history unit 2

• The 'Roaring Twenties'


  Period of economic prosperity and social change in the 1920s
• BLACK TUESDAY - Stock market crash

  October 29th 1929
• Economy in the 1920s

  • Boomed from mid to end of decade
  • Much of prosperity based on credit buying - borrowing money to buy anything and everything
• Stock market in the 1920s


  • Many people played the market
  • Credit buying of stocks drove prices up, creating a 'bubble' of credit where the market was dramatically over-valued
• Industries that flourished


  • Natural resources
  • Farming
  • Emergence of US branch-plant system
• Economic Cycle


  Boom/prosperity -> recession -> trough/depression -> growth/recovery
• 3 key factors of the Economic Cycle


  • People earn & spend/don't earn & spend money
  • Businesses profit/struggle
  • Businesses hire/lay off workers
• Canada's Foreign Affairs Under Robert Borden


  • Made significant progress during and after World War I
  • Remained a Dominion within the British Empire, retaining British control
• The Chanak Affair


  British request for troops, insult to Canadian autonomy, threat to British naval dominance, important for Canadian autonomy
• The Halibut Treaty


  Pacific Ocean fishing agreement between Canada and the US, negotiated and signed solely by Canada, despite Britain's concerns
• King-Byng Crisis


  • 1925: Mackenzie King's minority government, scandal, request for election denied by GG Byng
  • Meighen's short-lived government, forced election, Canadian preference for elected government's decisions
• Imperial Conferences, Balfour Report 1926 and Statute of Westminster 1931


  1. 1923 & 1926: Imperial Conferences in London

  2. W.L.M.K advocated for Dominion independence, leading to Balfour Report recommendations

  3. 1931: British Parliament passed Statute of Westminster, formalizing Dominion independence
• Significant step towards Canadian legal independence and autonomy
• Effects of WWI on Canada

  • More factories
  • Women get the vote
  • 60,000+ men killed
  • French – English relationship strained
  • Canada gains political respect from the international community
  • Spanish flu
• The 'Dirty' Thirties - the Great Depression


  Period of severe economic depression in the 1930s
• Causes of the Great Depression


  • Stock market crash
  • Too much credit buying
  • Over-reliance on US for trade
  • Over reliance on natural resources
  • Over-production
  • No government regulation
• Relief Camps


  Work camps in remote rural areas for unemployed single men, 44-hour work weeks in exchange for bunkhouse residence, meals, work clothes, medical care, and 20¢ a day
• The Vancouver Strike


  1. Organized by the Workers' Unity League

  2. Occupied federal government buildings, Hudson's Bay store, city museum, and library

  3. Strikers felt their demands were not being taken seriously and decided to take their demands to the Prime Minister in Ottawa
• The On-to-Ottawa Trek


  Stopped in Regina, Saskatchewan, on orders from the prime minister, with the thing being to Regina Exhibition Grounds
• Regina Riot


  Trekkers assaulting police and causing injuries, trek leaders arrested
• Fads and Fashion in the 1920s

  • Rise of mahjong
  • Crossword puzzles
  • Endurance contests
  • Flapper fashion trend for women
  • Baggy pants, bright hats for men
• Fashion trends admired but often unaffordable for most Canadians
• Music, Entertainment & Radio in the 1920s

  • Jazz music popularity
  • Charleston dance craze
  • Introduction of 'talkies' in 1927
  • Notable actors include Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford
  • Radio broadcasting brings entertainment to isolated communities, including sports coverage
• Canadian Sports "The Golden Age of Sports"


  • Professional sports leagues' origins or successes in the 1920s
  • Social acceptance of women in body-contact sports
  • Great Canadian athletes of the era
• Troubles in the 1920s


  • 1919 Influenza Epidemic: widespread closures and deaths
  • Challenges faced by returning veterans, establishment of support systems
  • Assimilation policies for Indigenous Canadians, formation of political groups
  • Preference for British immigrants, discrimination against other ethnicities
• Persons Case


  • 1916: Shortage of men in professions due to World War I, Emily Murphy appointed as police magistrate
  • 1922: Women lobby for Murphy's Senate appointment; Prime Minister WLMK declines but instructs an amendment
  • 1927: Murphy and four other women petition Supreme Court to review BNA Act Sec. 24
  • 1928: Supreme Court rules unanimously against women's eligibility based on BNA Act interpretation
  • Famous Five appeal to Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC), which overturns Supreme Court decision
  • JCPC establishes women eligible for Senate
  • Impact: legal recognition, first female Senator appointed, ongoing struggles for equality
• Prohibition


  • Advocated by religious groups and WCTU due to economic impact
  • Alcohol seen as grain waste during war, leading to food shortages
  • Prohibition in provinces led to illegal alcohol production
  • Bootlegging fueled moonshine production
  • Organized crime produced alcohol in unprohibited areas
  • Speakeasy and blind pig bars illegal
  • Doctors prescribed 'remedies' with pseudo-medical claims
  • Government proposed regulating alcohol
  • Criminals capitalize & make crazy bank
• Labour issues post WWI

  • Men come home to find few jobs
  • Women are expected to leave wartime jobs
  • Organization of unions, strikes
  • Winnipeg General Strike - people died
  • The One Big Union
  • Socialism is developed in the union movement
  • Demands for greater workers rights, a tax system to re-distribute wealth, unemployment insurance, welfare, pensions
• Labour Gazette in 1919 highlighted worker issues: long hours and unsafe conditions, low wages relative to living costs, resistance to unionization by businesses and governments, lack of confidence in government responsiveness to workers' needs
• Post-war recession worsened job-finding challenges, shift towards government responsibility for citizen welfare, formation of unions to demand better conditions and collective bargaining rights
• Employer resistance to unionization, using intimidation tactics, realization of the power of striking to enforce demands, risks include replacement workers (scabs) and blacklisting, fear of unions and socialism among politicians and the wealthy
• Generous pension plans for soldiers did not alleviate unemployment
• Unemployment in some cities reaches 30%, Liberal & Conservative gov'ts do little to stop the Depression or help people, some cities have soup kitchens & relief vouchers to help the unemployed, people are expected to rely on family & charity, single men are hardest hit because they qualify for little help, many men turn to 'hoboing' – riding freight trains from town to town looking for work or relief
• WLMK (Mackenzie King)


  Liberal's defeat in the 1930 election, laissez-faire government involvement in the economy, threatened to cut off provinces without Liberal governments from federal relief funding, returned in 1935, promising to emulate Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal' plan, created government programs to generate jobs and reduce unemployment, shut down the unpopular Relief Camps established by Bennett
• RB (R.B. Bennett)


  Believed individuals, families, businesses, and charities should handle the crisis, after two years, made a $20 million payout to provinces for relief programs, established relief camps for single, unemployed men, established the Bank of Canada and the Wheat Board, in 1935, announced a change in government role, emulating FDR's 'New Deal', his version of Unemployment Insurance program criticized for being insincere and bribery, gave his own money to help-seeking individuals
• CCF


  Believed in socialist principles for direct government intervention to break the economy out of depression, advocated for greater gov control over banks and major sectors like transportation, advocated for taxes to help less well off people through social programs like unemployment insurance, pensions, and welfare, merged to form the N.D.P. in 1961
• Social Credit


  William 'Bible Bill' Aberhart's Alberta, advocated for government intervention in economic recovery post-depression, proposed monthly $25 payments to stimulate spending and economic recovery, So-Creds held power in Alberta for over 20 years, banks refused to honor social credit cheques, and federal government blocked So-Cred's intervention in monetary policy
• Drought & dustbowl


  Western Canada hit buy 5 years out of 7 of drought - no rain - as a result, no crops grow, this causes the soil to dry up & loosen & then entire fields topsoil blows away in dust storms - about 25% of western farmers abandon their land