Three-and-a-half years after the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco, the nations of the world met in General Assembly in Paris to lay a foundation stone, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It is “the international Magna Carta of all mankind,” in the words of U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. “One of […]
Category: Social History
Foreign titles laughed to death in Parliament
“A proposal for a return to titles for Canadians seemed to have been laughed to a permanent death” during two days of heated debate in the House of Commons, according to the Toronto Globe, February 15, 1929. Yet former Prime Minister R.B. Bennett would late defy the law to become a Lord, while publisher Conrad […]
Scandals and charity of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson
“Los Angeles gasped at the costumes worn” by Ontario-born Pentecostal evangelist, radio preacher and faith healer Aimee Semple McPherson when she testified before a committee of the California legislature during impeachment hearings of state Supreme Court Judge Carlos Hardy, the Vancouver Sun reported, February 5, 1929. McPherson had given Hardy a $2,500 cheque, an alleged […]
An American flood of literary trash
Emily Murphy, magistrate, writer, and social, political and legal reformer, pens a tirade against a gusher of filthy, literary trash imported from the United States. A self-taught legal expert, Murphy was appointed an Edmonton magistrate in 1916, the first women magistrate in the British Empire.rash On her first day on the bench, a lawyer challenged […]
Flour sack clothes fashionable in Great Depression
“Ask for Flour Sack to Use for Clothing For Farmer’s Family,” said the headline in the Regina Leader Post, January 5, 1925, in an appeal to help a distressed Saskatchewan farm family. “Three successive crops dried up, hailed out and burned by fire—children take turns to wear one set of clothes.” Sack clothing was popular […]
Roaring Twenties shocking exposure of bare-naked knees
The 1920s were the Roaring Twenties, the decade of flappers, the Charleston, and bootleg booze, when women joined men in smoking in public and daring fashions revealed bare-naked knees. Older women were shocked. Some Alberta farm women wanted a law limiting the exposures of fashion. The Regina Leader comments in this editorial, January […]
Storing the family car for winter is big job in 1920s
Cold and dampness must be excluded so far as possible from the place in which one stores his car during the winter months. They will do great harm to the paint and to the mechanical features of the vehicle when it is left to their mercy for a long period. Therefore, it would be a […]
Postal workers toil all night Christmas eve
In 1920, Montreal postal workers were on the job all night on Christmas eve, so that carriers could deliver the last of the Christmas mail on Christmas morning, as reported in the following item from the Montreal Star, December 23, 1920. The real Christmas mail arrived from the Old Country this morning, when the Empress […]
Inflation soars after First World War
The weekly food bill for Canadian families averaged $16.48 in July 1920, Canadian Press reported, October 1, 1920. Food costs had more than doubled from $7.75 per week in December 1913, thanks to rapid inflation induced by the First World War. The average family budget in July totalled $40.76 per week, according to data from […]
Odyssey of the unknown soldier from First World War
World War I Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, on August 25, 1921, announced that the body of an unknown Canadian soldier from the First World War was to be removed from his grave in France and buried under the Parliamentary buildings in Ottawa. “It is proposed,” said the Toronto Globe, “that the body shall be placed […]