Mary Arnold with co-op builders in Reserve Mines, Nova Scotia

Arnold, a Quaker and an American activist in housing co-operatives, went to study the work being done at St. Francis Xavier University’s Extension Department in 1937. She remained there for two years, living with mining families and assisting in their work on co-operative homebuilding. She taught them how to use modelling to estimate the costs of homebuilding and to adapt the design. Mary Arnold, was also their contractor and saw to it that in 1939 all 11 houses were built.