-
Women's Suffrage
Women's suffrage is the campaign to get women the right to vote. It began in Canada in the 1870's, but began to really have an impact in the early 1920's due to the work of the famous five, and because female relatives of soldiers were granted the vote during WWI, which they did not want to lose. Agnes Macphail was the first female Member of Parliament in 1921. -
The Indian Act
The Indian Act, passed in 1876, gave the Canadian government complete control over the lives of First Nations peoples. This gave them some benefits, like health care and education, but was also very restricting. The government was able to control many aspects of First Nation's lives. Many of the struggles that First Nations peoples in Canada face today have roots in this act. -
Prohibition
Alcohol was blamed for a lot of problems in the early 1900's. Many believed that if people stopped buying alcohol, that money would be spent on supporting their families instead. As part of the War Measures Act in 1918, the government established prohibition, which outlawed selling alcohol. These laws faced a lot of opposition, and they were removed in Canada after only a few years, however, the US kept these laws for a long time, causing a lot of alcohol to be smuggled over the border. -
The Spanish Flu
Similar to what is happening now, in 2020, roughly 100 years ago there was a global pandemic. Like COVID, the Spanish Flu affected the daily lives of many people. The Spanish Flu was brought to Canada by soldiers who fought in WWI. The disease spread quickly in the trenches during the war due to the terrible conditions. The death toll of the disease was around 50 million people worldwide, and over 50,000 Canadians. -
Immigration Policies
The events of WWI bred a lot of hatred in Canada towards people from the countries who had been a part of the Central Powers. Additionally, unemployment was on the rise, and Canada didn't want immigrants coming and taking jobs from returning soldiers. Because of this, Canada passed the Immigration Act in 1919, which extremely restricted who was allowed to immigrate to Canada. Non-white, non-British people would have an extremely difficult time trying to immigrate to Canada. -
Winnipeg General Strike
After the soldiers came home from WWI, they were faced with mass unemployment. Those who were employed had unfair pay, working conditions, and hours. This caused unions to be formed who were angry at the government and employers for their mistreatment. On May 1, 1919, the Winnipeg General Strike began. It lasted for many days and grew to include tens of thousands of strikers refusing to work. The strike was unfortunately mostly unsuccessful. The government, fearing that the strikers were-- -
Winnipeg General Strike 2
--communists, sent police officers on horseback to deal with the situation. It became violent, and many were killed, while strike leaders were arrested. -
Residential Schools
In an attempt to assimilate First Nations children, the Canadian government opened the first Residential Schools in 1920. These schools were painted as a place where these poor, uncivilized children could receive an education. In reality, this was a dark part of Canada's history, in which children were (often forcibly) taken away from their parents and stripped of their culture. Many children died trying to escape or due to disease. The last residential school didn't close until 1996. -
The Rise of Fascism in Germany
After WWI, many Germans were very unhappy with the democratic government system that had been forced upon them by the allies, and felt that they had been unfairly punished by the Treaty of Versailles. The Germans were also living in widespread poverty due to war reparations, the great depression, and hyperinflation. Hitler seemed to provide a solution to the country's problems, and the unfortunate economic and political condition that Germany was in caused him to be attractive to the-- -
The Invention of Insulin
Today, people who have Diabetes are able to live a long and relatively normal life using insulin technology. This is thanks to a discovery made by Frederick Banting. In Toronto in 1922, he injected insulin from an animal into a young diabetic boy. He got better, and Banting and Macleod, who gave him his laboratory to test his theory in, won the Nobel Prize for this discovery. -
The Rise of Fascism in Germany 2
--German people and allowed him to gain power. Hitler became the leader of the National Socialist German Worker's Party, or the Nazis, in 1921. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
In 1923, Canada implemented the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese immigrants from coming to Canada. This was very unfortunate, because many Chinese men had immigrated alone in hopes of getting a job in Canada and getting enough money to bring their wives and children over from China. This act separated many Chinese men from their families. During the early 1900s, Canada as a whole was very prejudiced against non-white, non-British people, and this is an affect of that fact. -
Child Labour Laws
In the early 1900s attitudes towards child labour were changing. In order to get children in school and out of workplaces, the government implemented some laws in 1929. The implemented education laws, which forced children to spend their days in school, and laws that made it illegal for children younger than 14 to work at factories and mines. This did not get rid of child labour altogether, but it was a step in the right direction. -
Crop Failure
During the 1930s, farms in the prairie provinces of Canada were suffering from a huge drought. Not only did the drought dry up the crops, but it also caused the soil to become dry and dusty and blow away. This lead to giant dust storms, coining the name 'The Dust Bowl', referring to Alberta and Saskatchewan. Many farmers, having no crops to sell, were forced to abandon their farms and go looking for jobs in less rural areas. -
The Person's Case
Women were able to vote in the 20's, but they were unable to run for Senate, as Robert Borden claimed that only a person could run for Senate, and as it stated in the Canadian Constitution, "Women are persons in matters of pains and penalties, but are not persons in matters of rights and privileges." In order to circumvent this, the Famous Five went over Borden's head to the Privy Council in Britain, who ruled that women are considered persons on October 18th, 1989. -
Stock Market Crash
In the 20's, the stock market was extremely popular, and people were investing in stocks using credit. However, people started to realize that stocks were overvalued and many began to sell. The stock market began to crash, and suddenly, people who had bought stocks with credit were losing money that they didn't even have in the first place, putting them even more in debt. Black Tuesday, October 19, 1929, was the day after the worst crash, and marks the beginning of The Great Depression. -
The on-to Ottawa Trek
During the Great Depression, many men working at relief camps-- which had been set up by the government to try to curb unemployment-- were unhappy about the working conditions and low pay. In 1935, many men from these camps jumped on trains in Vancouver. The began their trek across Canada to Ottawa, to make their case to the Prime Minister. Many people who were not a part of the Trek supported it. Ironically, they never actually made it to Ottawa, as the PM met them in Regina.
