The evolution and modernization of the Canadian society around people was not that bad? was it? The answer as explained in this week’s readings unfortunately is “yes!” In Canada everyone experienced the fast paced modernization of the country. While some ideas like working with your family stayed the same, new documentations show that there were other changes within the private and public spheres. One of these changes was the faster paced change for families to adopt into their own to help pay the bills. More hands in the house meant a greater overall income which would outweigh the costs required by this new addition to the family. [1] But none the less these children being added to the families did not go unnoticed because they were either orphaned or immigrated to Canada without their parents. While children were being adopted to help provide for working class families or others who wanted servants women were being sexualized by the car industry. Women during this era still were seen by men as something meant to take care of the family, but new ads made by car companies to sell their new automobiles wanted to catch the eye of the general consumers which in this case was men.[2] The industrial sector was trying to make the cars seem more appealing. All of these changes still affected the economic system, but also the social structure more primarily the family system. As stated above the family system was affected which lead to changes within the factories. While men would receive more money than their spouse their roles as parents also became redefined because of the money that they would make would affect the family’s income substantially.[3]
While most changes people will focus on are the industrial, but the social I believe are more important due to the fact that so much more changed in the family sphere because of the rise of new technologies.
[1] Neil Sutherland. “Popular Media in the Culture of English-Canadian Children in the Twentieth Century,” Historical Studies in Education, 14, 1(Spring, 2002): 9
[2] James Nicholas, “Modern Girls and Machines: Cars, Projectors and Publicity,” in The Modern Girl: Feminine Modernities, The Body, and Commodities in the 1920s, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015) 191.
[3] Gossage, Peter. 2014. “Au nom du père? Rethinking the History of Fatherhood in Quebec.” American Review Of Canadian Studies 44, no. 1: 54. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed January 31, 2017).
