Review presentation of life in Canada during the 1920s.

1. The Roaring Life in Canada
Canada: 1920’s

2. Winnipeg General Strike - 1919
 relationship between Canadian workers &
employers becoming explosive
 unions had grown stronger during the war
 Winnipeg Trades & Labour Union wanted
better wages, working conditions, and
recognition of their collective bargaining
rights
 Bloody Saturday - June 21, 1929; violence
erupted

3. Political Change after WWI
 Borden resigned due to poor health after
WWI
 Arthur Meighen became the leader of the
Conservatives and Canada’s 9th Prime
Minister
 Mackenzie King and Meighen dominated
politics in the 1920s
 They disliked each other A LOT.

4. A New Look at Government
William Lyon Mackenzie King Arthur Meighen
Liberal Conservative
Reformer, conciliatory, always looking Believed in principles over
for the middle path that would offend compromise, didn't care who might be
the least number of people offended by his stand on issues

5. Arthur Meighen - Conservative
 Helped draft Military
Service Act - conscription
 Authored War Measures Act
which allowed Cabinet to
govern by decree
 1919, Meighen crushed the
Winnipeg General Strike
 by 1920, the recession hit
and Meighen was now
pitted against a wide range
of groups (workers,
farmers, immigrants, and
Quebecers)

6. Mackenzie King - Liberal
 Mackenzie King gets
elected in 1921
 Liberals won 118 seats
 Conservatives won 48 seats
 Progressives won 59 seats
 Mackenize King wins 1925
election with a slim
minority government >
coalition with Progressives
Mackenize King would remain Prime
Minister for 22 of the next 27 years

7. King-Byng Affair
 1926 – Conservatives accuse Liberals &
Mackenzie King of taking bribes from rum-
runners who were smuggling alcohol into
the U.S.
 Liberal party looses support and coalition
government fails
 King asks Governor General Byng (British
appointed) to dissolve parliament and call
an election

8. King-Byng Affair (continued)
 Byng refuses, and makes Meighen’s Conservatives the
government. Within days Meighen’s government is
defeated and an election is called.
 King resigns – protesting against a British appointed
Governor General rejecting the request of a Prime
Minister
 1926 King wins the election – King promises to loosen
ties with Britain – never again will a British appointed
Governor General over-ride a Canadian democratically
elected Prime Minister

9. King-Byng Affair (continued)
Lord Byng William Lyon Mackenzie King
Governor General Prime Minister

10. New Challenges to Federalism
 Regionalism – the concern of the various
regions of the country with their own local
problems
 The Maritime provinces faced declining
influence in national politics.
 Newly developed energy resources, such as
oil & hydroelectricity, destroyed the market
for Maritime coal.
 Businesses and banks relocated to Ontario
and Quebec

11. New Challenges to Federalism
 Western farmers were frustrated with
National policy
 Farmers felt alienated by economic policies
that benefitted manufacturers in central
Canada
 They were forced to buy more expensive
Canadian-made machinery, without any
similar protection for their products that
were sold on the open world market

12. Changing Social Attitudes
 1920’s : Years of contrast, conflict and
change
 After the post-war recession Canada’s
economy seemed to boom
 New inventions, new forms or
entertainment – challenged old values and
led to often defiant and bold attitudes and
outlooks

13. Changing Social Attitudes
1920’s fashion
1900-1919 fashion

14. Social Problems
 Gap between rich and poor remained large
 Immigration increased creating a backlash of
intolerance and a challenge to national identity
 Women earned the right to vote and hold office
although they had to go to Britain to ask permission
to do so
 Canada’s Native Peoples forced into a program of
assimilation

15. Prohibition
 1915-1917 all provinces except Quebec had
prohibition – as part of our War Effort. Prohibition
ended in most provinces by the early 1920’s
 In the U.S. – Prohibition – 1920-1933
 Prohibition reduced alcohol by 80%
 Illegal distilling, sales & consumption of alcohol took
off!
 Created tension between Canada and the U.S. as
prohibition laws are hard to enforce

16. Prohibition

17. Jazz
 U.S. Radio –
broadcast up-to-date
music, fashion and
cultural trends up to
Canada
 Jazz – African
American music from
Louisiana
 Jazz night-clubs
popped up in all major
cities (Montreal)

18. Jazz (continued)
 New dance crazes –
Charleston, Fox Trot, Lindy
 Flapper – fashionable young
women who defied the old
conventions of proper
“feminine” behaviour. They
scandalized the public by
abandoning Victorian era
clothing
 Flappers wore beaded dresses
to their knees, cut their hair
short and smoked, drank and
danced in public

19. Immigration: Backlash and
Necessity
 1919, 20%
population were
immigrants
 during post-war
recession, jobs
were scarce –
backlash against
immigrants
(perceived as
taking jobs)

20. Immigration: Backlash and
Necessity (continued)
 Immigration Act 1919 – preferred list. Those who
had “peculiar” customs, language and habits were
undesirable – seen as difficult to assimilate
1. White, English speaking Britons and Americans
2. Northern Europeans
3. Central and Eastern Europeans
4. Asians, Blacks, Gypsies and Jews
 Those that benefited from cheap labour protested the
Act (president of CPR)

21. Residential School and Native
Resistance
 Government policy: To protect / to
assimilate
 Aboriginal self-government not
recognized
 banned cultural expression: Potlatch
1884-1951, cultural dress, dance

22. Residential School and Native
Resistance

23. Residential School and Native
Resistance
 Residential School: Prepare Native
children for assimilation
- far from children’s communities
- students forbidden from speaking their
native language
- severely punished for defiance
- hair cut, uniforms (no individuality)
- Christian, white value, curriculum
- Taught menial skills, maximum grade 5 level

24. Residential School and Native
Resistance
 Schools under funded:
quality of diet, health
care, sanitation
 Horrendous abuses
went unchecked
 Outcome: Students
graduated not
belonging to their
native or white
communities –
displaced

25. Residential School and Native
Resistance
Resistance
 Frederick Ogilvie Loft –
Mohawk chief and WW1
veteran. Attempted to get
government to do
something about conditions
faced by First Nation’s
Peoples
 Helped establish League of
Indians in 1920 – pushed
for the right of Native
peoples to vote, without
losing their Indian status

26. Can. Gov. Apology – June 2008
Residential School
Prime Minister Stephen Harper:
"Today, we recognize that this
policy of assimilation was wrong,
has caused great harm, and has
no place in our country,“
"The government now recognizes
that the consequences of the
Indian residential schools policy
were profoundly negative and that
this policy has had a lasting and
damaging impact on aboriginal
culture, heritage and language,"
Harper said.

27. Getting the Vote and Winning
Office
Federal
Enfranchisement in
Canada:
 Spearheaded in
1917 with the War-
Time Elections act.
 By May 24, 1918
all women in
Canada would have
the federal vote.

28. The Person’s Case 1928-1929
 1928, Despite being able to vote, women
are still unable to hold public office
(appointed positions)
 1916, Emily Murphy is appointed Alberta
Police Magistrate (judge). Male lawyers
challenge this position. As a woman, they
asserted, Murphy was not a “person” under
British Law. Murphy joins with Louis
McKinney to fight this law

29. Person’s Case (continued)
Federal Government fails to
appoint even one female
senator during the 1920’s.
Angered by this, Henrietta
Muir Edwards, Irene Parlby
and Nelly McClung join Emily
Murphy and Louis McKinney
to form the Famous Five.
Together they push the
“Person’s Case” all the way
to the Supreme Court of
Canada.

30. Person’s Case (continued)
1928, The Supreme
Court of Canada
agrees unanimously
that under the BNA
Act women were not
considered persons.

31. Person’s Case
(continued)
1929, The Famous Five
take the “Person’s Case” to
the British Privy Council –
the highest court of
appeal. The Privy Council
agreed with Murphy and
ruled that “not only were
women persons under the
Constitution, but to
exclude women from
appointed public office was
a relic of days more
barbarous than ours.”

32. Person’s Case
(continued)
Feb 20, 1930:
Prime Minister
Mackenzie King
appoints Cairine
Wilson, a Liberal
supporter, as
Canada’s first
female Senator.
Cairine Wilson 1885-1962

33. Prosperity in the 1920s
 During the war, Canada’s resource
industries and manufacturing operated at
full capacity
 Wartime boom meant that Canadian cities
grew
 Canadian farmers prospered, providing food
for countries whose own agricultural
industries suffered during the war

34. From the farms to the cities
 Three factors helped shape Canada and its
economy in the 1920s:
 tariffs and freight rates
 increasing mechanization
 tariff protectionism - had serious
consequences in Canada and around the
world
 government increased freight rates under
pressure from railroad companies

35. Consumerism – Shop!
 With the good times in the 1920s came a
lot of new consumer products.
 mass media turned into mass advertising >
Canadians bombarded with messages in
flyers and catalogues, newspapers and
magazines, and on the radio to SHOP and
buy products.
 consumerism – disposable income

36. Canadian Culture
 The Group of Seven – Canadian
wilderness landscape artists: J. E. H.
MacDonald; Frank Johnston; Franklin
Carmichael; A. Y. Jackson; Arthur Lismer;
Fred Varley; Lawren Harris
 Determined to paint Canada in a new and
distinctive manner, the Group despite their
fears met with critical acclaim and much
public acceptance.
 influenced Emily Carr

37. Humour and Heartbreak
 Stephen Leacock was perhaps the major
figure in Canadian arts and letters in
1920s.
 Leacock was born in England in 1869, but
raised on a farm in Ontario.
 His masterpiece, Sunshine Sketches of a
Little Town, is a satire set in the fictional
rural Ontario town of Mariposa.

38. Golden Age of Sports
 sports dominated by amateurs
 Bluenose was a Canadian fishing and racing schooner
from Nova Scotia built in 1921; won the International
Fisherman's Trophy in 1921
 Growth of hockey as the new national pastime, which
influenced cities and towns across the nation; Americans
contributed 3 teams to the National Hockey League –
NHL founded in 1917
 The Edmonton Grads dominated women's basketball
from 1915-1940; the team played 522 games and lost
only 20. They represented Canada at four Olympics
(1924-1936) and won 27 consecutive games.

39. 1928 Olympics
 Sprinter Percy Williams won gold medals in 100- and
200-metre races; Olympic superstar greeted back in
Canada by parades and celebrations across the country
 Women were allowed to compete in track & field for the
first time; Canadian women did very well
 Ethel Catherwood (nicknamed the "Saskatoon Lily") won
the Olympic gold medal for high jump.
 Bobbie Rosenfeld (Canada's top female athlete for the
1st half of the 20th century) won a silver medal in the
100-metre race and gold medal in the women's 400-
metre relay.

40. Fears of U.S. Cultural Domination
 Between 1919-1929, Canadian culture flourished, but
Canada also experienced ever-increasing influence from
its southern neighbour, the U.S.
 With the mass popularity of radio and motion pictures,
Canada was flooded with US radio programs and films.
 Canada had pioneered the radio; first radio programs in
North America were broadcast in 1919 from station XWA
in Montreal.
 Growth of radio broadcasts in Canada meant that in
1929 there were approximately 400000 homes with
radios, compared to only 10000 in 1922.