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|   Ellen lived in Canada during one of the worst economic downturns in the twentieth century. What was life like during a time of poverty and hardship? What did people do for fun? How did they "make do" with little money? What did it mean to "ride the rails"? Listening to the Radio Although Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi successfully sent a radio signal from England to Newfoundland in 1901, it wasn't until 1919 that the first Canadian radio station started broadcasting. Most of the early radio stations were owned by the Canadian National Railway, or CNR, which set up radio stations along the railway line and sometimes even broadcast programs from moving trains. The CBC was founded in 1936 and within a few years many Canadian families had a "wireless" in their home. The radio at Ellen's grandfather's house was much bigger than modern radios -- in fact, it was just as big as the TV in your living room. People would sit around the radio in the evenings, listening to news programs, music concerts, comedy shows, and dramatic plays just as we sit and watch TV today. And do you know why people called their radio the "wireless"? It's because radio signals were transmitted through the air, without any wires, unlike the telephone system, which used wires strung on poles to transmit its signals. This, of course, was long before cell phones! GO BACK TO THE TOP Making Do During the Great Depression, many people lost their jobs -- Ellen's father was one of them -- and even if they did find work again, they had very little money. After paying rent and buying food, most families had hardly any money left over, even for important things such as clothes. One way people tried to save money was by repairing and changing old clothes to make them last longer. Today, most people simply give away old clothes, or they throw them out if they are really worn. That would never have happened during the Depression -- people had to "make do" with the clothes they had. People thought of very ingenious ways to make their clothes look new. They might dye a pair of trousers to hide the faded spots, or pick apart a dress and re-sew it with the inside fabric facing out (another way to hide faded areas). If a sweater was worn, it could be unravelled and the yarn from it used to knit a new sweater. Garments that belonged to a grown-up could be altered to fit a child (this is what Ellen's mother was doing with dresses that had belonged to Ellen's late grandmother). Sometimes the fabric from one garment could be used to make something else: a dress could be turned into a blouse and a skirt, or a wool blanket could be made into a winter coat. All of this work took a lot of time and effort, so you can imagine how Ellen's mother must have felt when Ellen complained about her "old" clothes! GO BACK TO THE TOP Riding the Rails  During the Great Depression, the unemployment rate (the number of people who didn't have jobs) was very high in parts of Canada and the United States. Many thousands of people, hoping to find work in a different part of the country, left home and travelled around by hiding on freight trains. This was illegal and pretty dangerous, too -- but since cars were very expensive to own and maintain, "riding the rails" was the only way for some people to travel great distances. In Hobo Jungle, Ellen's friend Mister Will is one of those people. He used to have a farm of his own on the prairies, but his crops failed because of drought and he lost everything. Now all he has to remind him of his family is a faded photograph of his daughter, because "you can't carry luggage with you when you're riding the rails." Many people travelled from places such as the prairie provinces, where unemployment was very high, to cities such as Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Unfortunately, the big cities were filled with people looking for work too. Often the only way to survive was by begging for food from understanding people like Ellen's mom, and by riding the rails to a new place where there might be work. GO BACK TO THE TOP |
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