THEN AND NOW

The first Women's Institute was started in Ontario in1897.  Mrs. Alma Jane Porter from Andover, New Brunswick organized the first Women's Institute in New Brunswick in 1911.

The Women's Institute was organized to meet the needs of rural women and to allow them to discuss the problems in their community and possible solutions.  In the early days women did not have the vote.  They were not "persons" and they often had to speak with one voice to be heard.

The NBWI's membership still includes mostly rural women, but we are rural women with a difference.  While most NBWI members are still homemakers, many are also working and professional women.  We continue to be much concerned about and involved with life in our communities, but we have more opportunity individually and collectively to bring about change locally, in our province and in our country.