Agnes Maule Machar was a Canadian author, poet, and social reformer. She was an outstanding crusader for the causes of temperance, labor, reform, feminism, and in the defense of Christianity. Besides, Machar was a frequent contributor to periodical publications such as Canadian Monthly and National Review and Week.
Background
Agnes was born January 23, 1837, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Her father, John Machar immigrated to Canada in 1827 and married Margaret Sim (a fellow Scottish immigrant) in Montreal in 1832. The couple established themselves in Kingston, Ontario (then part of Upper Canada), where her father was the pastor of St. Andrew's Church, and second principal of Queen's University (1846-1853). The couple's first child died in infancy.
Education
In a time when girls did not receive formal education, Machar’s father, a Scottish Presbyterian minister, strongly encouraged his daughter’s personal growth. Thus, he took on much of the schooling responsibilities himself. So apart from a brief stint at a boarding school in Montreal, Machar was educated by her father at home.
By the age of ten Machar was studying Latin and Greek, instructed by her father. Soon after she learned French, Greek and Italian.
Career
Agnes's earliest publications were nationalistic poetry and Christian stories geared toward children. She received great praise for much of this early work. Carole Gerson states that “her first novel, Katie Johnstone’s Cross: A Canadian Tale (1870), won a competition sponsored by a Toronto publisher for ‘the book best suited to the needs of the Sunday School library.’ Describing the religious enlightenment of a fourteen-year-old girl, it set the pattern that was to shape most of Machar’s subsequent fiction.”
In response to the French-Canadian dislike of Canada’s British population, Machar herself grew increasingly loyal to her country. She saw the benefits of the British Empire, infusing her nationalistic views into her literary work. Gerson goes on to say, “She later expressed her patriotism in Stories of New France; Being Tales of Adventure and Heroism from the Early History of Canada (1890), a collaboration with Thomas G. Marquis, the first of several books of historical anecdotes intended to imbue young readers with a love of country and Empire.”
During the last decade of the nineteenth century, in addition to her nationalistic writings, Machar also delved into social and economic criticism. Of the four novels she produced during the period, Roland Graeme, Knight: A Novel of Our Time is her most poignant. Gerson states, “Although not set in Canada, Rolande Graeme ... is one of the few pieces of nineteenth-century Canadian fiction to examine some of the social and economic problems arising from industrialization. In this book, as in all her fiction, didacticism overrides artistry and romance overpowers realism.”
Machar was officially connected with the National Council of Women of Canada where she read many of her papers. She died in Kingston in 1927.
Religion
Machar rose to the challenge of defending the Christian faith against the onslaughts of scientific rationalism and higher criticism. She did not insist on unchanging views of creation and the Bible; rather, she asked orthodox Christians and those on the brink of scepticism to accept evolutionary theory and critical readings of the Bible as the means to a new and fuller understanding of God’s work.
Politics
Like many other English Canadians, Machar was a proud nationalist and imperialist.
Views
Throughout her life, Machar criticized numerous social injustices. She was most concerned with poverty, temperance, and the plight of women. According to the Feminist Companion contributor, Machar “... saw the need for workers to organize justice.” Perhaps Machar saw women as the leaders of social reform because they had the most to gain.
Personality
Machar never lived extravagantly, and she appears to have carefully managed her income from writing.