Laura Elizabeth McCullyCanada's Early Women WritersLinnea McNallyDaryn WrightCanada's Early Women WritersCanadian Writing Research CollaboratoryBorn digitalEnglishBorn digitalLife writingBiographyBibliographyLaura Elizabeth McCully (1886-1924)Image from John. W. Garvin, ed., Canadian Poets, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1926).
Laura E. McCully was a suffrage activist and author of two volumes of poetry.
17 March 1886, Toronto7 July 1924, TorontoName at birth: Laura ElizabethMcCullyNote
This author’s life has been researched earlier for inclusion in the
Canada’s Early Women Writers project at Simon Fraser University. Information in this entry therefore may not be comprehensive, but has been verified.
Entry revised by Linnea McNally and Daryn Wright
Laura Elizabeth McCully (1886-1924)
Great-niece of the Honorable Jonathan McCully, a Father of Confederation, Laura McCully dedicated much of her life to extending the rights of self-governance to Canadian women. Her father was a prominent physician in Toronto, Laura's home for most of her short life. As she advanced through the Deer Park Public School and the Jarvis Street Collegiate Institute, her academic brilliance became evident; her literary gifts were also precociously revealed when, at the age of twelve, she won the
Mail and Empire's first prize for a story in the Young People's Corner.
At the University of Toronto, she earned first class BA and MA degrees and won a fellowship to Yale for 1909-10. She returned to Toronto to take up journalism on the
Sunday World and then the Toronto News, and also wrote advertising for the Robert Simpson department store.
In advocating woman suffrage, she did not shrink from the notion of militancy; nor in her patriotic war service did she confine herself to passive support, chosing to enter a munitions factory. During the war, she also studied law at Osgoode Hall in 1916. In the midst of this feverish activity, she became seriously ill and did not recover her health. Her two volumes of poetry won fervent admiration from the Canadian literary establishment and the friendship of fellow poet Marjorie Pickthall.
For a more detailed biography, see her entry in the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography.Published TextsPoetryMary Magdalene and Other Poems (Toronto: Macmillan, 1914)Birds of Dawn and Other Lyrics (Toronto: 1919)Periodical ContributionsHarper's Bazaar (New York)Maclean's (Toronto)Mail and Empire (Toronto)New York HeraldSunday World (Toronto)Toronto NewsVarsity (Toronto)Other PublicationsAnthologized in: Carman, Bliss, and Lorne Pierce, eds. Our Canadian Literature: Representative Verse, English and French. 3rd ed. (Toronto: Ryerson, 1934).Garvin, John W. Canadian Poets, 1st ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1916).Family and RelationshipsFather: Samuel Edward McCully(13 April 1841 – 23 August 1921)
Samuel Edward McCully was born in 1841 in Chatam, ON. A medical doctor, Samuel married Helen Fitzgibbon (1847-1931) in 1875. The couple had several children before they divorced, sometime in the 1890s. Samuel later married a woman named Susan (1870-1941).
Samuel died in 1921.
Mother: Helen Fitzgibbon(24 October 1847 – 22 September 1931)
Helen Fitzgibbon was born in 1847 and married Samuel Edward McCully (1841-1921) in 1875. They had several children together, but were divorced sometime in the 1890s. Helen died in 1931.
SiblingsSamuel Rolph McCully(14 October 1866 – 2 December 1928): m. Lucinda Harriet MalleryMary Bertha McCully(14 August 1877 – 6 July 1906)Kenneth Clare McCully(15 April 1880 – 1 August 1944)Residences
Toronto, ON
Education
Deer Park Public School
Jarvis Street Collegiate Institute
University of Toronto (BA, 1907)
University of Toronto (MA, 1908)
Yale (1909-10)
Awards
1st place for a story and a poem, Young Peoples' Corner (Mail and Empire, 1898)
Employment and Volunteer ActivitiesEmployment
Journalist
Worker in munitions factory
Unpaid and volunteer work
Speaker on women's suffrage
Memberships
Canadian Authors Association
Canadian Society of Authors
Canadian Women's Suffrage Association
Archival HoldingsMcCully family papers, Archives of Ontario, North York, ONPublished ResourcesHelen Fitzgibbon McCully.Find a Grave. Web. 26 April 2017.Laura Elizabeth McCully.Find a Grave. Web. 26 April 2017.Mary Bertha McCully.Find a Grave. Web. 27 April 2017.Sperdakos, Sophia. McCully, Laura Elizabeth.Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Web. 26 April 2017.Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938, 1943-1944, and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947.Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928, 1933-1934.Roberts, Sir Charles George Douglas, and Arthur L. Tunnell, eds. A Standard Dictionary of Canadian Biography: Canadian Who Was Who, 1875-1937 (Toronto: Trans-Canada, 1938).Samuel Edward McCully.Find a Grave. Web. 26 April 2017.Samuel Rolph McCully.Find a Grave. Web. 26 April 2017.Watters, R.E. Checklist of Canadian Literature and Background Materials 1628-1960. 1959 (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1970): 121.