Throughout the week, we explored the topic of “Citizens and Nation” and talked about The Great Depression and the Welfare State. Within The Great Depression and the Welfare State we have a variety of things going on which include the role of females and the control of alcohol consumption in this era. In Heidi MacDonald’s article “Doing More With Less: The Sisters of St. Martha (PEI) Diminishes the Impact of The Great Depression”, MacDonald tells us how these sisters managed to lessen the burden of The Great Depression on the population. “This small congregation of sister… cared for thousands of people [and]… although the Depression prevented many clients from paying fees… the sisters continued providing the services… a 72-bed hospital, a 100-bed orphanage and a 75-bed geriatric facility”[1]. In addition to the sisters providing services for the people, they also “[created] a social services department [and health services] that served thousands”[2]. The sisters did these things because they “were motivated by a desire to live out their faith [and] they dedicated their labour to the glory of God and to the services of fellow human beings”[3]. While contributing, and being motivated to help the less fortunate, the sisters put aside their own problems, such as their low wages, and focused on trying to diminish the impact of The Great Depression, which they succeeded in doing. The impact the sisters made towards the population was not duly noted, possibly from their efforts being a “religious vocation”[4]. More information about this congregation before the decade of The Great Depression can be found in another article by Heidi MacDonald, “The Social Origins and Congregational Identity of the Founding Sisters of St. Martha of Charlottetown, PEI, 1915-1925”. This article talks about the congregation of women put together because of Bishop Henry O’Leary’s “yearning for a dependable, flexible, skilled, and inexpensive labour pool to carry out his vision for a strong Catholic Prince Edward Island”[5] and “to serve the… population in a variety of ways”[6]. It was noted that in the first half of the twentieth century, “the Sisters of St. Martha were far more affordable than an off-island congregation”[7] and impacted the population with their work, which ultimately helped shape this vision of a “Catholic PEI”.
The article “The Same as a Private Home?: Social Clubs, Public Drinking, and Liquor Control in Ontario, 1934-1944” written by Dan Malleck, outlines alcohol consumption in decade of The Great Depression. Malleck starts by explaining that “from 1927 to 1934 liquor could be purchased for consumption only in private residences”[8], then “in 1934 the law expanded to allow the sale and consumption… in public establishments”[9]. Within The Great Depression, alcohol consumption publicly began to take a big turn, and showed a “a complex relationship between public drinking, socialization, and the construction of appropriate social behaviour”[10] between the elite, middle, and working class.
Both the Sisters of St. Martha and the change in alcohol consumption made a big impact on the decade of The Great Depression. The sisters helped to diminish the effects The Great Depression put on the population, with the use of their social services and low wage labour. Whereas the switch of alcohol consumption from the home to the public sphere impacted the 1930s by showing a shift in social behaviours amongst the classes. All of these readings contribute to the main topic of “Citizens and Nation” and more focused aspect of The Great Depression and the Welfare State. All the readings deal with the issue of The Great Depression and how through different ways, such as the Sisters of St. Martha and the change in alcohol consumption, impacted this decade, and ultimately contributes to the wider historiography of the topic, “Citizens and Nation”.
Footnotes:
[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): 21.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 22-23.
[4] Ibid., 23.
[5] Heidi MacDonald, “The Social Origins and Congregational Identity of the Founding Sisters of St. Martha of Charlottetown, PEI, 1915-1925,” Historical Studies, 70 (2004): 29.
[6] Ibid., 47.
[7] Ibid., 40.
[8] Dam 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): 556.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 558.
Bibliography:
MacDonald, Heidi. “Doing More with Less: The Sisters of St Martha (PEI) Diminish the Impact of the Great Depression.” Acadiensis, 33, 1 (Autumn, 2003): 21-46.
MacDonald, Heidi. “The Social Origins and Congregational Identity of the Founding Sisters of St. Martha of Charlottetown, PEI, 1915-1925.” Historical Studies, 70 (2004): 29-47.
Malleck, Dan. “The Same as a Private Home?: Social Clubs, Public Drinking, and Liquor Control in Ontario, 1934-1944.” Canadian Historical Review, 93, 4 (December 2012): 555-582.
