Headers for cached page www.yorku.ca/research/cwen/timlinmf.htm: HTTP/1.0 200 OK Server: Netscape-Enterprise/3.5.1C Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 14:14:05 GMT Content-type: text/html Last-modified: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 00:15:58 GMT Content-length: 10921 Accept-ranges: bytes
Though she may be best known for her book Keynesian Economics (1942), Mabel Timlin's life was rich and her reputation widespread. Seemingly a women of contradictions, she had an interesting and varied life. Hers was not a "malestream" career. Like many other North American women during the 20th century, she accomplished a number of things and worked in different positions before obtaining a university education and making a career change.
I first read about "Timmie", as Dr. Timlin was called by friends, colleagues and students alike, in Zinger and Me (1979), a spoof of academic life by Jack MacLeod. My next encounter with her name occurred in a vastly different context. I was doing research on Canadian women scientists and found that in 1951 a Dr. M.F. Timlin was elected to the very conservative, very male, Royal Society of Canada. She was the first woman social scientist to be so honoured and, from my previous investigations, I knew that this meant that she had to have been an eminent scholar with male supporters in powerful positions (i.e. three fellows of the Royal Society who would recommend her). In post-world-war-two Canada, few women became fellows of the RSC.1
Mabel Frances Timlin, one of four children of Sarah Halloran and Thomas Edward Timlin, was born in Forest Junction, Wisconsin on December 6, 1891. Though the family was poor, Mabel and her siblings were well read. She attended school in Wisconsin Rapids and Port Edwards, Wisconsin, and trained as a teacher, one of the few professions open to women at the time, at the Milwaukee state Normal School from 1910 to 1912. She taught school in Wisconsin for a few years, but even then she planned to "go out west." after her parents' death in 1916, she took the opportunity to leave her old life behind. She answered an advertisement for teachers in rural Saskatchewan and with $25 in her purse, enough to obtain her landed immigrant status, in early 1917 she made a major life course change. Was she convinced that Canada needed more people? With its sparse population in the Prairie provinces and a war going on, there were job opportunities for hard working individuals. Mabel Timlin was one of them and she lived the rest of her long life in Canada.
Mabel Timlin went to Winnipeg, then taught school in Bounty and in Wilkie, Saskatchewan. But teaching in rural schools in Canada was not much different from similar positions in the U.S. She was a "good average teacher...striving earnestly to advance the interest of her pupils."2 From the few letters available from the period, it seems that the poor pay, the dilemma caused by the marriage proposal of a "decent" young man she did "not care for," combined with better opportunities in Saskatoon, and a legacy left by her older brother James (killed at the end of World War One) led to her leaving the countryside. She took a business course at the Saskatoon Business College and, to help support herself, taught English and other subjects in night school, mainly to immigrants. By 1920 she was teaching in the Business College but left this post in the spring of 1921 to become Secretary to Dr. John Rayner, the Director of the Department of Agricultural Extension at the University of Saskatchewan. Apparently, her intention was to obtain a degree while working at the University.3 She remained at that institution, though in a variety of capacities, until her retirement in 1969.
Mabel Timlin completed her first degree while holding a full-time position at the University of Saskatchewan. Though she had long been interested in economics, she was critical both of the university president and, after taking a few courses there, of the fledgling economics/political science department. Because of this, she changed to the English program, though she continued to read widely in economics/political science on her own.4 She graduated with a B.A. Great Distinction in 1929.
During the Depression, professional positions were not available for women who were married, indeed most married women who were employed lost theirs. Mabel Timlin, intelligent, attractive, vivacious and parsimonious, was a career woman. She remained single.
With a new degree, she improved her position though not her income. In 1929 Mabel F. Timlin, B.A., became Secretary "in charge of administration of correspondence course while also serving as reader in economics." In 1935 "she was appointed as instructor in economics."5 Intellectually curious, ambitious, and poorly paid, she was not satisfied with a B.A. In 1932, she enroled in the graduate program at the University of Washington.6 Because she was employed full-time at the University of Saskatchewan, she did most of her graduate work during the summer months, though she spent the winter term of 1934, as well as the academic year 1939-40, at the University of Washington.
While most Canadian economists/political scientists during the 1930s and 40s were heavily influenced by Harold Innis's theories, Mabel Timlin's association with American economists gave her a "more math based and cosmopolitan" perspective.7 She completed her doctoral thesis, "Keynesian Economics - A synthesis" in 1940. Apparently, she had became interested in Keynes' ideas on employment, interest and money, while a graduate student. She was an open-minded person, who "found in the General Theory something which is both intellectually fascinating...and hopeful" for humanity.8 The thesis, published by the University of Toronto Press in 1942 as Keynesian Economics, was well received, though not necessarily understood, by her contemporaries. During the following decade she published several journal articles on the subjects of economic theory and policy.
Mabel Timlin was the only theorist in the small political science/economics department at the University of Saskatchewan. Her colleagues, department head George Britnell and Vernon Fowke, were Saskatchewan born "19th century British liberal type" schalars.9 They constituted a congenial, harmonious triumvirate and, in spite of the differences of their interests and approaches, they worked well and published together.
On the surface, Mabel Timlin's career improved considerably after 1942. With the doctorate in hand and a well-regarded first book on economic theory, her advancement on the academic ladder was unusually swift, particularly for a woman.10 She was appointed Assistant Professor in 1941, Associate Professor in 1946 and full professor in 1950. She retired as professor emeritus in 1959. Her salary was, however, below par at a time when academic salaries were poor and, because of the Depression, those who did not lose their positions had to face salary cuts. She was very much aware of the implications of low pay for women's pensions, and the difficulties of making ends meet as a single woman.11
Mabel Timlin's correspondence with economists such as Harold Innis (1943), George Britnell (1945) , and Burton Keirstead (1948), as well as a long letter she wrote to University of Saskatchewan President J. W. T. Spinks (1961), provide details of the difficult working conditions, low pay and personal anguish about the future she had often faced.12 Her financial reserve was so low after nearly a decade of graduate school and several period of unpaid absence from the University of Saskatchewan that, though she was asked to apply for the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 1943, she deferred her application until 1944. Later she turned down several invitations, including one from Harold Innis, to become a visiting scholar, and refused seemingly attractive job offers from the University of Toronto and other universities. She loved being in Saskatoon, and greatly enjoyed being a member of a small department where, as she wrote to Burton Keirstead in 1948, "my present program...is nearly idea."13
So, in spite of financial hardships, Mabel Timlin remained at a relatively small provincial university where she had found and helped maintain a congenial working environment. There she could have a lively intellectual and social life, discuss her ideas with friends and colleagues, and work on her publications.14 she also provided students with a high standard of instruction. Apparently she did not particularly mento female students but treated all her students the same way. She pushed them to work hard and produce excellent work. She nagged them and worried over them.15 Her students and colleagues were her family and they remained devoted to her throughout her long life. They turned to her for advice, shared their joys with her and celebrated her achievements. there was much to celebrate. Having made her name with Keynesian Economics at age 50, Mabel Timlin received a number of prestigious fellowships and awards. In addition to the Guggenheim Fellowship (1945-46), she was elected to the Royal Society of Canada (1951), served as consultant to the Federal Commission of Prices (1950-51) and to Royal Commission for the Saskatchewan River Development (1952), and became Vice President (1953-55) and President (1959-60) of the Canadian Political Science Association. She was also the first woman elected to the executive committee of the American Economics Association (1957-60). At the time of her retirement, she obtained a Canada Council Special Senior Fellowship of $8,000 plus travel to continue her study of Canadian immigration policy (1959-60). The University of Saskatchewan conferred on her a Honourary Degree of Doctor of Laws in 1969. In 1967 she was awarded Canada's Centennial medal, and in 1976 she was named to the Order of Canada.
Economists may find it hard to understand why Mabel Timlin did not continue her work on Keynesian economics and changed her research instead to the fields of immigration, social policy, and science policy.16 But why should she have restricted her research to the area she explored in her thesis, first book and a number of scholarly papers? I consider the change of research fields as a positive move rather than a failure. It reflected her inquiring mind, scholarly interests and social concerns. An intelligent, warm human being as well as an eminent scholar, she contributed in a variety of ways to her adopted country and humanity.