Vancouver Past: Essays on Social History

328 Pages·1986·23.935 MB·English

by  Robert A. J. McDonald, Jean Barman

VANCOUVER PAST:
ESSAYS IN SOCIAL HISTORY
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VANCOUVER PAST:
ESSAYS IN SOCIAL HISTORY
Vancouver Centennial Issue of BC Studies
Edited by
Robert A. J. McDonald and Jean Barman
University of British Columbia Press
Vancouver
1986
Vancouver Past: Essays in Social History
Vancouver Centennial Issue of BC Studies
© The University of British Columbia Press, 1986
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This book has been published with the help of grants from the University
of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Victoria,
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the
Koerner Foundation, the British Columbia Heritage Trust and the
Vancouver Centennial Commission.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Vancouver past: essays in social history
Also issued as BC studies, no. 69-70.
Bibliography: p.
ISBN 0-7748-0256-1
i. Vancouver (B.C.) — Social conditions.
2. Vancouver (B.C.) —History. I. McDonald,
Robert A. J., 1944- II. Barman, Jean,
1939- III. BC studies.
FG3847.394.V35 1986 97 i.i'33 086-091428-3
Fio89.5.v22V35 1986
ISBN 0-7748-0256-!
Printed in Canada
To
MARGARET PRANG
ON HER RETIREMENT FROM THE
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
Founding co-editor, BC Studies, 1968-83
Professor, Department of History, University of British Columbia, 1958-86
Head, Department of History, University of British Columbia,
1974-79 and 1982-83
President, Canadian Historical Association, 1976-77
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Contents
BG STUDIES/Number 69-70
Preface 9
Cottages and Castles for Vancouver
Home-Seekers DERYGK w. HOLDSWORTH 11
Working Class Vancouver, 1886-1914: Urbanism and Class
in British Columbia ROBERT A. j. MC DONALD 33
Sam Kee: A Chinese Business in Early Vancouver PAUL YEE 70
Neighbourhood and Community in Interwar Vancouver:
Residential Differentiation and Civic Voting
Behaviour JEAN BARMAN 97
The Confinement of Women: Childbirth
and Hospitalization in Vancouver, 1919-1939
VERONICA STRONG-BOAG and KATHRYN MGPHERSON 142
The Triumph of "Formalism": Elementary Schooling in
Vancouver from the igsos to the ig6os NEIL SUTHERLAND 175
The Incidence of Crime in Vancouver
During the Great Depression JAMES p. HUZEL 211
The Mothers' Council of Vancouver: Holding the Fort
for the Unemployed, 1935-1938 IRENE HOWARD 249
"A Palace for the Public": Housing Reform and the 1946
Occupation of the Old Hotel Vancouver JILL WADE 288
A Half Century of Writing on Vancouver's
History PATRICIA ROY 311
Contributors 326
Illustrations
Cottage, Grand view, constructed 1892 18
Turreted house. West End, ca. 1890 18
Designs for workingmen's homes from Hodgson's pattern book 19
Half-timbered house, Third Shaughnessy, 19205 19
California bungalow, 19205 20
Stucco cottage, Point Grey, 19205 20
Printer's picnic, Gibson's Landing, ca. 1894 5°
Carpenter's gathering, 1890 50
Dupont [Pender] Street, ca. 1899 51
Louis D. Taylor 51
Rev. George R. Maxwell 51
Chang Toy, founder of Sam Kee Company 80
Sam Kee Company, 433 Carrall Street, ca. 1905 80
Vancouver General Hospital, ca. 1925 149
Vancouver General Hospital, ward interior, ca. 1919 149
Lord Tennyson School, Division 3, ca. 1923 192
Cecil Rhodes School, 1949, Grade i 192
Sarah Colley 262
Helena Gutteridge 262
Mothers' Council marching in May Day Parade,
George near Pender, 19305 262
Effie Jones 263
Elizabeth Kerr 263
Women's demonstration, Stanley Park, 1935 263
Old Hotel Vancouver, ca. 1927 306
Labor Progressive Party veterans picketing Old Hotel Vancouver,
January 1946 306
Maps
Political units and neighbourhoods, Vancouver 17
Geographical areas, Vancouver 135
CREDITS
City of Vancouver Archives, 18, 50, 51, 80 top, 149 bottom, 192 top; Vancouver
Public Library, 80 bottom, 262 top right and bottom, 263 top left, 306 top; Special
Collections, University of British Columbia, 149 top; Pacific Advocate, 4 January
1946, 306 bottom; Sara Diamond, 263 bottom; Jane Fredeman, 192 bottom; Deryck
Holdsworth, 19, 20; Patrick and Gloria Kerr, 263 top right; Louise Colley Tilton,
262 top left; Julia Sandquist, map, 17; Angus Weller, map, 135.
Preface
Vancouver's centennial of incorporation on 6 April 1886 has provided
the impetus to this special issue of BC Studies. It seemed appropriate to
bring together in a single volume research currently underway by aca-
demics, graduate students and other scholars on the history of Canada's
third largest city.
The result has outdistanced its original, rather modest objective, the
essays as a group demonstrating that the history of Vancouver is matur-
ing. While previous work emphasized the city's early, formative years,
the majority of essays in this volume treat the coast city as a dynamic,
complex, urban place. Their concern is with the early and mid-twentieth
century, thus pushing forward in time our knowledge of Vancouver's
past. More importantly, perhaps, the political and economic focus of
much of the previous work is here complemented by subtle and sustained
analyses of Vancouver's social development. Emphasis on connections
between the Burrard Inlet metropolis and its surrounding region, which
as Patricia Roy points out in her essay has been a staple of writing about
Vancouver, is giving way to discussion of the lives of ordinary citizens.
While the essays presented here do not attempt to establish a single
interpretation of west coast life, together they touch on many aspects of
the Vancouver experience, enriching our understanding of the city's
history and opening numerous topics for further discussion. Deryck Holds-
worth and Jean Barman explore the social significance of spatial arrange-
ments. Holdsworth argues that, to 1929 at least, this low density, subur-
ban city more readily fulfilled people's aspirations to live in detached
houses than did the industrial centres of eastern Canada and Great
Britain from which most residents came; Barman documents the social
character of Vancouver neighbourhoods, concluding that, during the
interwar years, the socio-economic distinctions separating East Side from
West Side were lessened by the integrating ties of community. In an
overview of working class life to 1914, Robert McDonald argues that,
while capitalist economic relations fundamentally divided Vancouver's
9
BG STUDIES, nos. 69-70, Spring-Summer 1986