Kristina R. Llewellyn. Democracy's Angels: The Work of Women Teachers. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2012. 207 pp. Paper $29.95 (original) (raw)

Kristina R. Llewellyn's "Democracy's Angels: The Work of Women Teachers" examines the complex duality women teachers faced in Canada during the post-war period from the 1940s to the 1960s. Through interviews with women educators in Toronto and Vancouver, the book reveals the tension between nurturing femininity and professional authority, highlighting how women navigated their roles within a patriarchal educational system framed as a participatory democracy. Llewellyn discusses the contradictions of being seen as essential workers in education while simultaneously being denied substantial power or recognition, ultimately arguing that women represented democracy's laborers while men maintained managerial roles.