Women and the Orange Order: Female Activism, Diaspora and Empire in the British World, 1850–1940 makes a significant contribution to the literature related to the Orange Order, gender studies, and diaspora studies. Examining the case of the women's Orange associations in England, Scotland, and Canada, it illuminates women's activism and identity within the British Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book explores the role that female members of the Orange Order played in the migration process and how Orange diasporic networks were facilitated by letters and return visits by Orangewomen who had emigrated from England or Scotland to other parts of the empire and by visits from Orangewomen from other parts of the empire to Scotland, Ireland, and England. These “diasporic connections” (10) were also established through the pages of the Belfast Weekly News, the weekly edition of the Belfast News-Letter that was available across the empire. Employing case studies of the women's Orange organizations in England, Scotland, and Canada, D. A. H. MacPherson reveals the ways in which Orangewomen used the associational culture of the Orange Order to create “diasporic connections” across the British Empire.

The book is structured chronologically, with a chapter dedicated to each of the three cases. It begins with the founding of women's Orange lodges in England in the 1850s. This chapter focuses on the role of Orangewomen in England in establishing a particular Orange Protestant identity. The next chapter explores the women's Orange associations in Scotland, which were established in the early 1900s, and their engagement with local and Scottish politics. This chapter also examines the ways in which Orangewomen in Scotland provided emotional and financial support to members who emigrated from Scotland to other parts of the empire as well as the United States. In the last chapter, the women's Orange lodges in Canada are assessed with particular emphasis on the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. These chapters are connected chronologically in terms of the development of the women's Orange associations, as well as through the themes of religiosity, the development and evolution of Orange and British imperial identity, the diasporic nature of the Orange Order, and Orangewomen's political activism locally and nationally.

Drawing on an array of diverse primary source materials, MacPherson argues convincingly that Orangewomen were actively involved in the public life not only of their local communities but also the larger communities of the nation—England, Scotland, and Canada—and the empire (204). Through their work on behalf of Orangewomen's associations in England, Scotland, and Canada, “women subverted the ‘tea and buns’ stereotype” (204) of their role within the Orange Order that many Orangemen held. MacPherson demonstrates that Orangewomen were the most significant fundraisers within the Orange Order, particularly in Scotland and Canada. These women also took on charitable causes, such as raising funds for hospitals and orphanages, caring for and educating children, and providing emotional, financial, and material support to soldiers during the war, as well as to the widows and children of Orangemen. Moreover, Orangewomen were also active in the broader political realm. They organized and petitioned politicians about Home Rule during the Ulster crisis; canvassed on behalf of Unionist politicians during elections; promoted a particular popular Protestant identity in England; stood for election to Education Authorities in Scotland to oppose what they perceived to be the dangerous influence of the Catholic Church in the Scottish education system; and contested the possible removal of the Union flag as the flag of Canada, as well as increased public funding for the Catholic-run education system in Canada. It was through such work that Orangewomen performed a particular version of femininity—nurturing others—while playing an important public role in the life of their communities. This involved an identity politics that associated Scotland and Canada with Britishness, the British Empire, loyalty to the British Crown, and Protestant religiosity.

MacPherson posits that “Orangewomen's sense of diasporic homeland was overlapping, combining their more proximate attachment ‘back home’ with an overarching connection to an Irish Protestant identity” (9). This “diasporic consciousness” was connected to multiple locations and experienced not only in the lodge room but also through “the migration process, return visits, letters home, and the pages of a weekly Belfast newspaper” (9–10), lasting well into the twentieth century. The concept of the British Empire provided the “ideological thread” that connected Orangewomen around the world. Orangewomen used the Belfast Weekly News to communicate with others from other parts of the British Empire. Orange identity became more complex during the interwar period; the fear that Home Rule would be granted to Ireland meant that many Protestants in England, Scotland, and Canada increasingly identified more directly with an Ulster, rather than an Irish, identity.

One of the challenges of this study, which MacPherson notes, is that there is, in some cases, a relatively small data sample related to these Orangewomen. A fair amount of the analysis related to the emergence of the women's Orange associations in England focuses on men's impetus for the founding of women's Orange lodges, rather than the impetus of the women themselves. This potentially raises questions about just how much agency these women had within the Orange Order in England.

This book makes an important contribution to studies of the Orange Order, gender, and diaspora, highlighting the ways in which Orangewomen were active agents in constructing an Orange and diasporic identity and in local, national, and imperial politics of England, Scotland, and Canada. McPherson's findings regarding the ways in which Orange women contributed to the Orange communities in England, Scotland, and Canada—through charity work, fundraising, administration of electoral registers, lobbying politicians about issues of local and national importance, war work, as well as providing material and emotional support to soldiers and members of the Orange Order—illustrate the breadth of work in which Orange women were involved. Such findings echo those of Diane Urquhart (and my own) related to the work women undertook through the Ulster Unionist movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. While there is a significant literature related to the Orange Order itself, little has been written about the women's Orange lodges. Moreover, it adds to the literature related to the history of England, Scotland, and Canada, as well as the field of gender history, through its focus on the role of a particular group of women and their role within local, regional, or national politics related to local and national issues, and its findings that corroborate the conclusions of earlier studies related to the gendered nature of particular roles and work during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and Canada.