Changes In Canadian life Between 1890-1905
Industrialization And Its Changes on Life
What Is Industrialization?
Industrialization is a process where technology and machinery replace the hassle of traditional labor task/jobs. Industrialization is a big part of our history, but it impacted different places in different ways. Both rural, and city areas were positively or negatively effected in all sorts of ways.
Changes In The City
Before industrialization city's had a controlled population, for example Montreal had a controlled population of 267,730, but because farming became harder for small landowners in rural areas, they started to move to the city's in search for new careers. When this took place the population of Montreal grew rapidly from 267,730 people to 490,504 people within 10 years. People moved to major city's mostly to work in the big up and coming factory business. Because of the overpopulation, the government had to start building more homes on unoccupied farmland.
Automobiles
In busy working areas it was very crowded, so most people lived a good distance away from where they worked (mostly took place in city environments). In the early 1900s automobiles were introduced to the public, and one of the first models was the Gray Dort, but most people could not afford to buy one. this automobile was listed at $650, but the average Canadian made a yearly income of $370. So for the people that couldn't afford these, the modernized alternatives of travel were street cars or bicycles.
Electric Street Cars
In the late 1800s street cars were introduced to the public. These came as a less costly alternatives to automobiles, and a faster alternative to horse-drawn carts. Street cars made peoples lives faster, easier, and less expensive.
Fun Fact
In the city of Toronto, electric street cars were most used. The city of Toronto had 361 street cars, and 109km of track
Changes In Rural Areas
In rural areas industrialization mostly effected farmers and their jobs. Before industrialization farmers used basic tools like hoes, and rakes to maintain their land. When machines were first introduced to farmers, only more wealthy farmers could afford them because they were too expensive. These machines (such as tractors) let farmers cover more land in short periods of time, and by doing this they made more money.
Advantages: With these new machines lives were made much easier for the wealthy. as lives were made easier, the wealthy also earned money faster than ever at their farms.
Disadvantages: While the wealthy farmers could afford these machines, the less wealthy could not. This left the less wealthy farmer with no way of having competition with the wealthy farmers, and the less wealthy farmers were losing money and customers. This happened because the farmers without machines were now working to slow and customer slowly lost interest.
Subtopic
Changes In daily Life
Childhood
In the early 1900s the lives of most children varied. Some children started going to school (at this point schools had more children than ever, More than %50 of children were at school), and some started to work at factories or farms. Basically most children had their lives determined by the financial statuses of their family.
Children Of Working Class Family's
Most children were believed to become early adults by the age of 13. Many children started to help their family's make money at this age so they could maintain their lives. They would shine shoes, deliver papers, and some children even ran other peoples errands for money.
Children In Less Fortunate Family's
Most less fortunate children were left out on the streets on their own to get money for their family's. What they did was called begging. Children would've been forced by their parents to beg people for loose change so they can live their lives. As years progressed, it became illegal for children to be begging for money, and this left some family's to starve.
How Laws For Children Changed
By the end of the 1800s, child labor was being discouraged, and people began to see the lives of children were a time to learn and play. Children the age of 13 were now not seen as young adults, and rather as CHILDREN. With this law being passed, children were now not allowed at saloons, and pool rooms anymore. Children also were prohibited from performing begging acts.
Adult Financial Status
Industrialization changed the financial status for lots of people. For example, Manufacturers had machinery lower their costs of parts and supplies to make their goods (because the parts took less time to make), so their profits rose higher than before.
What Happened To The Wealthy Business Owners
Again like farmers, only the weltheir people got ahead. Even though making factories, and buying machinery costed lots of money, businessmen continued to earn more money. Machinery began to take spots of workers, this meant that bosses had to pay less money to employees because they had less employees. This made the bosses richer.
What Happened To The Less Wealthy Business Owners/workers?
While wealthy business owners were pushing forward, people working for them were left in the dirt like small farmers. Workers working in factories had a monthly average income of $38, but average monthly expenses for a working class family were $48. Therefore some of these workers were left in debt, and again wealthy business owners left little chance of success for the smaller people.
Women Working
In the earlier 1800s, women did house work rather than working at farms or doing general labor. Woman were usually forced to stay home and do the dishes, care for children, watch farm animals, etc. But for all of these hard jobs women didn't get paid a single penny, but in the later 1800s things changed. More women started to show up at jobs they would get payed for, and women were getting new job opportunities in the city, things were changing for women at this point.