CANADA IN THE ROARING TWENTIES

1. CANADA IN THE ROARING TWENTIES UNIT 3

2. ECONOMY AND POLITICS • Each region of Canada had developed its own problems in post-war Canada; • Maritimes • Quebec • Prairies

3. ECONOMY AND POLITICS • MARITIMES • Experienced a drop in production after the war, • This drop caused a concern for a few reasons: • High freight rates on railways; • Decline in demand for fish, coal, lumber and farm goods; • Stoppage of railway building through the East; • High unemployment rates;

4. ECONOMY AND POLITICS • Maritime provinces formed the Maritime Rights Movement whose sole interest was to • Increase subsidies to the provinces; • Encourage international trade through Maritime ports; • Protect Maritime goods through high tariffs;

5. ECONOMY AND POLITICS • QUEBEC • Still embittered about Conscription in 1917, Quebec formed their own political party within Quebec – Action Nationale led by Abbe Groulx; • This party called for the protection of French-Canadian culture: • French ownership of large provincial corporations (hydro); • Opposed foreign investment in Quebec; • Supported traditional French rural life and values;

6. ECONOMY AND POLITICS • PRAIRIES • Began experiencing problems directly after the end of the war, when wheat production/demand stopped; • Creation of the National Progressive Partyled by Thomas A. Crerar; • Wanted a lower cost of freight and tariffs manufactured products; • Allow voters to propose laws and be able to recall MPs who are not representing their concerns;

7. PROSPERITY AND CHANGE • By 1923-24 the post-war economic slump was beginning to lift and Canadian wheat, manufactured goods and natural resources - iron ore, nickel, zinc, copper were in high demand again; • Pulp and paper industry was supplying the large American market; • Automobile industry grew;

8. PROSPERITY AND CHANGE • Manufactured goods, labour-saving devices also grew (radios, record players, toasters, washing machines, electric irons); • Largest manufacturing area was in the Montreal – Toronto – Windsor corridor; • Toronto and Montreal were large producers before the war, but their production increased dramatically at this time;

9. PROSPERITY AND CHANGE • Some cities specialized in production of certain goods • Hamilton – iron and steel • Kitchener – rubber products and furniture • Windsor – cars, trucks, car parts • American car companies set up branch plants in Canada to avoid tariffs on imported carriages (up to 35% tariff on top of cost); • Cars built in Canada receive preferential tariff treatment when sent throughout the Empire;

10. PROSPERITY AND CHANGE • Farming communities saw uneven prosperity; • Some left their farms for work in the cities, while others went into debt to buy the latest tractors and threshers; • Wheat farmers were earning record amounts by the mid-1920s; • Success of some wheat farmers attracted inexperienced farmers to the West – these used farming methods that rapidly exhausted the soil;

11. PROSPERITY AND CHANGE • The Maritime provinces experienced economic booms in some areas and bust in others; • Coal mining was dropping because of the switch to oil or electricity; • Construction and tourism industries grew; • Pulp and paper and other related industries also grew as markets opened up in Britain and the US; • Changes in railway protection rates for the Maritimes resulted in drops in coal and steel industries; (rates increased by 25%)

12. GOOD TIMES • Technological advances enabled rural and city dwellers to become connected and their lives made slightly easier (telephone, radio, movies, automobiles, airplanes, electrical appliances); • People who moved into the cities got jobs in the service industry (transportation, finance, public administration, hospitality); • Wages rose for most people, many could buy things on credit, disposable income grew for spending on cars, radios and sewing machines;

13. GOOD TIMES • Roads were being built for the growing number of cars and trucks, airmail service for the mail; • Bush pilots were flying to and mapping the North; • Stocks (portions of a company purchased by the public) were being bought as peoples’ confidence in the economy increased; • This led to a stock market boom;

14. LEISURE TIMES • Growth of radio broadcasts in Canada meant that in 1929 there were 297 000 radios in homes where in 1923 there were only 10 000; • First North American broadcast was from Montreal on May 20, 1920 – it was a music program; • The first radios needed headphones and controls were primitive and poor quality – they improved rapidly;

15. LEISURE TIMES • Ted Rogers, a Canadian electrical engineer, developed the ‘battery-less’ radio (worked through electrical current) and opened CFRB (Canadian Frequency Rogers Battery-less) from Toronto; • Most programs listened to came from the US (80% of the shows); • CBC (Canadian Broadcasting System) was created in 1936 in response to concerns that too much American content was heard on Canadian radio (Aird Report) • First Canadian program was Hockey Night in Canada with Foster Hewitt, occurring on March 22, 1923;

16. GROUP OF SEVEN • Canadian artists who had developed an unconventional style of painting impressions of Canadian wilderness scenes with deep colours and broad, heavy strokes; • Influenced by one another’s talents and paintings, specifically Tom Thomson (died in 1917), they formed the Group of Seven; • Members were: Lawren Harris, JEH MacDonald, Franklin Carmicheal, Arthur Lismer, FH Varley, AY Jackson, Frank Johnston;

17. MOVIES • Most popular form of entertainment; • Low cost and provided a feature presentation, a “supporting” movies and a Newsreel; • Minor boom in Canadian production in 1920s despite Canada had been producing promotional movies since 1897; • Influex of Hollywood style movies after Famous Players purchased Canadian Allen movie theatres in 1923; • Silent films used to exaggerate actions and occasional captions; • 1927 was the first “talkie” – Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer

18. LITERATURE • Growth in this field for Canadian author: • Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town; • Mazo de la Roche, Jalna; • Morley Callaghan, Strange Fugitive • Leslie McFarlane (pseudonym of Franklin W. Dixon), Hardy Boys; • These people contributed to a new style of Canadian writing and publishing, later to influence generations of authors;

19. SPORTS • Often referred to as “Canada’s Golden Age of Sports;” • The International Fisherman’s Trophy in 1921 went to the Canadian Bluenose after beating an American ship; • Growth of hockey as the new national pastime, which influenced cities and towns across the nation, as well as the Americans who contributed 3 teams to the National Hockey League;

20. SPORTS • Howie Morenz, most popular player at the time (on the Montreal Canadiens) and won the Hart Trophy 3 times in the 1920s; • Lionel Conacher was an all-round athelete (football, boxing, wrestling, baseball, lacrosse and hockey) • His teams won the Grey Cup in 1921 and the International League pennant in 1926 (baseball); • He won the Canadian light-weight boxing championship and the Ontario wrestling championship;

21. 1928 OLYMPICS • Amsterdam, Holland: • Track and field took several medals in a number of events; • Fanny “Bobby” Rosenfield (Russian-born immigrants) won Gold in the 100 metre dash and Silver in the 4 x 100 relay; • Percy Williams won Gold in the 100 metre and 200 metre dash; there was also a promotional aspect to this – a chocolate bar was named after him “Our Percy”

22. QUALITY OF LIFE • Technological advances such as electrical appliances reduced chore times; • “Flappers” were city dweller women who were living a lifestyle most believed inappropriate for women at the time; • Clothing for women had become more equal to the men’s style with short, bobbed hair, raised skirts and more revealing clothing; • Canadian scientist Frederick Banting and his partner, Charles Best, discovered insulin, which helped control diabetes;

23. IMMIGRATION AND INTOLERANCE • Many British-Protestant Canadians were demonstrating their intolerance to Eastern Europeans and to visible minorities, whether Canadian-born or not; • The activities of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s influenced some of the policies of the provincial governments; • Attempts made to “anglicize” many non-white members of communities through education in special schools or through missionary work;

24. IMMIGRATION AND INTOLERANCE • NATIVE PEOPLE • Outlawed the Potlatch and the Sun Dance; • Children were taken and placed in residential schools in order to assimilate the younger generations; • Indian Act of 1920 banned certain types of native government – ensured complete dependence on Canadian government; • Reserve Indians could not vote; • Women were excluded from selecting chiefs; • Chief Deskadeh (F.O. Loft) went to the British government and League of Nations to gain independence, but it was not granted;

25. PROHIBITION • Many women who had recently received the vote lobbied for prohibition (ban on the production and sale of alcohol); • It was believed by the temperance movements that alcohol was the center of society’s ills: domestic violence, crime rates; • Felt it was immoral to drink alcohol when the grain could be used for food products;

26. PROHIBITION • Federal government controls importing, manufacture and export of alcohol; provinces control licensing, sale and consumption; • Federal government legislated in 1918-1919 that alcohol production stop; • By 1917, all provinces except Quebec were under prohibition;

27. PROHIBITION • Laws were ignored by a large portion of Canadians; • Bootleggers (people who made and sold alcohol illegally) made millions of dollars, provinces lost tax dollars, so it was slowly repealed;

28. PROHIBITION • Benefits of prohibition: • Crime rate dropped • Arrest and drunkenness down 93% • Expensive from bootleggers • Fewer police needed • Some jails closed • More money went home to families • Domestic violence down • More productivity at work