The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929

In the early part of the Dirty Thirties, the Canadian prairie city was a relatively safe haven. Having faced recession before the Great War and then again in the early 1920s, municipalities already had relief apparatuses in place to deal with poverty and unemployment. Until 1933, responsibilty for t...

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Номзүйн дэлгэрэнгүй
Үндсэн зохиолч: Eric Strikwerda
Формат: Online
Хэл сонгох:англи
Хэвлэсэн: Athabasca University Press 2021
Нөхцлүүд:
Онлайн хандалт:15431
Шошгууд: Шошго нэмэх
Шошго байхгүй, Энэхүү баримтыг шошголох эхний хүн болох!
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author Eric Strikwerda
author_browse Eric Strikwerda
author_facet Eric Strikwerda
author_sort Eric Strikwerda
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description In the early part of the Dirty Thirties, the Canadian prairie city was a relatively safe haven. Having faced recession before the Great War and then again in the early 1920s, municipalities already had relief apparatuses in place to deal with poverty and unemployment. Until 1933, responsibilty for the care of the urban poor remained with local governments, but when the farms failed that year, and the Depression deepened, western Canadian cities suffered tremendously. Recognizing the severity of the crisis, the national government intervened. Evolving federal programs and policies took over responsibility for the delivery of relief to the single unemployed, while the government simultaneously withdrew financing for all public works projects. Setting municipal relief administrations of the 1930s within a wider literature on welfare and urban poor relief, Strikwerda highlights the legacy on which relief policymakers relied in determining policy directions, as well as the experiences of the individuals and families who depended on relief for their survival. Focusing on three prairie cities—Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg—Strikwerda argues that municipal officials used their power to set policy to address what they perceived to be the most serious threats to the social order stemming from the economic crisis. By analyzing the differing ways in which local relief programs treated married and single men, he also explores important gendered dynamics at work in the response of city administrators to the social and economic upheaval of the Depression. Probing the mindset of local elites struggling in extraordinary circumstances, The Wages of Relief describes the enduring impact of the policy changes made in the 1930s in the direction of a broad, national approach to unemployment—an approach that ushered in Canada’s modern welfare system.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-624702022-01-31T16:25:08Z The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929 Eric Strikwerda HD7795-8027 government cities urban Depression In the early part of the Dirty Thirties, the Canadian prairie city was a relatively safe haven. Having faced recession before the Great War and then again in the early 1920s, municipalities already had relief apparatuses in place to deal with poverty and unemployment. Until 1933, responsibilty for the care of the urban poor remained with local governments, but when the farms failed that year, and the Depression deepened, western Canadian cities suffered tremendously. Recognizing the severity of the crisis, the national government intervened. Evolving federal programs and policies took over responsibility for the delivery of relief to the single unemployed, while the government simultaneously withdrew financing for all public works projects. Setting municipal relief administrations of the 1930s within a wider literature on welfare and urban poor relief, Strikwerda highlights the legacy on which relief policymakers relied in determining policy directions, as well as the experiences of the individuals and families who depended on relief for their survival. Focusing on three prairie cities—Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg—Strikwerda argues that municipal officials used their power to set policy to address what they perceived to be the most serious threats to the social order stemming from the economic crisis. By analyzing the differing ways in which local relief programs treated married and single men, he also explores important gendered dynamics at work in the response of city administrators to the social and economic upheaval of the Depression. Probing the mindset of local elites struggling in extraordinary circumstances, The Wages of Relief describes the enduring impact of the policy changes made in the 1930s in the direction of a broad, national approach to unemployment—an approach that ushered in Canada’s modern welfare system. 2021-02-12T08:16:22Z 2021-02-12T08:16:22Z 2013-07-15 10:35:10 2013 book 15431 1925184X 9781927356067 9781927356074 9781927356050 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/62470 eng Working Canadians: Books from the CCLH image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120216 Athabasca University Press 6b1b8af7-79e4-4b18-b297-b983df0f073f 9781927356067 9781927356074 9781927356050 333 open access
spellingShingle HD7795-8027
government
cities
urban
Depression
Eric Strikwerda
The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929
title The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929
title_full The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929
title_fullStr The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929
title_full_unstemmed The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929
title_short The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929
title_sort wages of relief cities and the unemployed in prairie canada 1929
topic HD7795-8027
government
cities
urban
Depression
topic_facet HD7795-8027
government
cities
urban
Depression
url 15431
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