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The Women in STEM Oral History Project, a joint initiative between the University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections (ARCS), the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), and the Canadian Institute of Women in Engineering and Sciences (CIWES), was conducted over the course of the Fall 2023 semester. Marina Bokovay (head of ARCS) supervised the project, and Meghan Tibbits-Lamirande (ARCS storyteller-in-residence) served as the primary interviewer and project coordinator. Ten interviews with women of significance to the history of Canadian Women in STEM were conducted. Two out of ten interviews were conducted by Marie Noel (ARCS Archivist) in French. Each interview was recorded, either in-person or via Zoom, using the RODE Audio Interface in the Learning Crossroads building at the University of Ottawa.

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Le projet d'histoire orale des femmes dans les STIM, une initiative conjointe entre les Archives et collections spéciales de l'Université d'Ottawa (ARCS), la Commission canadienne de sûreté nucléaire (CCSN) et l'Institut canadien des femmes en génie et en sciences (CIWES), a été mené au cours du semestre d'automne 2023. Marina Bokovay (responsable de l'ARCS) a supervisé le projet, et moi (Meghan Tibbits-Lamirande, boursière en résidence de l'ARCS), j'ai servi d'intervieweuse principale et de coordinatrice du projet. Dans le temps imparti, nous avons pu programmer et enregistrer des entretiens avec dix femmes importantes pour l'histoire des femmes canadiennes dans les STIM. Deux des dix entretiens ont été menés en français par Marie Noel (archiviste de l'ARCS). Chaque entretien a été enregistré, soit en personne, soit via Zoom, à l'aide de l'interface audio RODE dans le bâtiment Learning Crossroads de l'Université d'Ottawa.

Blodwen Piercy was involved in the earliest days of the reproductive rights movement in Canada. After obtaining a PhD in physics and giving birth to three children, Piercy's pro-choice activism began in the 1960s when she worked with the Humanist Association of Canada while Dr. Henry Morgentaler served as its president. Piercy also worked with the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL) since its formation in 1974, when it was called the Canadian Association for Repeal of the Abortion Law. CARAL was created to protest Dr. Morgentaler’s incarceration, when he was jailed for providing women in Quebec with safe abortions in defiance of the federal Criminal Code. CARAL continued to support Morgentaler’s various legal challenges until the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s abortion law as unconstitutional in 1988; following this victory, they fought to keep abortion legal and lobbied against numerous attempts to recriminalize the procedure.

During her time with CARAL, Piercy served as a national board member and representative for the Ottawa chapter. She frequently spoke and gave presentations on abortion in Ottawa public schools and spent many years with the organization answering continual requests for information and pamphlets from students, MPs, and the media. She was also involved in the Ottawa MP lobby project as a lobbyist and an organizer of lobbying teams for each appointment. Piercy would personally follow up on these meetings to liaise with MPs and provide them with data from Statistics Canada. Moreover, she helped to research, write, update, and edit several CARAL pamphlets, thus becoming an indispensable source of information on issues surrounding reproductive justice, including abortion, contraception, teen pregnancy, and the morning after pill. She paid special attention to the ways that abortion was presented in the media, and penned numerous “letters to the editor” when she felt that coverage was biased or unfair. As such, Piercy was an indispensable voice in the struggle for reproductive justice, and she remained committed to the organization until it ceased operations in the early 2000s. In addition to her involvement with CARAL and the Humanist Association of Canada, Piercy also worked on issues related to education, violence against women, and disarmament, and helped with the campaign to honour Dr. Morgentaler with the Order of Canada.
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Blodwen Piercy a participé aux premiers jours du mouvement pour les droits reproductifs au Canada. Son militantisme en faveur du choix a commencé en 1969, lorsqu'elle a travaillé avec l'Association humaniste du Canada, alors que le Dr Henry Morgentaler en était le président. Mme Piercy a également travaillé avec la Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL) depuis sa création en 1974, à l'époque où elle s'appelait Canadian Association for Repeal of the Abortion Law (Association canadienne pour l'abrogation de la loi sur l'avortement). La CARAL a été créée pour protester contre l'incarcération du Dr Morgentaler, qui avait été emprisonné pour avoir fourni aux femmes du Québec des avortements sûrs, au mépris du code pénal fédéral. CARAL a continué à soutenir les différentes actions en justice de Morgentaler jusqu'à ce que la Cour suprême déclare inconstitutionnelle la loi canadienne sur l'avortement en 1988. Après cette victoire, CARAL s'est battue pour que l'avortement reste légal et a fait pression contre de nombreuses tentatives de recriminalisation de la procédure.

Pendant son séjour à CARAL, Piercy a été membre du conseil d'administration national et représentante de la section d'Ottawa. Elle a fréquemment pris la parole et fait des présentations sur l'avortement dans les écoles publiques d'Ottawa et a passé de nombreuses années au sein de l'organisation à répondre aux demandes continuelles d'informations et de brochures de la part des étudiants, des députés et des médias. Elle a également participé au projet de lobbying des députés d'Ottawa en tant que lobbyiste et organisatrice des équipes de lobbying pour chaque rendez-vous. Piercy assurait personnellement le suivi de ces réunions pour assurer la liaison avec les députés et leur fournir des données de Statistique Canada. En outre, elle a participé à la recherche, à la rédaction, à la mise à jour et à l'édition de plusieurs brochures de CARAL, devenant ainsi une source d'information indispensable sur les questions relatives à la justice en matière de procréation. Elle accordait une attention particulière à la manière dont l'avortement était présenté dans les médias et rédigeait de nombreuses "lettres au rédacteur en chef" lorsqu'elle estimait que la couverture était biaisée ou injuste. En tant que telle, Piercy était une voix indispensable dans la lutte pour la justice reproductive, et elle est restée engagée dans l'organisation jusqu'à ce qu'elle cesse ses activités au début des années 2000. Outre son engagement auprès de CARAL et de l'Association humaniste du Canada, Mme Piercy a également travaillé sur des questions liées à l'éducation, à la violence contre les femmes et au désarmement, et a participé à la campagne visant à honorer le Dr Morgentaler en lui décernant l'Ordre du Canada.

Bernard-Paul Robert est né le 27 février 1925 à Saint-Aubin (France). Il est le fils de Charles Robert, un négociant, et de Juliette Mariet. Il fait des études classiques à l’École Saint-Bernard à Flavigny-sur Ozerain (France) et au Collège Notre-Dame-de-Mont-Roland à Avignon (France). Parallèlement à ses études, il occupe les postes de répétiteur et de maître d’internat aux collèges Notre-Dame-de-Mont-Roland et St-Joseph à Avignon. De 1949 à 1950, Bernard-Paul Robert complète un baccalauréat en Lettres classiques et philosophie à la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Dijon, Bourgogne (France). Pendant deux ans, il est employé à la Société général Banque-Meulan jusqu’à son départ pour le Canada en 1952.

Lorsqu’il arrive à Montréal (Québec) en 1952, Bernard-Paul Robert obtient un poste d’enseignant à temps-partiel au Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf pendant qu’il complète une maîtrise et un doctorat en Lettres à l’Université de Montréal. À la fin de ses études en 1957, Bernard-Paul Robert déménage à Ottawa (Ontario) où il devient professeur à la Faculté des arts de l’Université d’Ottawa, poste qu’il occupe jusqu’en 1961. Cette année-là, il s’installe à Montréal où il enseignera à la Faculté des lettres pendant an. En 1962, il devient professeur au Département de français de l’Université de Sherbrooke dont il est nommé directeur en 1963. L’année suivante, il obtient un rang de professeur agrégé en français à l’Université d’Ottawa avant de devenir professeur titulaire en 1968, poste qu’il occupera le reste de sa carrière.

En plus de son travail académique, Bernard-Paul Robert a rédigé des articles dans de nombreuses publications dont le quotidien franco-ontarien Le Droit, La revue de l’Université d’Ottawa et La revue de l’Université de Sherbrooke. Il a également publié plusieurs ouvrages sur le symbolisme, sur Charles Baudelaire et sur le surréalisme dont Baudelaire et les forces psychiques, Le surréalisme désocculté : Manifeste du surréalisme et Henriette Charasson et Paul Claudel, résultat d’une thèse de doctorat mené parallèlement à son travail d’enseignant et soutenue à la Sorbonne. Bernard-Paul Robert est également l’auteur un recueil de poésie Petits poèmes en mauve.

Bernard-Paul Robert est décédé à Ottawa le 1er juin 1979. Il avait épousé Hélène Brulé avec qui il avait eu deux filles : Catherine et Françoise.

From daughter, Caroline Bieler Brettell:

“ Zoë Winifred Browne-Clayton, the daughter of Lionel Denis Browne-Clayton (1874-1946) and Winifred Constance Bell (1880-1938), was born in Okanagan Mission, a small orcharding community near Kelowna, BC, in 1915. Shortly after her birth, her father enlisted with the British military in the First World War, and Zoe and her mother crossed the Atlantic to live with her grandparents in her mother's home in Oxfordshire, England. In 1917, her brother Robert was born, and in December 1919 the family returned to Okanagan Mission. There, they established an orchard on the 20 acres Lionel had purchased in 1912. According to her biographer daughter, Caroline Brettell, Zoe and her brother enjoyed a relatively idyllic upbringing in the peaceful Okanagan Valley, which she wrote about in The Montreal Star (11 July 1973). Zoe attended high school in Kelowna, graduating in 1932, and was one of the few students to continue on to university, mostly at the urging of her mother. In the autumn of 1932, Zoe entered the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, where she immediately became involved in the university student newspaper, The Ubyssey.
Zoe's journalistic dreams were solidified by her success at The Ubyssey. Shortly after joining the paper in 1932, she was an editor: in the 1933-34 school year she became assistant editor; in 1934-35 senior editor; in 1935-36 news manager; and in her final year, 1936-37, editor-in-chief. In 1934, she interviewed Aimee Semple-McPherson for the paper; her probing questions were predictive of her future as a journalist of intelligence and integrity.
Zoe earned her BSc in agricultural economics in 1936, delaying her graduation for a year to earn her BA and to serve as editor-in-chief for The Ubyssey. After graduation she returned to the Okanagan Mission to help take care of her mother, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. After her mother died in June 1938, Zoe travelled to Europe, where she experienced first-hand the rising political tensions that led to the Second World War. Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939; on 15 September 1939, at the urging of her relatives, Zoe sailed for Canada, arriving safely in Okanagan Mission in late September. Unable to find a position as a journalist, Zoe found work as an advertising copywriter for the Hudson's Bay Company in Vancouver, BC. In the summer of 1941, she moved to Toronto where she worked as an advertising copywriter for Eaton's department store for three months. She then secured a position with the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, and moved to Ottawa, ON, where she met Jacques Bieler, an engineer working for the Department of Munitions and Supply. A year later, the couple were married by Jacques's clergyman father, in Lost River, QC.
In 1943, Jacques's job took them to Montreal, where Zoe was hired by the Montreal Standard. Women's roles in journalism were somewhat curtailed after the war, but Zoe managed to carve a space for herself, working alongside journalists such as Mavis Gallant and Dorothy Sangster. In 1949, Zoe and Jacques adopted a baby boy—Brian Charles—who was joined the following June by their biological daughter, Zoe Caroline. Zoe then turned to freelance writing. In 1954, both children began pre-school, leaving Zoe free to accept a position as a full-time feature reporter at the Montreal Star.
By 1957, Zoe's dedication and journalistic ability were recognized when she became editor of the women's pages for the Montreal Star; no woman had previously held this post. For many years it was her section of the newspaper that generated the most advertising revenue. Zoe remained in this position for eleven years; in 1969, though, the hierarchy at the Star changed, and the work atmosphere along with it. Zoe's interest in science enabled her to take a job as medical reporter at an advantageous historical moment—the national health insurance plan was being developed at that time—and during this period she saw some of her stories make the front pages of the paper and win several awards. Her feminism informed her insightful investigations into significant social issues such as child abuse, alcoholism, abortion, birth control and infertility, drug addiction, and the role of women in the army and the business world.
Like her father, Zoe was active in socialist politics. In the early 1970s, she was a member of the negotiating committee for the Newspaper Guild, and later elected to the executive. The Guild was involved in the negotiations during strike action in 1975 that was resolved after two months. Strike action by the Montreal Newspaper Printing Pressmen's Union in 1978, however, shut down the Star for eight months, and it never recovered. The company folded in August 1979, and Zoe, like many others, was without a job. At 64 years of age, after over 25 years of service, her severance package amounted to a decent retirement fund. She retired, but did not stop writing, working as a freelance writer for the Canadian Medical Association Journal; in 1980, as well, she was commissioned by Positive Action to prepare a report on English-language education in Quebec. At 66, she was offered the job of editor of the People section of the Montreal Gazette. She found The Gazette chaotic and the job frustrating. She retired and ceased freelance writing by the mid-1980s. In 1988, she was diagnosed with cancer; she died in September of 1991.”

Zoe's husband was the youngest brother of Québec muralist, Andre Bieler.
When she moved to Montreal, after marrying, she worked with the [Montreal] Standard: one of her colleagues was Mavis Gallant.

News clippings that were in articles are from offices of the Montreal Star, which she rescued.