Happyland: A History of the Dirty Thirties in Saskatchewan, 1914-1937

ISBN-13: 9781552385241 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 336 str.

Curtis R. McManus

Opis

Dirty Thirties- is the sobriquet commonly applied to the agricultural crisis in the drylands of southern Saskatchewan in Canada that coincided with the Great Depression, and it is generally assumed that prior to this period healthier, normal conditions prevailed. In Happyland, Curtis McManus contends that the -Dirty Thirties- actually began much earlier and were connected only peripherally to the Depression itself.

McManus has mined the rarely consulted records of Rural Municipalities in Saskatchewan, as well as government documents, ministerial correspondence, local community histories, newspapers, and publications of relevant government departments, to tell a story of a quarter-century of stubborn persistence but also of absurdity, despair, social dislocation, moral corrosion, and inconsistent and often inept government policy. Thanks to McManus's rare and welcome blend of sound scholarship and living breathing prose, it is a gripping and evocative story as well.

Spis treści

• Introduction: Oblivion
• 1. The Descent
• 2. "In the Thrill Zone of the Onrushing Calamity"
• Photos: Before the "Dirty Thirties"
• Interlude: A Collection of Absurdities
• 3. Hard Time
• 4. Exodus
• Photos: During the "Dirty Thirties"
• Interlude: Public Health
• 5. The Wreck of '37
• Conclusion: Oblivion (redux)
• Appendices
• Population Losses: An Overview
• Losses of "Resident Farmers"
• Population Losses, Central and South-East
• Population Increases: An Overview
• Tax Arrears and Tax Sale Holdings
• Municipal Relief Debt and Provincial Seed/Relief Loans
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index