Embed or link this publication

Popular Pages

p. 1

the twenties and thirties boom to bust 1920-1939 for most of the 1920 s excitement prosperity and good times ruled there was increased industry and urbanization many people started to have a telephone automobile and radio electricity eased the burdens of everyday life and was becoming more widely used canada became increasingly independent of britain advancements were being made in medicine and technology one major discovery was banting best discovered insulin in 1922 many people no longer had to die from diabetes nor were they dying from pneumonia and the other respiratory conditions as these too could be treated however women still struggled for equal rights and working-class people continued to struggle for money and food most enjoyed prosperity until the stock market crash of 1929 the great depression the great depression began in october 1929.with the new york stock market crash the stocks of many companies plummeted and millions of people found themselves out of work and with no warning some people think the depression was a cause of companies making more products than people could use thousands of companies went bankrupt and had to lay off their workers almost 1/3 of all canadians lost their jobs farming too was changed in this era other countries began producing more grains of their own which affected the farming industry in canada a severe drought carried on

[close]

p. 2

for years in western canada grasshoppers appeared in the millions and ate a lot of the crops farmers who stayed on their farms had to rely on luck and ingenuity if a family couldn t afford fuel for their cars they hooked their farm animals to pull their cars these strange vehicles were known as bennett buggies they were named after the prime minister at the time r.b bennett he also set up camps for homeless men where they could receive three meals a day and a bed to sleep in at night men were required to work for this people had no income and could not pay their bills they had to sell their homes and land single men and women travelled all over the country looking for work the train was the easiest way to do this but many couldn t pay the people would ride the rails in search of work or adventure the great depression bottomed out in 1933 and the world continued to recover throughout the remainder of the 1930 s.

[close]

p. 3

canadian women and work in the 20th century canadian men and women had significantly different work experiences during the first decades of the twentieth century during this time many canadians felt that women should not work for wages at all unless they had to it was assumed that male members of any household would work for wages in order to support their families whereas women were to stay in the home running the household/farm and do what was necessary to keep their families nurtured and together this was unpaid work if women had to work for wages many canadians felt that they should only work at specific jobs before 1900 most women who worked for wages worked as domestics in other people s homes young women frequently worked as live-in-servants often on call 24 hours a day as maids cooks and nannies they had very little freedom and almost no privacy in the first decades of the twentieth century there were few other options for a woman who needed a salary to support either herself or her family many jobs were not open to women because they did not have the same educational backgrounds as men did because women were not allowed to enter the professions law medicine engineering they were also discouraged from attending university their place was in the home however in the first few decades of the twentieth century more canadian women felt they needed to work for wages and more jobs became open to them as more and more factories opened after 1900 women found there were more jobs open to them they found jobs in textile factories in canning and food-processing factories as mail clerks and as telephone operators these jobs were preferred over working as live-in domestics because they could go home to their family at night political concerns of women in early 20th century canada

[close]

p. 4

for many years before the war and after women s main political concerns were prohibition the ban of the sale and consumption of alcohol and getting the right to vote in federal and provincial elections women interested in prohibition often formed groups to pressure the government to change laws concerning alcohol the movement to bring in prohibition was called the temperance movement temperance groups were very popular in canada every major city had a head office and most temperance groups had hundreds of chapters across the country often these groups also had other ideas about how canadian society could be improved for example women in the temperance movement argued for the improvement of hospitals schools and prisons all provinces experimented with prohibition laws however many found that outlawing alcohol did not actually get rid of the problems of alcohol abuse instead prohibition created an underground alcohol market and a steady business for bootleggers and smugglers during the years of prohibition many women recognized that it was not doing all they had hoped to improve canadian society they also found that government officials seemed to ignore all the suggestions for improvement that they presented by the 1900 s many women felt the only way they could get politicians attention was to win the vote to win the vote or gain suffrage the right to vote women used many strategies some held demonstrations and collected names on petitions some women formed societies for political equality others wrote articles for newspapers and letters to magazine editors women won the right to vote provincially in various years first in 1916 in manitoba alberta saskatchewan and b.c then in ontario in 1917 in nova scotia in 1918 new brunswick in 1919 and in pei in 1922 newfoundland was not yet a province women in quebec did not win the right to vote provincially until 1940 some women won the right to vote federally in 1917 the right for all women over the age of 21 to vote federally was won in 1918.

[close]