The Northern Plains Borderlands During the Great Depression

University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2014-07-03 Grass Roots Connections: The Northern Plains Borderlands during the Great Depression Bye, Cristine Georgina Bye, C. G. (2014). Grass Roots Connections: The Northern Plains Borderlands during the Great Depression (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26319 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/1597 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Grass Roots Connections: The Northern Plains Borderlands during the Great Depression by Cristine Georgina Bye A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA JUNE, 2014 © Cristine Georgina Bye 2014 Abstract Writers and scholars who have studied the northern Great Plains borderlands argue that the region possessed a unique, cross-border community in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This dissertation argues that this community persisted beyond the settlement era, well into the 1930s. This is significant because powerful forces threatened to divide Canadian and American borderlanders during this period. National authorities effectively closed the border in late 1929 in response to the economic disaster that afflicted both countries. Steep tariffs limited cross- border trade, and strict immigration rules restricted migration from one country to the other. Border crossers were under increased scrutiny from border officials and lawmakers. But none of this stopped Americans and Canadians who lived near the forty-ninth parallel from intermingling on the northern Plains. Indeed, the sense that they belonged to a special community only intensified. This dissertation is a grass roots social history of the northern Great Plains borderlands. It makes a contribution by exploring the significance of the border in ordinary borderlanders’ lives. It shows that borderlanders’ relationship with the border came to shape their identity. People who lived near the forty-ninth parallel had more in common with each other than with their fellow countrymen and women. They asserted their borderlands identity alongside or over and above their respective national identities. Newspapers, memoirs, letters, government records, local histories, and interviews with people who lived in the Plains borderlands in the 1930s show that borderlanders’ many transborder interactions helped them juggle multiple identities ii and transcend national, ethnic, and cultural differences. Canadian and American borderlanders of different backgrounds regularly crossed the border and participated with each other in national, social, business, and other events. They took a keen interest in each other’s lives. They saw each other as people experiencing similar hardships and they looked to each other for ideas, resources, companionship, and inspiration. Borderlanders felt their cross-border ties set them apart from non- borderlanders. Maintaining their community was very important to them. Long after the border was established and settlers filled the borderlands, grass roots connections continued to unite people on both sides of the line. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to many people and organizations for helping to make this dissertation a reality. First, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. David B. Marshall, for championing this project over the long haul. I couldn’t have done it without you! I am also grateful to the members of my examining committee, Dr. Patrick Harvey Brennan, Dr. Frank Towers, Dr. David Charles Jones, and Dr. Sheila M. McManus, for their careful reading of the dissertation and their thoughtful comments. Marilyn Croot provided the wonderful map that accompanies this dissertation. I feel fortunate, in addition, to have received generous financial assistance from the University of Calgary, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship, the Canadian Federation of University Women, the Western History Association, and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. For helping me with the research portion of this project, I thank the men and women who enthusiastically agreed to participate in oral history interviews on their experiences of the northern Great Plains borderlands: Boyd M. Anderson, Peyton Bennett, Astrid Bergen [pseudo.], Noel and Sharon Emond, Delores and Duane Larsen, Orland MacInnes, Velma McCrea, Dolly Mitchell, Edgar Richardson, Clarice and Ralph Susag, Luvine Treharne, Shirley Magnuson, Betty Ulrich, Hartley Urquhart, and Alvina Wright. Staff and volunteers with all the archives, museums, and libraries I visited in southern Saskatchewan and northern Montana proved very helpful. Shirley Ausen took me to her hometown reunion in Oungre, Saskatchewan, and kindly introduced me to several borderlanders. I also appreciate Allen and iv Audrey McCrea, Mary and Edgar Richardson, and Mary Murphy for their hospitality and support. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends and family. Miranda Meents and Kate Logan helped me transcribe interviews, and Kate shared her bountiful research skills with me on a trip to Helena and in the microfilm room at the University of Calgary’s MacKimmie Library. My friends Dot Foster and Jeri Lynne Erickson have been treasured fans. Special thanks goes to my sister JoAnne Meents, who paved the way, and my mother, Muriel Bye, who taught me to love history and who supported my academic dreams. Finally, I thank my children, Georgina and Lawson Beaty, for enriching my life beyond measure. v Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………... ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………… iv Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………….. vi Map: Northern Great Plains Borderlands – 1930s…………………………………….... vii Introduction: An Intermingled Community…………………………………………........ 1 Chapter 1: That Imaginary Line………………………………………………………… 50 Chapter 2: The Border Tightens………………………………………………………... 97 Chapter 3: Borderlanders Fight Back…………………………………………………. 138 Chapter 4: A Smuggling Culture……………………………………………………… 174 Chapter 5: A Shining Example………………………………………………………... 204 Chapter 6: Romancing the Border…………………………………………………….. 248 Chapter 7: Like Old Times……………………………………………………………. 273 Conclusion: The Community Endures………………………………………………… 296 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………... 303 vi NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS SASKATCHEWAN Saskatchew BORDERLANDS - 1930s an Qu’Appelle Community Fort Qu’Appelle River Road River The Fishing Lakes Provincial/State Boundary South Regina International Boundary Moose Jaw Swift Current Qu’Appelle Bow R Medicine Hat Bateman River Oldman Mossbank Gravelbourg Maple Creek Taber Yellow Grass Ponteix Congress Crane Lethbridge Valley Weyburn ALBERTA Assiniboia Amulet Stirling Shaunavon Ogema hman Eastend Magrath nc River Limerick Ceylon re MeyronneWoodrow Willow Radville Manyberries F McCord Flintoft Bunch Bengough Fife Harptree Oxbow Wood Lake Fife Big Tribune Ferland Mountain Lake Estevan Frontier Climax Conopus Lake Muddy Oungre Carnduff Milk River Val Marie Hart Minton Alma North Macworth River Wild Divide Kildeer Coronach Buffalo Gap Outram Portal Bracken East Poplar Big Beaver Lk Coutts Horse Masefield Beaubier Aden Willow Creek Lonesome Butte Rockglen Big Muddy Regway Sweet Grass CANADA Summercove ConstanceBorderland Northgate Milk West Poplar Portal Sunburst USA Caldwell Outlook Whitlash r Coal C Raymond Cr Whitetail k Thoeny Hogeland c Carbert Turner Crosby o Fortuna Ambrose R Cut Bank Westby Opheim W . Madoc Dagmar Glentana Fo Scobey Flaxville Richland Peerless r Redstone k P NORTH P o Shelby Harlem op p Plentywood lar l Milk R a Antelope Medicine Havre r Lake DAKOTA Wagner Lustre R iv Saco e Froid River r Big Sandy Malta Hinsdale Glasgow Wolf Point MONTANA Missouri Fort Peck River Fort Peck Dam Poplar Regina Culbertson Missouri River Great Falls 0 25 50 75 100 miles 0 50 100 150 kilometres INTRODUCTION An Intermingled Community Members of the International Lions Club of Coutts, Alberta, and Sweet Grass, Montana, were upset. On December 7, 1935, they wrote Montana Senator James E. Murray to complain that American immigration officials were not providing around-the- clock service at the local port of entry. The club explained that oil refinery workers, highway travellers, and local residents who regularly crossed the international boundary urgently needed extended service: “The entire community on both sides of the border affiliate and intermingle in their social and business relations and the lack of twenty-four hour immigration service is a glaring inconvenience and nuisance.” The senator immediately took up the matter with the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization in Washington, assuring the Lions Club that “I sincerely hope that they will find it possible to make the necessary change.” Letters flew between Murray, senior customs and immigration administrators, the Coutts-Sweet Grass Lions Club, and other organizations in northern Montana who shared the club’s concerns. I. F. Wixon, the

Load more