Edith Rogers (Alberta politician)

Edith Blanche Rogers (née Cox; September 20, 1894 – July 17, 1985) was a Canadian politician who served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1935 until 1940.

She later moved to Calgary where she encountered evangelist William Aberhart and became a convert to his social credit economic theories.

After her defeat, she abandoned Social Credit for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, moved to Edmonton, and served for fifteen years as a school trustee.

The next year she moved to Killam, where she married William Rogers, the local high school principal, October 12, 1923.

Rogers's first foray into politics took place during the 1930 federal election, when she assisted with R. B. Bennett's successful Calgary West campaign.

Upon hearing that Aberhart was beginning to incorporate politics and economics into his weekly gospel radio addresses, she began to listen and soon became a convert to his version of social credit.

[2] In 1932 Rogers convinced Aberhart to hold public meetings on social credit in Calgary; she subsequently organized neighbourhood study groups on the theory.

Brownlee biographer Franklin Foster speculated that the selection of a female candidate to run against the so-called "sober faced seducer" was a deliberate strategic decision by Aberhart.

[9] Despite her loyalty to Aberhart, Rogers became frustrated with his delay in implementing the social credit economic reforms he had promised.

[2] She disapproved of the Social Credit government's move to the right under new premier Ernest Manning, and joined the socialist CCF.

[verification needed] Finkel considers this surprising, in light of her long-time devotion to the ideals of social credit, the role the CCF played in her 1940 election defeat, and his assessment that she "seemed more interested in monetary reform than in the general social critique put forward by the CCF."

She printed and gave a copy of her book History Made in Canada to each member of the first graduating class of that school.