Themed Book Review on Gender and Conservatism

Women and the Orange Order: Female Activism, Diaspora and Empire in the British World, 1850–1940 makes a significant contribution to the literature related to the Orange Order, gender studies, and diaspora studies. Examining the case of the women’s Orange associations in England, Scotland, and Canada, it illuminates women’s activism and identity within the British Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book explores the role that female members of the Orange Order played in the migration process and how Orange diasporic networks were facilitated by letters and return visits by Orangewomen who had emigrated from England or Scotland to other parts of the empire and by visits from Orangewomen from other parts of the empire to Scotland, Ireland, and England. These “diasporic connections” (10) were also established through the pages of the Belfast Weekly News, the weekly edition of the Belfast News-Letter that was available across the empire. Employing case studies of the women’s Orange organizations in England, Scotland, and Canada, D. A. H. MacPherson reveals the ways in which Orangewomen used the associational culture of the Orange Order to create “diasporic connections” across the British Empire.