The Associated Country Women of the World

Photo by Alan L Brown - June 28, 2004

Plaque Location

The County of Simcoe
The Town of Collingwood
On the SE corner of St. Paul Street and Huron Street (Highway 26)

Plaque Text

A non-political international women's organization, the Associated Country Women of the World was formed largely through the efforts of Margaret Watt, a Collingwood native. Mrs. Watt was a member of the Women's Institute, a Canadian association dedicated to the concerns of rural women, and she introduced that organization to Great Britain during World War 1 to help and work to counteract food shortages. With the expansion of the Women's Institute movement to Commonwealth and European countries after the war, Mrs. Watt began to advocate the establishment of an international alliance. Finally in 1933, in Stockholm, Sweden, rural women's organizations including the Women's Institute, united to form the Associated Country Women of the World. Mrs. Watt, by then a Member of the British Empire, was elected the body's first president.