THE FDFINXSTMTION OF RELIEF TO THE LWEWLOYED IN VANCOUVER DUPING THE GREAT DEPRESSION John Douglas Eelshaw B.A.(Hons.), University sf ~ritishColumbia, 1979 THESIS SUE&!ITTED IF PARTIAL FULFILLPENT OF THE REQUIREPENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Departpent History . - @ John Douglps Belshaw 1982 SIPON FRASER UNIVERSf TY August 1982 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, withaut permission of the author. APPROVAL 7 Ncme: John Douglas Belshaw Degree; Easter of Arts Title of thesis: The Administration of Relief to the * Unemployed in Vancouver During the Great Depression ~xaminingCommittee: Cheirperson: C, R, Dey RO*FisherT Senior Supervisor 1. .r t -- -. ~obert\pj J, McDonald T External Examiner Assistant Professor Department of History University of British Columbia Date Approved: 16 August, 1982 PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis or dissertation (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its 'own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writ ten permission. Author : . - - (signature ) --.. 30~5.\+">& icw (name > 16 ~~UT(Ti?% (date ) ABSTRACT Unemployment in Vancouver, Canadz, during the Great Depression posed a significant threat' to the continuation of political and social norm. The emergence of a large body of workers --- -- . - - - ---- without- - jobs, many of whom could vote at the civic level, demanded the attention and intervention of private and governme-nt agencies, The response of the City of Varcouver and two major Christian denominations to the unemployment crisis is the subject of this thesis, The documentary evidence utilized came mainly from collections at the Vancouver School of Theology, the Catholic Charities and the City of Vancouver Archives. The inadequacy and abuse of contemporary statistical resources perpetuated a view of the unemployed that e~phasizod their potential for social disruption. Despite the fact that most of Vancouver's jobless citizens were permanent residents, community leaders and rglief planners took their cues from the single unemployed transients, a group that was pore likely to demonstrate hostility to the status quo. The main objective of relief programes through the 1930s soon came to be, therefore, social control, The United Church and the Romn Catholic --..- " - Archdiocese, concerned by a general decline in church attendance and the anti-church rhetoric of left-wing agitators among the unempzoyed, escalated their spiritual and worldly services to the poor. The civic administration, equally perturbed by the proliferation of demonstrations and protest marches, attempted iii to derail revolutionary ideas with an extension of its limited relief programmes, However, both church and state were constrained by the shortage of money. Consequently, in the absence of a strong social work ideology, relief was more a reffe- scal considerations than of the shifting needs of the unemployed.-- Relief was, simply put, the least- - expensive means of reintegrating the dispossessed into the established social milieu. DEDICATION To my father. ACKNOFLTLE DGEYEW'TS The completion of this thesis wzs greatly assisted by the professional, personal and financial support provided by several individuals and the Department of History at Simon Fraser University, The Cook Conference Scholarship, the Leon 3, Ladner Schofarship, teaching assistantships, the President's Research Stipend and computer moneys --- all of which came to me through the History Department --- have been real boons for which I cannot express sufficient gratitude. The staffs at the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Special Collections at the University of E.C., the Vancouver School of Theology, and the Catholic Charities Archives were all liberal with their time and their expertise. A special vote of thanks is due to Pzul Yee, Sue Eaptee, and the rest of the crew at the City of Vancouver Archives, Their insights and patience were a constant source of pleasure. Finally, the contributions of friends, fellow graduate students, 2nd my senior supervisor, Professor Robin Fisher, must be recognized, They Kay be assured thzt the debt has been duly noted. TABLE OF CONTENTS Approval .............................................,...*...ii Abstract ..................................................... Dedication .........v~................I.~..,....~..,~...,.~....v Acknowledgements .................................v...........vi List of Figures ............................................viii Abbreviations ......,...,,...........................,...ee.eeix V- The Civic Response to Unmpl oymen t ..................87 LIST OF FIGURE7S FIGURE PAGE k 1II:l Age Distribution of the Unemployed ...................... III:2 Nationalities of the Unemployed. 193C-1932 ............33 III:3 Houses. Suites and Parriages. Vancouver. 1929-1935 ..................................... 42 IIf:4 Suicides and Homicides in Vancouver. 1929-1939 .....*...................*.........................44 1V:l Welfare Department Budget. First United Church. 1929-1939 ......................................... 62 IV:2 Sore Declared Re1igious Affiliations in Vzncouver. 1921-1941 ......................*ee.....75 IV:3 Attendance Levels. First United Church. Vancouver. 1929-1939 ..............................79 IV:4 Attendance Levels. First United Church. Vancouver. 1929-1939 ...................,,......*.. 79 1V:S Marriages and Births. Vancouver. 1928-1939 ............81 IV:6 Parriages and Births. Vancouver. 1928-1939 ............82 &p V:l Costs of Relief. Civic and Provincial. 1930-1935 ..........................................98 -d V:2 Average Weekly ICndustrial Wage for Aduft Hales in B.C. ..........................................120 V: 3 Average Costs of Selected Staple Goods. October 1932 ..........................................* *. 120 V:4 Relief Caseloads .....................................121 viii ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations are used throughout this paper: CVA: City of Vancouver Archives, Vancouver, British Colpmbia. PABC: Provincial Archives of British Columbia. UCA: United Church Archives, Vancouver School of Theology. CCA: Catholic Charities Archives, Archdiocese of Vancouver. UBCL: University of British Columbia Library. MSS: Manuscripts. TS: Typescript. I, Introduction To amend an old adage, the poor are always witk us, but in varying degrees. During the 1930s their number seerod to increase exponentially in the wake of the Val1 Street crash, In Canada, as throughout much of the industrialized world, one consequence was a crisis in the provision of assistance and social services to the desititute and jobless. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, traditional philanthropic agencies had become circumscribed in the range of their activities by the growing involvement of governments in the sphere of social welfare provision. However, neither private nor public sector could hope to meet the burgeoni~gdemnd for unemployment relief in the depression; it wes 3oubtful they could do so even through combined efforts. Unernpleyment relief in Vancouver, Canada, was tezper~dby anxieties over political and social unrest. To be sure, discontent of equally serious proportions could as easily arise out of profligate spending on welfare projects. Churches with shrinking congregations and correspondingly deflated coffers dared not ignore this fiscal imperative. Aldermen found themselves in a similar predicament as they contemplated the corollary of increased civic expenditures, namely, bigher taxes. Though primarily a means of social control, relief to the unemployed was rigidly constrained by the cash nexus, The actual needs of the jobless Vancouverites were consulted only when they coincided or diverged radically from the priorities set by relief administrators in conjunction with their auflitors. _ v-'aL I,..-W~ FFr)l)~wr '.C, ./.lr.i &.\I i46(_lI $27 ,' aid and work relief were the ccbos avzilable, Scholarship on unemployment relief in Canada has tended towards fragmented analysis. Few historians have endeavoured to paint a conyrehensive picture of the nature and extent of unemployment assistance prior to 1940. Some historians writing on Vancouver, like Diane Patters and John Taylor, have focussed their attention on the public sector response to joblessness, almost completely excludicg any private sector efforts in their studies. James Struthers, by way of contrast, has coherently tied together the private and public sectors but really only at the Dominion level. If Struthers can be criticized at all it must be for his rather two-dimensional interpretation of the Canadian political milieu, in tbat it neglects the influences of i municipal interests and the personalities of Provincial premiers. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A, Cloward, two Amrican schclars, have e~deavouredto re-interpret welfare and unemployment relief as integral elements in government's arsonal of social controls. They describe relief programmes as trade-offs between disgruntled workers on the one hand