10 amazing Canadian women whose stories you need to know

Women have played a large role in shaping the fabric of Canada, but don’t always get the recognition they deserve. From Doris Anderson, Chatelaine‘s longest serving editor-in-chief who was responsible for getting women’s rights included in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Harriet Brooks, the first woman to earn a Master’s degree from McGill and one of the great, founding minds of the field of nuclear science, here are 10 women you need to know about.

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Canadian women to know

1 / 10 Image, Library and Archives Canada.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823–1893)

Shadd Cary’s life is awash with firsts: The eldest of 13 children, she went on to become the first female newspaperwoman in North America and the first female editor in Canada for her anti-slavery publication, the Provincial Freeman. The firsts continued later in her life, too — she was the only female recruiting officer in the American Civil War and became Howard University’s first female law student, at age 60, no less.

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