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ECON 321 SPRING 2017: INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 9

1. [Reading] Read ONE of the following papers. You have a choice between a shorter, more technical paper or a longer, easier-to-read one.

· ‘Reverse Assimilation? Immigrants in the Canadian Labour Market During the Great Depression,’ (Technical, 14 pages of text, plus graphs and tables)

· ‘Distress, Dissent and Alienation: Hamilton Workers in the Great Depression,’ (Marxist, Easier to read, 24 pages)

a. Write a 3-2-1 report on one of the two papers above. Remember that you CAN’T just copy-and-paste text from the paper. You must use your own words. (12 marks)

3-2-1 reports:

Question 1

What are the 3 most important concepts, ideas or issues in the reading?

Briefly explain why you chose them.

Question 2

What are the 2 concepts , ideas or issues in the article that you are having the most difficulty understanding, or that are missing but should have been included?

Briefly explain what you did to correct the situation (e.g. looked up an unfamiliar word or a missing fact), and the result.

Question 3

If you could ask the author 1 question, what would it be? Whyis this question important?

b. There are two versions of this question, one for each paper. Answer only the one related to the paper you chose. (2 marks):

i. ‘Immigration’: The paper claims that “older immigrants of long-standing in Canada suffered large earnings disadvantages even within occupations” (p. 11). Explain briefly the reason for this phenomenon, and for why it was not seen as strongly in younger immigrants.

ii. ‘Distress’: Based on what you have read, would Hamilton workers have been better off or worse off if they had not been able to successfully organize strikes? Explain briefly.

2. [‘Raphing] “In Canada, communist-led Women’s Progressive Clubs and United Women’s Councils had protested through the 1930s against high prices and advocated for families on relief, demanding government intervention to bring down the price of milk, bread, and meat.” (Guard, 31)

During the 1930s, Canada suffered from deflation – most prices went down. In this question, you’ll use a combination of nominal price data and wage indices to investigate whether milk, bread and butter actually did become less affordable to wage-earners during the 1930s.

If doing this by hand, plot data only for 1930 – 1939.

a. (6 marks) You have been given data on wages and prices for the years 1919 – 1929. The wage data is in the form of an index. The price data is in cents. Create indices for the cost of milk, bread and beef relative to wages earned in the building trades, and scale the index so that all values are equal to 100 in 1930. Plot the data on a line graph with Years on the horizontal axis and Index on the vertical axis. There should be three lines on your graph. Step by step, here’s what you need to do:

i. Divide each price by the Building Trades wage index for that year. That will give you three new columns of data. For example, in 1930 the wage index is 123 and the price of milk is 12.8, so your new column should have the value 12.8/123 = 0.104 in the 1930 row. Do this for all years, and for milk, bread and beef.

ii. Divide the values obtained in i. by the value of the same column in 1930, and multiply by 100. For the ‘milk’ column, you’d divide everything by .104 and multiply by 100, giving you an index that’s 100 in 1930, as required.

iii. Once you have all three indices, plot them on a line graph as described. Your lines should all cross at (1930, 100).

b. (6 marks) Repeat part a., but this time use the Common Factory Labour wage index, instead of the Building Trades wage index.

c. (2 marks) According to your graphs, did milk, bread and beef become less affordable over the course of the 1930s? Explain briefly. (Hint: This question is not as simple as it looks!)

3. [Research] Canada finally implemented Unemployment Insurance in the 1940s, but the possibility was debated in Parliament in 1935. According to Ruth Roach Pierson, the “Great Depression was … a period of gender crisis … framed by the belief that the position of head of household and family provider was an essential property of masculinity,” and therefore during the 1935 debates on unemployment insurance, “female unemployment was trivialized” (Pierson, p. 78). For this question, you’ll look into the records of the parliamentary debates and investigate this claim.

Unless you have a great data plan and a lot of free memory, do NOT try to download the House of Commons debates as a PDF! It’s a 600 MB file. Consider reading it online, instead – the web site lets you browse one page at a time, and skip to the pages you’re looking for.

(question 3 reference at page 7)

a. (6 marks) Examine the House of Commons debates on Unemployment Insurance during January, February and/or March of 1935. Find at least two different instances in which female (un)employment was seen as being less important than male (un)employment. Present the evidence and explain your reasoning as to why it is relevant to this question. Cite your evidence in such a way that the TA can look it up (e.g. by providing the page number).

[Use Hint: Consider looking at the debates for February 12, 1935, Prime Minister Bennett speaking, on pages 725 – 731 . Also keep in mind that you need two DIFFERENT items: if you find two different cases in which (for example) women would have to wait longer than men to receive benefits, that still only counts as one instance.]

b. (6 marks) Examine the House of Commons debates on Unemployment Insurance during January, February and/or March of 1935. Find at least two different instances in which female (un)employment was seen as being just as important as male (un)employment. Present the evidence and explain your reasoning as to why it is relevant to this question. Cite your evidence in such a way that the TA can look it up (e.g. by providing the page number).

[Hint: Consider looking at the debates for March 8, 1935, ‘Mr. Woodsworth’ speaking, on pages 1537 – 1538.]

c. (2 marks) Based on what you have read, do you believe that female unemployment was trivialized or considered less important than male unemployment by the House of Commons in 1935? Briefly explain your reasoning.

Useful References (UVic connection or VPN needed for free access)

Question 1

Kris Inwood et al., “Reverse Assimilation? Immigrants in the Canadian Labour Market During the Great Depression,” London School of Economics, Economic History Working Papers, No. 205/2014.

Available at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57209/

Archibald, W. “Distress, Dissent and Alienation: Hamilton Workers in the Great Depression,” Urban History Review, Vol. 211, 1992, pp. 3 – 32.

Available at https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/uhr/1992-v21-n1-n1/1019244ar/

Question 2

Julie Guard, “A Mighty Power against the Cost of Living: Canadian Housewives Organize in the 1930s,” International Labor and Working-Class History, No. 77, 2010, pp. 27-47.

Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/40648582

Dominion Bureau of Statistics, “Index Numbers of Rates of Wages for Various Classes of Labour in Canada,” The Canada Year Book 1942, pp. 711-712.

Available at http://www66.statcan.gc.ca/eng/acyb_c1942-eng.aspx

Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Prices Division, Urban Retail Food Prices 1914 – 59, May 1960.

Available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015069226838

Question 3

Ruth Roach Pierson, “Gender and the Unemployment Insurance Debates in Canada, 1934 – 1940,” Labour, Vo. 25, 1990, pp. 77 – 103.

Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/25143341

Dominion of Canada, “Official Report of Debates of the House of Commons, 25-26 George V, 1935,” Volumes I and II, J. O. Patenaude, I.S.O., Ottawa, 1935.

Archived at http://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC1706

Data for Question 2 (For Sources, see References)

Year

Wage Index

Price (Cents)

Building Trades

Common Factory Labour

Fresh Milk (Quart)

Bread (1 lb)

Beef, Blade Roast (1 lb)

1919

89.7

94.7

13.8

7.9

27.3

1920

109.5

113.2

15

9.3

26.6

1921

103.2

100.2

14

8.1

20.9

1922

98.4

96.2

12.1

6.9

17.1

1923

100.7

95.5

11.7

6.7

16.2

1924

102.7

96.3

12.1

6.9

15.7

1925

103.1

97.9

11.9

7.8

16.1

1926

104.2

98.5

12

7.4

16.9

1927

108.5

98.7

11.9

7.6

18.3

1928

112.3

98.4

12.4

7.7

21.8

1929

119.6

98.7

12.8

7.4

24.1

1930

123

98.9

12.8

7.4

23.5

1931

118.5

96.4

11.4

6.4

16.8

1932

107.9

91.3

9.9

6

13.7

1933

95.6

88.4

9.5

5.6

11.9

1934

93.7

89.8

10.1

5.6

12.1

1935

96.7

92

10.5

5.7

13.3

1936

97.3

94.5

10.7

6

13.2

1937

100.1

102.8

10.9

6.6

15

1938

102.5

105

11.3

6.7

15.7

1939

103.3

105.9

11.1

6.2

16.7

On the following page, I’ve plotted the wage indices and prices for you. These plots aren’t needed to answer the question, they’re just provided to help you visualize the data.

Wage Indices for two Professions (Source: Canada Yearbook 1942)

Building Trades 1919.0 1920.0 1921.0 1922.0 1923.0 1924.0 1925.0 1926.0 1927.0 1928.0 1929.0 1930.0 1931.0 1932.0 1933.0 1934.0 1935.0 1936.0 1937.0 1938.0 1939.0 89.7 109.5 103.2 98.4 100.7 102.7 103.1 104.2 108.5 112.3 119.6 123.0 118.5 107.9 95.6 93.7 96.7 97.3 100.1 102.5 103.3 Common Factory Labour 1919.0 1920.0 1921.0 1922.0 1923.0 1924.0 1925.0 1926.0 1927.0 1928.0 1929.0 1930.0 1931.0 1932.0 1933.0 1934.0 1935.0 1936.0 1937.0 1938.0 1939.0 94.7 113.2 100.2 96.2 95.5 96.3 97.9 98.5 98.7 98.4 98.7 98.9 96.4 91.3 88.4 89.8 92.0 94.5 102.8 105.0 105.9

Year

Index

Price of Essential Items, in Cents

(Source: Dominion Bureau of Statistics)

Fresh Milk (Quart) 1919.0 1920.0 1921.0 1922.0 1923.0 1924.0 1925.0 1926.0 1927.0 1928.0 1929.0 1930.0 1931.0 1932.0 1933.0 1934.0 1935.0 1936.0 1937.0 1938.0 1939.0 13.8 15.0 14.0 12.1 11.7 12.1 11.9 12.0 11.9 12.4 12.8 12.8 11.4 9.9 9.5 10.1 10.5 10.7 10.9 11.3 11.1 Bread (1 lb) 1919.0 1920.0 1921.0 1922.0 1923.0 1924.0 1925.0 1926.0 1927.0 1928.0 1929.0 1930.0 1931.0 1932.0 1933.0 1934.0 1935.0 1936.0 1937.0 1938.0 1939.0 7.9 9.3 8.1 6.9 6.7 6.9 7.8 7.4 7.6 7.7 7.4 7.4 6.4 6.0 5.6 5.6 5.7 6.0 6.6 6.7 6.2 Beef, Blade Roast (1 lb) 1919.0 1920.0 1921.0 1922.0 1923.0 1924.0 1925.0 1926.0 1927.0 1928.0 1929.0 1930.0 1931.0 1932.0 1933.0 1934.0 1935.0 1936.0 1937.0 1938.0 1939.0 27.3 26.6 20.9 17.1 16.2 15.7 16.1 16.9 18.3 21.8 24.1 23.5 16.8 13.7 11.9 12.1 13.3 13.2 15.0 15.7 16.7

Year

Price in Cents