend op mei 23, 2025, http://ijpc.uscannenberg.org/uploads/files/Donna%20Born%20-%20Woman%20Journalist%20of%201920s%20and%201930s.pdf
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