In addition to promoting democracy and mental health, the work of school and community-involved mothers was also vital to providing children with the all-important “best” books outside of school, as part of the effort to promote a reading culture. Editions of Canadian Home and School and Food for Thought, as well as articles in popular magazines, are replete with reports of the work of Home and School Associations (also called Parent-Teacher Associations or PTAs) in organizing inter-school book exchanges, lobbying politicians for support for local libraries, fund raising for school libraries, organizing book mobiles to rural families, and so on. This work constituted the main source of support for Canadian libraries in the 1950s. Alethea Johnson of the Canadian Association of Children’s Libraries attested to the benefits of this work for integrating (or some may say for assimilating) new Canadians. She praised the father of a little girl named Mary, who with Mary’s mother, wearing a “shawl worn in old-word style,” introduced her to the world of books at the public library (Johnson, 1950, p. 17). Johnson recommended that, if there was no public library in their town, parents should “inquire of your provincial Department of Education about such services,” pointing out that “Home and School leaders have been responsible for many of the inter-school book exchanges and the regional library co-operation which is growing so rapidly in Canada” (p. 17).

A national project to build the public library system was launched in 1950 and supported by provincial Home and School Associations, who called upon parents to “report on library facilities and to survey regulations on school and community library services in their area, with a view to action” (Canadian Home and School Parent Teacher Federation, 2004, p, 2).¹³ Women’s involvement in this work was not only important to achieving the aims of the public library and public schooling systems, but was also an indication of private and public dimensions of domestic literacy work. Alethea Johnston (1950) connected socially and school-involved parents and “good” reading practices in the home in commenting that, “librarians have observed that the families who find time to read together belong to the busiest parents” (p. 17).

Teachers, parents, and librarians likely regarded the work of establishing public libraries in schools and communities as vital to the promotion of children’s literacy and learning. But for parents this was also unpaid work, carried out in the main by women with children in the school system. Special encouragement to sustain this demanding work was required. Writing in Canadian Home and School, Sister Frances de Sales (1950) reassured parents that: “Perhaps you sometimes say to yourself, ‘my job isn’t important because it’s such a little job!’ But you are wrong. The most obscure person can be very important”(p. 13). And yet some mothers questioned the effectiveness of the “bake sale” approach to parental involvement which diminished the importance and impact of women’s domestic literacy work. A letter from Mrs. Agnes Bell in Liberty magazine was reprinted in the December 1959 edition of Canadian Home and School:

¹³ The Canadian Home and School Federation was renamed the Canadian Home and School Parent Teacher Federation in 2000, four years before they published their official history.