Schools:
The education suffered greatly, as school budgets were cut across the country. Some of those schools neither had electricity nor running water, heated wood stoves and lanterns were some of the things they tied to provide light. Sometimes, water was gotten from an outdoor pump. So to save money, districts combined with nearby schools, dropped staff lines, postponed new construction, and increased class size. Some city schools started progressive classrooms. In these classrooms teachers let the students choose what subjects they wanted to learn. Which forced many parents to go against those progressive classrooms. They wanted their children to learn the basics like reading, writing, and arithmetic. Middle class well-educated teachers were squeezed by the financial crisis facing their employers. In Ontario, new teachers were not hired so the average age and experience increased. However their salaries fell and men who otherwise would have taken higher status business jobs increasingly competed against women. Married women were not hired on the grounds it was unusual for one family to have two jobs as breadwinners. Some students dropped out of school to sell newspapers and shine shoes, as to those students who stayed; were forced to wear worn out stitched clothes and at times became too embarrassing to go to school..
Weather:
Another factor was the severe drought and other economic difficulties, which ruined the economy of the prairie region. Those who stayed on the land faced an environmental nightmare, because of the fact that wheat growing was plenty, not only in Canada, but in other countries as well. Canadian farmers were left with large quantities of unsold wheat and prices dropped dramatically. Prairie farmers were also with terrible droughts over several summers in a row. This time was referred to as the "Dust Bowl of the 1930s". Crops died, and as a result, railways and flourmills lost business. Many left, unable to make money off their land to be forced to move to the city for newer jobs.
Economy:
The cause of the drought caused an aftermath, which created a burden affecting provinces. It was estimated that 33% of Canada’s Gross National Income came from exporting wheat, showing the impact on the world. However, the little money that wheat brought in did not cover production costs, let alone, neither did farm taxes, causing further depreciation. The net farm income fell from $417 million in 1929 to $109 million in 1933.
The Stock Market:
The stock market was another factor that added to the Great Depression; during the dramatic drop, many stocks became worthless. However, the United States was afflicted with an illusion that this was a new era. This was the time where top hit songs like Neil Armstrong’s “When You’re Smiling” and Irving Berling’s “Puttin on the Ritz” played hand in hand with the mood of the era, which was the feeling of optimism. This was the time where the stock market was booming; everyone had an interest in it. People like tailors and grocers had one kind of share or another in the market. This was also the first time that many ordinary Americans had begun to invest into the market. Stocks are shares of a company that are bought and sold on the New York Stock Exchange, having value based on demand; as list value of the stock goes up, price increase follows. As the stock market’s popularity increased, so did the popularity of its people. The public was fascinated with bankers and brokers, who became like celebrities and lived like royalty. This was also the time where President Herbert Hoover was running for the presidential election. During his election, he brought the expectation of the public that everyone could have some piece of the pie out of the rising prosperity. The Dollar was a king, as this was the time where the United States came out of World War I. New inventions were being built, such as the radio, air conditioning and under arm deodorant. As companies produced too much of their product, industries ran out of customers; people couldn't go on spending forever. There would only be a certain amount of a certain product that you need, which drove to the surplus of manufactured goods. This was a cause of the Wall Street downfall because it meant that companies had to get rid of their products, and to do this they had to sell at discount prices. Therefore, profits were much lower. The consequences were that share prices went down.
One of the newest ventures of the age was consumer credit where “buy now pay later” started to become a way of life of 1929. In return, it all went to Wall Street credit, even though Wall Street was dominated by four wealthy groups of men. One of them was William C. Durant of the General Motors. His large success, among others, led to smaller investors to invent and distribute the idea of mass marketing stocks to the general public. They introduced a thing like buying on margin, which means putting up some of your own money and borrowing the rest. A small percentage of the public invested into stocks, but that did not seem to worry the rest as the market had entered popular culture. Every best selling magazine covered something that had to do with the variation of the stock market. Yet Federal Reserve board felt otherwise, because it was based more and more on the shaky business of borrowed money. Soon later, investors began to sell, and as it fell, people holding the stocks started to worry. Margin swept the market, and as the drop value of their stock fell more than their down payment, their down payment depreciated. To hold their stock they had to put more money into their stock. For that matter, everyone tried to cover his or her stock with borrowing more money, which in return created a credit crunch. As interest rates soared, few people struggled to borrow more money. A few tried to save the market, like J. P. Morgan, but that did not hold the market for long. It fluctuated up and down and came down the Thursday morning of October 23, 1929, which is better known as Black Thursday.
Politics:
To cope with the Depression, new political parties soon emerged, the first of which was the Conservative Party, elected from 1930 to 1935 under prime minster R.B. Bennet. He was originally from New Brunswick, and grew up to be a self-made millionaire as a corporate lawyer and businessman in Calgary. His response to the depression was putting $ 20 million dollars towards emergency relief, and raising the tariffs on imports to 50% in order to protect Canada’s industries from foreign competition and end the trade deficit. This in return made the depression worse, as his protectionism cut off Canadian exports. For that reason, many Canadians could not afford to put gasoline in their cars. Instead, horses pulled their cars, “Canadians called these cars Bennett Buggies”. As Canadian people had enough of Bennett, who they blamed for prolonging the Depression, they soon elected MacKenzie King, who ran under the slogan “King or Chaos” and won the election; he thought that it was the responsibility of the provinces to aid their own citizens. King was not prepared for the depression and so he didn’t take an interventionist approach to the economy. King was eventually openly criticized for his controversial comment that he would not give “a five cent piece” of relief money to any province that had Conservative government. One of the most dramatic political responses to the great depression was formation of new political parties. They were the Canadian Co-operative Federation (later known as the N.D.P) and the Social Credit Party. They created social programs and later proposed more. But as the depression deepened, enlightened leaders realized that the government would have to take a more active role in caring for the poor. National economies began to be strictly controlled by elected governments. Many things originated during the depression such as unemployment insurance, sick benefits, child benefits, and welfare.
Much of these formed the basis for the social safety net Canada has today, which masked a great deal in the 2008 Ression
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the depression affected Canada greatly in many different ways and changed the role of government forever, from employment insurance, to sick benefits, child benefit and welfare. The unemployment rate now is 8.4% compared to 19.3% in 1933. That means that crime, and other factors dependent on the employment rate, are better now than they were in the Depression. Society as a whole is much stronger. The reason the Depression was devastating was because people panicked and stopped spending and saving entirely. Today, there are structures in place, things like welfare and social security that will ensure people do not starve like they did in 1933.
Labour Force During The Great Depression
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