General Awareness of the Book
The book “Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929-39” provides information on how municipal officials developed policies to address challenges associated with the economic crisis faced by their cities. The policies were developed in the 1930s and focused on addressing unemployment and poverty. The policies played a critical role in the development of the modern social welfare system in Canada. The city was reasonably a safe place for people at the beginning of the Dirty Thirties. The city faced a serious economic depression ahead of the Great War. The city faced another economic downturn in the 1920s. These challenges enabled the city to take measures to protect its people against hunger. The municipalities created relief programs that helped the city respond to hunger and joblessness, which affected her people.
Until 1933, the local governments took up the responsibility of caring for the urban poor when the farms failed to yield crops and the economic downturn deepened. The national government intervened in the situation with the intention of alleviating suffering. The government transformed the relief programs through diverse policy measures including distribution of food aid to single jobless people. The government also stopped financing diverse public utility projects.
The author presents a wider text on social welfare programs and urban poor relief services. The literature provides information on the different issues that policymakers considered while developing policy directions on relief programs administration for the city. There is also a rich text on first-hand experiences of people and families who relied on the relief distributions. The author focused the discussions around three cities including Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg. Strikwerda presents discussions to show that municipal officials played a critical role in developing diverse policies. The policies were intended to address issues that threatened the existence of social order as a result of the economic challenges. However, the author notes that municipal officials abused their powers in the process of developing the policies. The notable issues relate to how the municipal officials addressed married and single men in the new policies. The author argues that gender bias emerged as a critical issue within the new policies.
Main Issues Identified for the Book Review
The upcoming review will examine the differences in relief program approaches implemented in the three cities. The review will also examine what local governments considered significant in their relief response during the economic crisis. The review will also attempt to expand an understanding of the period when the social welfare policies were developed. Furthermore, examining the experiences of families who benefited from relief distribution will enhance an understanding of the period. The review will also examine how people reacted to the gendered and marital status approach used by the local government in relief distribution. Finally, the review will attempt to expand an understanding of the current policies for social welfare programs in Canada and their links with the policies developed in the 1930s.