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Grade Level:       Type of Work           Subject/Topic is on:
 [ ]6-8                 [ ]Class Notes    [Report on the Great     ]
 [ ]9-10                [ ]Cliff Notes    [Depression of the 1930's]
 [x]11-12               [x]Essay/Report   [                        ]
 [ ]College             [ ]Misc           [                        ]

 Dizzed: 09/94  # of Words:2889  School: ?              State: ?
ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>Chop Here>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ
     During the Great Depression of the 1930's, Canada's Prairie
provinces suffered more than any other area in Canada.  This time
frame brought for the farmers many years of droughts and
grasshopper plagues, as each year got worse without any rainfall
whatsoever.  The impact of the Great Depression on the Prairie
provinces was devastating and it's impact on the region was
social, political and economical.  During this period unemployment
reached high levels, prices of products were falling and purchasing
power was getting very weak. To try to help out unemployed people,
mostly men, the government introduced relief camps.  During the
1930's in Prairie Canada, the Great Depression created harsh
conditions and it was a struggle until it ended.

     The event which triggered the Great Depression was the Stock
Market crash of October 24, 1929 in New York.  Another important
cause was that:

     Later in the 1930's, the wide adoption of the gold exchange in
     many countries was widely criticized as a great mistake which
     greatly contributed to the severity and length of the Great  
     Depression. 1


     In Canada, wheat, the most important export, was being over-
produced around the world, despite the fact that the 1928 supply of
wheat was still available in 1929.

     A good reason for the stock market crash in 1929 was that,
     the values of stocks of the New York Stock Exchange were
     grossly over-valued, but government and business appeared to
     ignore the signs. 2

     Canadian revenues that came in from export sales were
dependent largely upon the United States who had the money for
growth; the commodities were grain, pulp and paper and metals.
Then when the New York crashed on October 1929, stock prices fell
dramatically.  When the stock market crashed, the Canadian economy
suffered after the United States invoked high tariffs to shut out
Canadian goods.  In the Prairie provinces of Canada, in addition to
economic depression was the effect of the nine years of drought and
crop failures.

     When the Great Depression plagued Canada, the country was not
ready for it; there are three main reasons why:

     1) Seasonal unemployment was predictable since wages for
        seasonal labour were high enough.
     2) Cyclical unemployment and recovery in the past always
 occurred eventually.  Canada was a new world society, with
  a developing farm frontier.
     3) There was a working class political pressure. 3

Dependence on foreign trade of wheat contributed to Canada's main
cause of the Great Depression.

     The Weather in the Prairies greatly contributed to the
disastrous effects which took place upon the Prairies during the
1930's.  Crops which were green and healthy in June, had reduced to
nothing in two to three weeks.  The cause of devastation to the
crops was usually from dust storms.  The drought created five to
seven years of dried-out crops.  A description of the Prairie land
was that ...

     The Prairies were like a great rich land without rain.  The
     heat everyday was too hot to adjust to during the day and
     too hot to sleep at night.  It was like living a dry sauna.
     The wind was so hot and sucking that it sucked up the
     moisture. 4

   In 1931, events which occurred were blizzards, dust storms
consisting of hot dry, wind and complete crop failure.  In 1932 it
was the year when grasshoppers plagued the land.  In 1933 the
effects of drought and grasshoppers were the main factors which
contributed to the downfall of the Prairie provinces in the first
few years of the Great Depression.  In 1934, soil began to blow in
mid June and destroy gardens and crops and cause the cancellations
of many fairs in the villages across the southern plains.  In 1936,
it was the coldest winter with blizzards contributing to chilling
records and also events where people froze to death.  During the
summer of 1936, it was the longest and hottest summer. Temperatures
reached one hundred degrees Fahrenheit regularly and also caused a
few deaths. The drought and high winds caused desert-like
conditions to spread over the Prairies.  "In May and June of 1937
the weather ended up being hotter, drier, windier and dirtier than
the year before." 5

     Impact of the dust storms reduced visibility to a few feet,
lakes went dry and farmers had to cut Russian Thistle to feed the
starving cattle since there were no crops.

     As situations got worse, some settlers started to leave the
land.  In 1935 R.B. Bennett and his government introduced the
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation to help out people who were
experiencing tremendous hardship.

     The social impact of the Great Depression on the Prairies had
psychological implications.  There was frustration for those who
stayed and for those who abandoned their farms.  Since there was
not enough money for gas, people used their horses to draw their
cars and called them "Bennett Buggies".  Some people were going
quite crazy and often did not really care what consequences they
would have to face.  A description of the state of turmoil:
     Only those who lived through it could realize what it meant to
     travel for miles over a wasteland, with the dust and Russian
     thistle blowing across the fields and piling up on the fences;
     to see cattle and horses dead in the fields because they had
     become so hungry that they ate the Russian Thistle that tore
     their intestines apart and they died in agony. 6

   It was difficult for women, since the men always saw each
other, once in a while when they met in town with other men.  The
women stayed at home, isolated and so they could only listen to the
radio.  Radio was the only medium that gave people in the Prairies
contact with the outside world.  Some women went to mental
hospitals since they suffered from mental depressions.

     Schoolhouse dances were an event where people could get
together.  People read quite a lot since there was nothing else to
do.  They borrowed these books from the library.  The provinces
lacked high schools and the children had to go out of town to
attend one usually somewhere in the United States.  The medical
facilities were atrocious as people had to pay one week's payments
in advance and they did not have enough money but needed treatment.
During the 1930's fine art was created during idle time.  Portraits
made were of "still lives, landscapes, depiction of people at work
and portrayed of rural and urban buildings." 7  Home entertainment
was provided by popular radio programs, dance bands and hockey
broadcasts, as all these provided cheap entertainment.  Also there
was participation in sports, picnics, dances and church socials due
to shortages of cash.

     The immigration and birthrate of people drastically reduced
during the 1930's.  The growth of the population was very low.
European Jews who fled Nazi Germany were denied entrance into
Canada.  In Saskatchewan, the rural population grew faster than its
urban population.

     Henry Jacobson, a 78 year old said," The depression took away
my wife, my home, a sector of good land back in Saskatchewan and
left me with nothing." 8 The worst area hit was the Palliser
Triangle in Saskatchewan. In the Palliser Triangle, farmers saw
their land erode away.  The topsoil suffered as it was blown by the
heavy wind.  The crops were frozen, damaged from grasshoppers, or
burned during the summer. This condition forced people off their
own land.

     By the tens, hundreds, thousands right across the West, they
     left the farms, following the path of neighbors gone north  to
     Peace River or the cool and green Fraser Valley of British
     Columbia.  There had been no crops for three, maybe five
     years.  No money for petroleum, clothes or even food. 9

People were so worse off that they did not have a job, money,
enough food and only ripped clothing to wear.  Only some
individuals were quite well off as they had fixed salaries and
lived comfortably.  The teachers and the ministers were two groups
of people who really found the Great Depression a struggle:

     People who really affected from social effects of the Great
     Depression were school teachers and religious leaders.
     Teachers saw gifted students be forced to leave school due to
     the lack of funds.  Ministers saw sickness, malnutrition, want
     and poverty without power to do more than comfort and sustain.
     10                                                           

     People during the 1930's revealed through their music their
feelings, explanations and effects that the Depression had upon
them.  Local radio programs as well as recording in studios and
other forms of entertainment replaced music which was formerly
popular.
     These songs are united in their concern for interpreting the
     bizarre events of the 1930's, trying to offer solutions,
     scapegoats, courses of action, and perhaps dreams that helped
     people survive this trying time. 11


     Religion during the 1930's in Prairie Canada was aiding people
with their troubles.  People realized that situations were not
good.  They turned to an almighty being for guidance and
assistance. Lloyd C. Douglas a minister of St. James United Church
(1929-1933) had a message which said, "Religion works: it provides
the key to success, peace of mind and a worthwhile life" 12
                                                                  
     There was an overproduction of wheat and industrial goods.
The war had created changes in the structure in the economy as well
as damage in the international trade.  Wages were always falling
behind.

     Economic theories of John Maynard Keynes were helpful and
suggested that if private investment failed to produce full
employment, the state must initiate public investment through
deficit spending to create jobs.

     Keynesian economics became part of the government policy, and
it was due to the large sum of state expenditures necessary for the
war which helped to reduce unemployment.  "Prairie wheat economy
$1.60 a bushel price in 1929 - .38 in 2 and a half years" 13
The hardest hit area was Saskatchewan "Per capita income fell from
$478 in 1929-29 to $135 in 1932 - a 71% decrease" 14  People could
not afford to purchase products produced because there was a lack
of purchasing power.  Also the wages were not sufficient to buy
products because producers had to consider prices for overhead, the
high cost of credit and the profits into the sale price of the
product.  In some areas, prices  dropped to almost zero.
     Wheat was being sold for 35 cents a bushel, butter was sold
     for 10 cents a pound, big turkeys for $1 and small turkeys
     for 50 cents. 15

  In the late 1920's the farmers created the wheat pools.  These
pools had some problems in the marketing system because there was
only one economic investment and a single crop to export.  Instead
of yielding the farmers profits the wheat pools made the farmers
poor.  In Alberta, economic depression was the worst with the
combination of prices, debts, and interest. It got so bad that the
Social Credit Revolution of 1935 was formed.
     Partly Canadian collapse in prices that followed Wall Street's
     Black Thursday was the high cost of mechanization, exorbitant
     interest rates and boom-bust grain prices. 16                
     Employers were particular about who worked for them.  Some of
them would prefer to have a person work for them at a lower wage. 
These employers would fire their employees as soon as they could
offer a lower wage to somebody else to do the same job.  They
squeezed every possible amount of labour out of the employee for
the least amount in wages.  Other employers felt sad when people
had were laid off.
     People also set up employment agencies to help everyone get a
job.  "In Canada ten to twenty five percent of the labour force was
unemployed throughout the Depression." 17  Before the Depression it
was different, since anyone who was dissatisfied with his job could
leave the existing company and go to work for another one.  Since
women worked for less than men, they didn't have to go on relief
programs since employers would fill their job openings with women.

     Since local governments refused to help single homeless men
during the years 1932 and 1936, the federal governments established
Unemployment Relief Camps.  These camps were run by the Department
of Defence.  The camps paid the men 20 cents a day for heavy work
such as construction.

     In 1935 there was a protest in Regina against the conditions
of the camps.  It was called the Regina Riot.  It was one of the
most violent events of the 1930's and included 130 people being
arrested, many men injured and one policeman killed.

     The camps did help as the men did not starve to death and had
a little bit of food in their stomachs.  For some men support
through the relief camps meant total humiliation as they were
fathers and had been hard working wage earners a couple of years
ago.  The camps served the purpose of feeding the men, clothing
them, and paying them 20 cents a day.  The relief camps "kept them
in the hills, in the mountains, far from civilization and far from
communists." 18  Some of the duties the men would perform would be
to clean park areas, help with building of bridges, clean up hiking
trails, learn work habits and to keep out of trouble.  Some of the
men were grabbed from the streets and forced into these camps. The
conditions of the camps meant for the workers a monotonous life,
dirty conditions to cope with,  and non-productive work to do.  One
explanation of the treatment in camps: "In relief camps we weren't
treated as humans, we were treated as animals and we were just
statistics." 19

     Other forms of aid were given by the volunteer agencies.  The
churches helped distribute clothing, bedding and fed the hungary
and the homeless.  Canadian Red Cross was another agency who
contributed by supplying clothing, blankets and bedding as well as
collected money for medical care.  In 1935 the Prairie Farm
Rehabilitation Association was formed to help out the worst areas
of the agricultural economy.

     The homeless rode the boxcars from one city to another,
begging for food and clothing.  In labour camps the men received
shelter, three meals a day, worked 48 hours per week and had to
deal with conflicts.  Anyone who tried to protest faced expulsion
and this may have led to explosive riots.

     "Political effects of the Depression were that capitalist
system failed." 20 Prime Minister R.B. Bennett introduced
unemployment insurance and minimum wages after he was defeated by
W.L. Mackenzie King, when it was too late.  Both Bennett and
Mackenzie King refused to give work to the jobless and insisted
that the provinces should be responsible for them, which resulted
in insufficient care for the homeless.

       In 1934  Bennett helped establish the Bank of Canada.  The
Canadian Wheat Board was established in 1935 which helped promote
minimum price for wheat.  In 1940, the federal government
introduced Unemployment Insurance.  Among the reform movements
which took place during the depression were:

     The Social Credit theories of Alberta Premier William
     Aberhart, and democratic Socialism of J.S. Woodsworth as well
     as the New Democracy movement of W.D. Herridge. 21


R.B. Bennett extended raw material processing and the use of
tariffs and trade preferences to protect and encourage employment.
In 1939, there was a Prairie Assistance Act, which gave tremendous
protection to the small producers as well as an insurance plan
against crop failures.  In 1930, R.B. Bennett promised to end
unemployment, but did not.  Prime Minister Bennett developed the
Farmers Creditors Arrangement Act which "cleared more than $200
million in farm debts to banks and mortgage companies, and business
who joined the reconstruction Party in  1935 to try and reorganize
our chaotic enemy." 22

     R.B. Bennett tried to help out with the unemployment problem
through higher tariffs and unemployment benefits.  This still did
not work because the jobless rate kept increasing.  Bennett thought
the problem of the 1930's was a seasonal and temporary one.

     Bennett also believed that sharply boosting the protective
     tariff would stimulate confidence, create jobs by reducing
     reliance upon imports and force other nations to lower their
     trading barriers against Canadian exports." 23
                                                                  
The first priority of government was to reduce the deficit so it
couldn't create jobs.

     His unemployment policy included eliminating the  deficit,
     balancing the federal budget, and keeping expenditure on the
     jobless down to a low level.  His government would pay only
     one third of the cost of direct relief in any town or city
     and contribute nothing to cost of administration.  24

     On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler gave orders to start World
War Two. On September 10, 1939, Canada declared war and so everyone
was at work for the next 6 years.  Great Depression ended with
World War two, "courtesy of Adolf Hitler" 25

     Among all the hardships during the Great Depression, "People
were more united than any time in the past" 26  This is because they
helped each other out during this period of struggles and
tribulations.

     The Great Depression was as Barry Broadfoot claims:
     10 years that were the most traumatic in our nations history,
     the most deliberating, the most devastating and the most
     horrendous. 27

Starting with the New York Stock Market Crash in 1929 until World
War II began in 1939, the Prairie provinces experienced many
changes which had a crushing impact upon the people and economy.
The Great Depression in the Prairies was of extreme importance as
it affected the entire region until World War II began.
