Offers an intriguing glimpse into the daily life of an average Toronto woman in the mid-nineteenth century.

Mary Armstrong's diaries are a window into the daily life of a middle-class woman in a new and changing land, and a revealing account of life in early Toronto just before and after confederation. Her journals are one of very few published by Canadian women, especially women outside the upper classes, in the decades surrounding the mid-nineteenth century.

Mary Armstrong was the wife of a butcher / farmer who lived in what is now the Yorkville and Deer Park area of Toronto from the 1830s to the 1880s. She had immigrated with her parents and siblings from England in 1834. Her diaries, which cover five months in 1859 and eight months in 1869, reflect her multiplicity of interests and concerns including family, women's work, faith, status and class, occupation and trade, community networks, and local and national identity.

Jackson W. Armstrong's introduction examines who Mary was, what her world was like, and how she saw her own place in it; it also explains the origin and history of the diaries. His extensive primary research supports the well-annotated diaries, and gives contextual information on the events, people, and places that Mary mentions.

Seven Eggs Today offers new information and a new perspective on mid-Victorian English Canada, and will be welcomed by general readers and scholars interested in colonial life, biography, immigrant experiences, family or local history, or women's studies.

Table of Contents for
Seven Eggs Today: The Diaries of Mary Armstrong, 1859 and 1869 edited by Jackson W. Armstrong

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgements

Editor's Note

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

I. A Canadian's Story

II. A Diarist's World

Illustrations and Family Trees

Diary of Mary Armstrong, 1859

Diary of Mary Armstrong, 1869

List of Individuals

Notes

Bibliography

Index

List of Illustrations

Walworth and Camberwell

Jane Tuesman Wickson

John Wickson

Eliza Chilver Wickson

John Rusby Wickson

Whitefield lithograph, Toronto, Canada West

Wickson business calendar

Yorkville map

Thomas Armstrong business card

Philip Armstrong

Thomas and Fidelia Armstrong

Fidelia and Thomas Norman Armstrong

Sarah Wickson Hamilton, sketch of Paris, Ontario

Wickson painting, Portrait of Arthur Wickson

Paul Giovanni Wickson

Family Trees

Descendants of James and Jane Wickson (abridged)

Descendants of Philip Armstrong (abridged)

Jackson W. Armstrong grew up in Toronto and received his BA from Queen's University. He has also studied at the University of Edinburgh, and he received his MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a lecturer in history at the University of Aberdeen.