During this week in classes we were looking at the Great Depression and the Welfare State. Reading through the articles given, the 1930’s was a tumultuous time in Canada, as stock markets plummeted and left the country in ruins. The lack of resources and jobs led to widespread unemployment and poverty. These conditions threatened all institutions across Canada, needing them to adapt in order to continue to run.
Social organizations were running at full boar in order to keep up with the demands. In Doing More with Less: The Sisters of St. Martha (PEI) Diminish the Impact of the Great Depression, the women involved in the Sisters of St. Martha operated many social organizations in order to supply people with basic needs. They ran the Charlestown hospital, an orphanage and worked in schools through the tough times of the 30’s.[1] These catholic women worked many hours for little pay in order for those institutions to keep running. No patrons had the funds to pay for hospital fees, so the women took it upon themselves to keep these institutions running by working for cheap. The institution adapted through the workers in order to keep the doors open to those that needed it the most.[2]
Another institution that was adapting during the Great Depression was the Liquor Control Board of Ontario which changed their practices on what social spaces would sell alcohol to their patrons. The Same as a Private Home? Social Clubs, Public Drinking, and Liquor Control in Ontario, 1934–1944, interrogates the way the Liquor Board adapted their ideal “gentlemen club”, which previously could support itself on membership fees alone. Understanding the varying classes, they certified other clubs based on different criteria than the ‘gentlemen’s club’, such as; club ownership and club executives. These other clubs relied on drink sales in order to keep running, so adaption to the certifying process was needed.[3] Once again adaption was needed in the time of the Great Depression.
Finally heading out west, where Canadians were hit the hardest by the Great Depression. In How Much Has the Canadian Wheat Board Cost the Canadian Farmers? Gislason explains that farmers in a desperate act created a new institution called the Canadian Wheat Board, in order to stabilize wheat prices and give farmers more options to deal with an economic crisis. The success of the Canadian Wheat Board, as noted in 1959, rests on a lot of ifs, but nevertheless the adaption of institutions was necessary for survival in the tough times of the Great Depression.[4] As Canada struggled to regain it’s footing, people and institutions were adapting to ensure that the country could survive through one of the darkest economic times in history.
[1] Heidi Macdonald, “Doing More with Less: The Sisters of St Martha (PEI) Diminish the Impact of the Great Depression,” Acadiensis, 33, 1 (Autumn, 2003): 33, 39, 42
[2] Ibid., 44, 46.
[3] Dan Malleck, “The Same as a Private Home?: Social Clubs, Public Drinking, and Liquor Control in Ontario, 1934-1944,” Canadian Historical Review, 93, 4 (December 2012): 581
[4] Conrad Gislason. “How Much Has the Canadian Wheat Board Cost the Canadian Farmers?” Journal of Farm Economics 41, no. 3 (1959): 584-586, 599
