Prayers, Pamphlets and Protests: Women and Relief in Saskatoon, 1929-1939
Date
1989-12
Authors
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Publisher
ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
This thesis examines the practice and application of
relief policy in Saskatoon during the years of the Great
Depression. The research focuses particularly on the effect
of relief policy on the lives of women, and the effect, in
turn, of women's activities on relief.
The thesis argues that the Canadian relief system was
based primarily on specific principles derived from the
British system of relief, principles based mainly on moral
judgements and economic concerns. These principles, largely
considered failures in Britain by World War I, continued to
influence relief policy in Canada until the experiences of
the Depression proved their inadequacy. In Britain they
failed because they did not meet their objectives of
reducing the escalating costs of relief and controlling the
labour of men. The economic depression of the thirties
revealed similar failures in Canada.
Using Saskatoon as a case study, the activities of
those on relief in particular, the women who found
themselves on relief and the women in various organizations
who attempted to supplement and subsidize the inadequacies
of relief - are examined. Their activities are considered to
be fundamental to the emergence of a community consensus
which rejected the moral and economic principles of relief.
The consensus was that the relief system should be replaced
by a national and centralized system of unemployment
insurance and other welfare programs. The establishment of
this understanding was an outcome of the direct and
widespread experience with an outmoded relief system
inherited from Britain.
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Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
History
Program
History