Emilie Lapointe, Centretown News
Sandra O’Quinn shows off donated handmade knitwear from across Canada, part of a challenge to see how close Canadians can come to the donation output during the world wars.Calling all knitters – the Canadian War Museum has a challenge for you.
From now until Jan. 31, the museum will be accepting hand-knit items such as scarves, hats and socks, with the aim of filling an authentic supply wagon from the First World War.
The museum is currently hosting an exhibit entitled World War Women, which showcases the many ways in which women contributed to and were affected by the First and Second world wars.
On the home front, women knit items such as socks, mitts and balaclavas that were essential in keeping soldiers warm as they fought overseas.
During the Second World War, the Canadian Red Cross estimates that 750,000 volunteers knit 50 million items for the troops.
The wagon, along with the donations, will be displayed outside the exhibition during the challenge.
Sandra O’Quinn, the museum’s learning specialist, says the response to the challenge has been “really enthusiastic.”
“We sent it out . . . and the reaction has been fantastic,” she says. “I’ve gotten more phone calls and emails in the past couple of days from people wanting to know more, how they can donate, where they can send it.”
Adds O’Quinn: “People really appreciate the link we’re making … highlighting the efforts of women during wartime.”
“It’s important to highlight the roles played by women during the world wars because without knowing just how they contributed, and just how their lives were changed as a result, we can’t know the whole story of the war’s impact on Canada and Canadians,” says Stacey Barker, a historian at the museum who curated the exhibit.
Since issuing the challenge on Nov. 20, donations have already started pouring into the museum.
One of them, O’Quinn says, was accompanied by “a really lovely letter written from the person, who told us about her family connections to war and it’s really been heartwarming.”
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It’s hard to pinpoint the exact number of women who contributed to the war effort, says Barker.
“But it’s fair to say that almost everyone’s lives were impacted, because the world wars were ‘total wars’ in the sense that all of society was pulled into the effort somehow, and everyone was called upon to contribute in some way,” she says.
Once the challenge is over, the knitted items will be given to Ottawa’s municipal chapter of Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, a national women’s charitable organization.
IODE will then distribute the items to a variety of local organizations, such as the Ottawa Mission.
According to Gwyneth Harkin, president of Ottawa’s IODE chapter and archivist for IODE Canada, IODE was one of the biggest and widest reaching women’s service organization during both world wars.
“IODE contributed approximately $12 million to Canada during the two world wars combined,” Harkin says.
During the First World War, this included donating items such as ambulances and wheeled stretchers, as well as equipment needed to furnish military hospitals and wards.
“IODE constantly fundraised during the two wars, dinner-dances, productions, musical concerts, tag sales (and) war stamp folder sales all contributed to that grand total,” Harkin says.
In addition to their fundraising duties, Harkin says that IODE members – of which there were an estimated 30,000 during the Second World War – needed to produce and donate at least one knitted item every month during the wars.
Based on these numbers, IODE members contributed more than two million knitted items during the 1939-45 conflict.
While the museum is not expecting to come close to the wartime output, O’Quinn says she is looking forward to seeing more donations come in.
“I’m excited to see things come in one by one in my mailbox,” she says. “I think it’s going to be really fun to watch the numbers grow, and it’s going to be really interesting to count up the items at the end and compare that to the output that we know from wartime.”