The Great Depression: 1929-1939Over 1.5 million Canadians were on relief, one in five was a public dependant, and 70,000 young men travelled like hoboes. Ordinary citizens were rioting in the streets, but their demonstrations met with indifference, and dissidents were jailed. Canada emerged from the Great Depression a different nation. The most searing decade in Canada's history began with the stock market crash of 1929 and ended with the Second World War. With formidable story-telling powers, Berton reconstructs its engrossing events vividly: the Regina Riot, the Great Birth Control Trial, the black blizzards of the dust bowl and the rise of Social Credit. The extraordinary cast of characters includes Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who praised Hitler and Mussolini but thought Winston Churchill "one of the most dangerous men I have ever known"; Maurice Duplessis, who padlocked the homes of private citizens for their political opinions; and Tim Buck, the Communist leader who narrowly escaped murder in Kingston Penitentiary. In this #1 best-selling book, Berton proves that Canada's political leaders failed to take the bold steps necessary to deal with the mass unemployment, drought and despair. A child of the era, he writes passionately of people starving in the midst of plenty. |
Contents
9 | |
15 | |
23 | |
29 | |
The world of 1929 | 38 |
1930 | 43 |
Not a five cent piece | 47 |
Mothers boy | 54 |
The Pang of a Wolf | 263 |
Slave camps | 266 |
Bennetts New Deal | 281 |
Speedup at Eatons | 287 |
The tin canners | 295 |
On to Ottawa | 312 |
The Regina Riot | 325 |
Changing the guard | 338 |
Mrs Bleaneys clouded crystal ball | 62 |
Bonfire Bennett | 70 |
Oldfashioned nostrums | 75 |
1931 | 78 |
Still fundamentally sound | 83 |
Rocking the boat | 87 |
The Red Menace | 95 |
Quail on toast | 103 |
Blood on the coal | 111 |
Nine on trial | 120 |
1932 | 129 |
The dole | 131 |
Shovelling out the unwanted | 140 |
Boxcar cowboys | 147 |
Restructuring the future | 159 |
An attempt at political murder | 166 |
1933 | 175 |
The shame of relief | 177 |
Death by Depression | 182 |
Childhood memories | 189 |
Making headlines | 196 |
The Regina Manifesto | 204 |
Bible Bill | 210 |
1934 | 221 |
The seditious A E Smith | 223 |
Radio politics | 229 |
Harry Stevenss moment in history | 237 |
The year of the locust | 245 |
Pep ginger and Mitch | 252 |
State of the nation | 349 |
The weather as enemy | 355 |
Le Chef the Church and the Reds | 360 |
4 Birth control on trial | 367 |
Abdication | 375 |
1937 | 385 |
The rocky road to Spain | 387 |
Dead in the water | 396 |
Mitch Hepburn v the CIO | 399 |
The Prime Minister and the dictator | 411 |
The black blizzard | 418 |
Bypassing democracy | 423 |
1938 | 426 |
A loss of nerve | 433 |
Trampling on the Magna Carta | 439 |
Bloody Sunday | 446 |
The Nazi connection | 460 |
Keeping out the Jews | 467 |
1939 | 475 |
A yearning for leadership | 477 |
Back from the dead | 482 |
The royal tonic | 488 |
War | 496 |
AFTERWORD The first convoy | 505 |
Authors Note | 513 |
Sources | 515 |
Bibliography | 519 |
533 | |
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Common terms and phrases
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