1.3: Changes in Society



1.3: Changes in Society: the place of women, children, the urban poor, Aboriginals, French Canadians and other minorities

A. Children

At the beginning of the 20th century, childhood, as we know it today, didn't really exist. In fact, until the mid-1800s, there wasn't a distinction between childhood and adulthood.

Most people at that time lived on farms and the household was the central economic unit, not an office or factory. Children were expected to work from an early age, to contribute to the family's success, and to keep their opinions to themselves.

The father ruled the family without challenge, and mothers looked after the children's religious and moral education.

Child mortality was high, as a result of infectious diseases like diphtheria, tuberculosis and typhus, and from infections.

In the decades before 1900, all that has begun to change. The infant mortality rate has started to improve. Children are seen as more than little workers - they are seen as emotionally and psychologically dependent beings. They have become sentimentalized, and have been labelled weak, innocent, and vulnerable. Laws have been passed to protect them.

Juvenile courts have recently set up a new criminal system for youth. Previously, for most crimes, children were dealt with as adults. Now, wayward youth are given special consideration.

Recently, many churches have set up youth groups to keep children interested in religion and out of trouble.

As the new century dawns, children only make up about 3.6% of the workforce - down from about 10% in the mid-1800s. Church organizations and secular groups are created just for their welfare, and the courts treat them differently.

Compared to modern standards, however, their lives are difficult. They work harder and at a younger age, and are much less pampered. They are expected to contribute more and complain less. They are subject to corporal punishment for "discipline and moral correction." Candy is a treat, not a constant. The consumerism found in our society, just doesn't exist.

If you are a male teenager, you are probably up at 4 a.m. to milk the cows and do your chores on the farm before school, if you make it there. School is strictly a winter activity, and you have to trudge through the snow to the outhouse. If you live in the city and your family isn't well off, you are up at dawn to work long hours in a factory under really lousy conditions. Complaining will get you fired or a shot in the chops.

If you are a female teenager, odds are you're milking those cows too, and then helping your mother sew and make butter before the sun rises. In the cities, you are a live-in domestic servant, working for negligible wages 29 days a month. Book learning isn't a priority for you. On the bright side, you can sleep in until dawn.

In the 1870s, kids younger than 10 were still working in the coal mines, but minimum age laws have changed that. In Ontario, the minimum age to work in a factory is now 14 years. School is compulsory in most provinces until the age of 14 or 16.

In Quebec, school attendance is not mandatory, but the idea is being discussed. Some Francophone Catholics are opposed on the grounds that the State has no right to impose the learning of secular knowledge that "may be useful but also harmful when not based on a sound moral training" that only education under the control of the Church could guarantee. Consequently, for some time, the French-speaking people of Quebec will remain less educated than their English-speaking compatriots.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that most children living in Canada in 1900 had a better life compared to most children of your generation? Use three pieces of evidence from the article to support your view.

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B: Aboriginals

Aboriginal people in Canada make up about 2% of the population. Since the beginning of European colonization, their numbers have been radically reduced - in most part by the many infectious diseases brought by white settlers.

Aboriginal people are governed by the Dominion government under the Indian Act , which was first passed in 1876. The Act created Indian reserves, and provided for special Indian status for aboriginal people. Self-government does not generally exist.

The management and control of Indian lands and property is vested with the federal superintendent general of Indian Affairs.

The Indian Act is part of a policy to both protect Aboriginal people from white culture, and to promote their assimilation into white culture. Indian celebrations such as the Potlatch and various traditional dances and customs such as the Sun Dance, are banned. (The Potlatch is a lavish aboriginal ceremony during which wealth is redistributed, and gifts are handed out. Guests feast and serve as witnesses to important events such as claiming a name, a wedding, funeral, or marriage.) Aboriginal people are forbidden to possess alcohol outside of a reserve.

Part of that policy are the 64 residential boarding schools, which remove Aboriginal children from their families in order to teach them European culture, traditions and religion. These schools are funded by the federal government and run by missionaries. The children are often forbidden to speak their native language. Discipline is harsh, often brutal, and physical abuse is commonplace. Aboriginal culture is treated as inferior.

Many Aboriginal communities are over-crowded, with inadequate housing, heating, sewage and medical care. Diseases such as tuberculosis are epidemic, and mortality rates among Aboriginal peoples are the highest in Canada. Aboriginal people cannot vote in British Columbia. This year, those living in B.C. will also lose the federal franchise.

View the Residential Schools handout and complete the three questions found there.

C: Women

The weaker sex but the more virtuous one; that's how women are seen as the 20th century dawns.

Canadian society recognizes the role of women as important, especially when it comes to education and family, but secondary to the role of men. Women are believed to need protection and the laws of the country reflect this.

Although women can vote in municipal elections in 4 provinces, they cannot vote anywhere in Canada federally or provincially, and cannot run for office.

With the exception of British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario, in most provinces, when a woman marries she loses her right to hold property. All her wealth and goods pass to her husband. A married woman can't make legal contracts or go into business on her own. The reforms that changed that in the provinces mentioned above are as recent as two years ago. Divorce laws make it difficult, if not often impossible, to escape an abusive marriage. Women who claim to have been sexually assaulted are given little support by the courts.

Women work, but they hold lower paying jobs, such as domestic servants. A woman's average income is likely to be about half of a man's. Until 1880, no woman had practiced medicine in Canada. In 1897, Clara Brett Martin became the first woman lawyer in Canada despite intense opposition from members of the profession.

Thanks to the intervention of the Grey Nuns who, as early as 1893, opened free "shelters" to care for children, Francophone women in Montreal can work outside of the home more readily than their Anglophone compatriots, who lack access to similar "childcare" services.

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So what can women do? Volunteer! They organize numerous charities, political and social groups, and lead the fight against alcohol use. They fight for the vote and tackle issues like child welfare, prostitution, and Canada's ethnic and cultural purity. To avoid subservience to men, they form separate groups, like the Women's Christian Temperance Movement, Women's Institutes and Local Councils of Women.

Women make up about 13% of the work force in Canada. 40% of these are employed in domestic service.

By 1900, women have won the right to vote municipally in the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island but not in provincial and federal elections

Women make up more than 80% of the Catholic teaching personnel in Quebec. They are paid two to three times less than male teachers and do not have access to the same training; moreover, lay teachers suffer the competition of the nuns, who hold 35% of the elementary school positions and are not required to undergo an admissions examination

The nursing profession is monopolized by nuns. Girls had been admitted as students at the Notre-Dame hospital in Montréal only three years earlier.

A French-speaking woman in Quebec who wishes to exercise her talents is best advised to join a religious community. They have a virtual stranglehold on education, nursing, and charitable works (orphanages, childcare, hospices, etc.). They employ hundreds of people and manage substantial funds.

|A Working Woman's Life (1889) |$ |

|Average hours worked per week |54 |

|Average number of days worked/year |359 |

|Average income |216.71 |

|Cost of clothing |67.31 |

|Cost of room and board |126.28 |

|Total cost of living |214.28 |

|Surplus |2.43 |

1. What is a political right that women did have at the beginning of the 20th century?

a). They could run for political office

b). They can vote in municipal elections in 4 provinces

c). They can vote in Canadian federally elections

d). They can vote in Canadian provincial elections

2. 40% of women in the workforce at the beginning of the 20th century are employed as:

a). Factory workers c). Domestic servants

b). Miners d). Telephone operators

3. What social issues did women help to address in the article?

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4. Provide ANY TWO examples of inequalities that women were experiencing at the beginning of the 20th century.

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5. Make three suggestions to women at the beginning of the 20th century on how they can improve their lives with respect to political rights and employment opportunities.

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