United Church of Canada Archives
This photograph was collected for the exhibit, “But Women Did Come”: 150 Years of Chinese Women in North America. The exhibit premiered at the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library in 1987, and brought together two complementary shows, one on Chinese American Women and the other on the history of Chinese women in Canada. The photographs in But Women Did Come document the lives of Chinese women in North America from the pioneer days (beginning in the 1830s) to the 1980s.
Included in this database are photographs from Chinese Canadian family albums and Canadian archival institutions. The online version of the Canadian exhibit is available at: http://www.mhso.ca/ggp/Exhibits/Chinese_Women/.
In 1886, The Women's Missionary Society (WMS) of the Methodist Church established a 'Chinese Girls Rescue Home' for prostitutes and domestics who had run away. In 1909. the name was changed to 'Oriental Home and School'. The Home provided Chinese and Japanese girls with an education and supported orphans and widows. It also provided English, Chinese and Japanese lessons, music lessons, church services, and was the gathering place for the Women's Misisonary Society, the Canadian Girls in Training, and a kindergarten.
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