Unit 5
The Great Depression of the 1930s

In 1929, the New York stock market crashed and investors around the world pulled their money out of businesses. Massive layoffs resulted. By 1933, one in every three Canadian wage earners was out of work. People had little or no money to spend on consumer goods and the economy ground to a halt. It was not until the start of World War II and the subsequent build up of the huge war economies that Canada began to climb out of a decade-long Great Depression. This unit looks at Canadian working people’s responses to economic crises of the 1930s. It focuses particularly on Communists, working-class housewives, and social democrats.

Objectives

After completing Unit 5 you should be able to

1. describe how working-class housewives in Saskatoon sought to improve their families’ living conditions during the Great Depression.
2. explain why many jobless workers felt compelled to join Communist-led unemployment organizations during the 1930s.
3. describe the philosophy and development of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF).