Gendering corporate welfare practices - Female sports and recreation at Eaton's during the Depression

Historians have done much to uncover and analyse men's sport and men's leis ure. Some scholars have examined women's sports and issues related to contr ol of women's bodies. However, little is known about structured leisure and the role companies played in providing such opportunities for Canadian wom en during the early part of the twentieth century. This research attempts t o help fill that void by examining social forces and business practices tha t affected the leisure activities of female employees of the T. Eaton Compa ny in Toronto (Eaton's). Examining this issue is meaningful because it help s illuminate influences on leisure patterns of working women, an area of Ca nadian history accorded limited consideration. This work is also meaningful as it addresses power from a different perspective. Eaton's, by purposeful ly providing leisure opportunities for its female employees, served to cons truct a leisure culture for those employees. The moral and social reform mo vement prevalent in Canada heavily influenced this undertaking during the l ate nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Findings of this research sho w that Eaton's employed programmes and facilities of the Eaton Girls' Club and Shadow Lake Vacation Camp to expose female employees to 'appropriate' f orms of leisure practices (e.g. modified sports, domestic skills, opera and 'serious' theatre as opposed to vaudeville).