RECAP

1. RECAP • Women forced out of their jobs • Unemployment levels increase • Inflation (rise in prices, drop in buying power) • Spanish flu epidemic kills 50,000 Canadians • Demand for women’s rights increases • Urbanization (more moving to cities)

2. RESULTS? • Strikes • After Russian revolution that began with labour unrest and general strikes (Cause) • Unions were forming (pg. 156 Figure 6-9) • Economic unrest • Cycles of rising wages and prices • Veterans (PTSD (shell shock), no services to support soldiers, disabilities)

3. Winnipeg General Strike • May 1919 • Employers refused to negotiate wages • More and more employees in Winnipeg joined • Within days strikers = 30,000 basically shutting down the city • RCMP brought in • Things get violent, 1 dead, 100 injured • Strikers return to work on June 25 because feared would lose their jobs • Some forced to sign agreements not to join a union

4. CONSEQUENCES OF STRIKE • Many jailed • Some deported • Union membership drops • Unemployment rises • Law made for employers to recognize right of workers to bargain collectively through a union • Began new political involvement for workers • Sparked strike leaders to pursue political positions • J.S. Woodsworth elected to HOC and later helped create what we now know as NDP

5. Problems with Alcohol Consumption • Blamed for social problems • Crime • Public drunkenness, family violence, poverty • Result = temperance movement encouraging people to abstain • Thought was no alcohol = less family problems (historical perspective) • Actually was enacted during War Measures Act in 1918 and continued after war

6. Not everyone wanted prohibition • Illegal trade developed • Criminals became rich selling illegal liquor • 1921 govt repeals prohibition and replaced with govt controlled sales • Prohibition in US continued longer allowing profitable business opportunity for Canadians • “ rum-runners” sold illegal alcohol to Americans • And women played a role as well……

7. Women in 1920s Canada

8. Key Events 1917 – Some women receive right to vote (Suffrage) Had to have a relative (Father, Brother, Husband) who was a soldier 1921 – First election where ALL women could vote, Agnes Macphail elected 1929 – “Person’s Case” 1931 – Cairine Wilson appointed first female Senator in Canada

9. Arguments against giving Women the Right to Vote Politics is too corrupt for women Allowing women to vote will cause arguments in the home Women will vote the same way as their husbands It is not “womanly” to express political opinions Women are too emotional to vote

10. Agnes Macphail • First woman elected to the House of Commons, 1921 • Fought for Senior’s pensions and worker’s rights • Also worked at reforming the corrections system in Canada

11. Fashions • Up until this point, women’s clothing had been very conservative. • Some women (mostly young women) began to rebel against old ideas of how they should behave

12. Wore radical new dresses, which came down to just below their knees. cut their hair in “bobs” or “shingles”.

13. Flappers - The term “flapper” in the 1920s was used to describe bold young women who dressed and acted in an unconventional manner

15. Attitudes • Many of these “flappers” were also challenging gender stereotypes by going to jazz clubs, smoking, and drinking alcohol.

16. Divorce Laws • At the beginning of the 20s, men had the right to divorce if their wives had an affair. • Women, on the other hand, could not divorce their husband no matter how many affairs he had.

17. In 1925 this law was changed so that women could also ask for divorce in the case of adultery. In 1930, women would also gain the right to divorce if their husband had abandoned them for over 2 years.

18. Birth Control • Forget it! • Birth Control was illegal, as was the selling, advertising or publication of any medicine, drug, or article intended to aid in preventing conception or causing an abortion. • Women like Nellie McClung begin to draw attention to this issue, but it would go unresolved for a long time.

19. Rules for a Female Schoolteacher • You cannot get married or keep company with men. • You must be at home between 8 pm and 6 am unless at a school function • You cannot loiter downtown in ice cream parlours • You cannot smoke or drink any alcohol • You cannot ride in any carriage or automobile with any man except your brothers or father • You cannot dress in bright colours or wear dresses more than 2 inches above the ankle

20. The Famous Five Louise McKinney Emily Murphy Nellie McClung Irene Parlby Henrietta Muir Edwards

21. Emily Murphy • https://www.historicacanada.ca/content/heritage-minutes/emily-murphy • Nellie McClung • https://www.historicacanada.ca/content/heritage-minutes/nellie-mcclung? • Agnes MacPhail • https://www.historicacanada.ca/content/heritage-minutes/agnes-macphail?

22. The Persons Case: • The Famous Five were fighting for the right for women to sit in the Canadian Senate • While women now had the vote, they were still not legally deemed “persons” and therefore could not sit on the Senate • The Famous Five sent a petition to Ottawa asking if the word “persons” in the laws included female persons in 1927

23. The Supreme Court decided that, in fact, under Canadian law, women were not persons. • The Five appealed this decision to the Privy Council in London, supported by William Lyon Mackenzie King • The London Court agreed with the Five and ruled that women were included in the term “persons” 1929.

24. Cairine Wilson:The first female Senator(Appointed - Feb 1930) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1LW5Srxd4Y 59:30-1:04:40

25. "The Canadian-American frontier point, where artful dodgers of both sexes sometimes take points (and pints) past the officials." We see a woman from the waist down. The customs official shows how women can hide bottles inside their dresses. He says "The women are about as bad offenders as the men." A man models a device which fits around his waist and can hold 6 quarts of alcohol. The customs official turns the device upside down and the booze pours out.  http://www.britishpathe.com/video/the-dodgers-a-prohibition-sidelight-from-buffalo/query/CANADIAN+WOMEN