1960s

A postcard showing Woodward’s department store building. Text at the bottom of the postcard reads “C. Woodward Ltd. Department Store, Edmonton, Alberta.”

My Grandma Going Out into the World: Working at Woodward’s

Harma-Mae Smit

Facing boredom, depression, and loneliness, 1960s stay-at-home mother Harma Smit decided to get a job.

In 1967, when Harma found a job at Edmonton’s Woodward’s department store, it was just becoming more common for married women to seek work outside the home.

In this addition to ECAMP’s labour series, Harma-Mae Smit recounts her grandmother’s experience in the retail workforce. Relying on family reflections, Smit discusses community reactions to her grandmother’s decision to work, her positive experience as an employee at Woodward’s for nearly two decades, and the material and mental benefits that the added income had for her grandmother and the rest of the family.

Four people posing for a photo on the side of a two lane paved bridge on a sunny day, with heavily forested mountains behind them.

Bridging Alberta: Dilip Dasmohapatra’s YEG Origin Story

Soni Dasmohapatra

Lots of parents tell their kids stories on family road trips around Alberta, but Soni Dasmohapatra’s dad tells stories about the bridges he built along the way. In this addition to ECAMP’s labour history series, Soni celebrates Dilip Dasmohapatra’s career as a civil engineer and community organizer.

Four women sit at workstations in an office setting entering data on key punch machines. One worker, bent forward, appears to be resting with her head in her hand.

Alberta’s Government, the Mainframe Computer, and Women’s Work

Cathy Roy

In the 1960s, Bill Rogers convinced the Alberta government to invest both computers and the training needed for their workers to program these machines, launching a data revolution. Women dominated these data entry roles under strict, often discriminatory conditions. Despite long hours and limited advancement, they powered early digital governance, pioneering computer use in western Canada and forging lasting professional bonds.

A photograph of Robert Goulet in a suit with slicked-back hair speaking to Laura Lindsay, who is elegantly dressed in front of a fireplace.

Laura Lindsay, First Lady of Daytime TV in Alberta from 1955-68

Katherine Koller

When Sunwapta Broadcasting first produced local television in Edmonton in 1954, CFRN aimed daytime programs at the homemaker audience. Laura Banks was the popular face of this programming from 1955-1968, under the stage name Laura Lindsay. Decades after her death, she remains well-loved by women who tuned in for her sewing and cooking demonstrations and celebrity interviews.

Waltzing With the Angels: The Metis Ironworkers Who Built Edmonton’s Downtown

Alvin Finkel

The people who did the most dangerous jobs constructing the skyscrapers in downtown Edmonton in the 1960s and 1970s were almost all Metis ironworkers. That included the CN Tower.