The CPR, Raitt, and 1910

Saskatoon in 1910, Valentine and Son Postcard

I started watching the series Madmen when it first was aired, but stopped, because it hit too close to home. I want to get into it again. I’ll just buy the DVD’s and watch the whole thing at one shot.

I worked as a radio copywriter many moons  ago, a mixed bag as a job. I like the job, I liked my co-workers, but the atmosphere….it was poisonous.

Montreal English radio was already in free-fall collapse, and our station was at the bottom, so we were over-worked for little pay by people with much better salaries desperate to keep their jobs.

My friend Nora and I helped get the Union in there, and then, burnt out, we left. All the people who were too afraid to help with the union were the ones who eventually benefited, big time as they could then flow into the TV side where pay and working conditions were excellent. So it goes.

Hard work never hurt anyone, and we worked hard. (It was a burn out job.)

But it was the psychological games some managers played that was most demeaning, humiliating.

For instance, two of us won awards one year, called Canadian Soundcraft.

Instead of congratulating us, one VP arrived in our office (no windows, full of cigarette smoke) and showed us a clipping from the Ottawa newspaper.

The CJOH copywriting department apparently won 10 awards or so.

“Why can’t you do that?” he asked.

My astute friend pointed to the picture and counted, one, two three..”Ten copywriters for one radio station.” Then she counted us, “Three copywriters for 2 radio stations.”

The fact was, we each wrote 10 to 20 ads a day on top of much clerical work which copywriters at other stations did not perform. Our station was struggling and most of these ads were last minute, to be aired that night type of thing. I once was asked to write an ad for a strip club, imagine, where the meaty sandwiches were named after the strippers. I refused and was called into the GM’s office and he said “Do it or get fired.” I did it, (in a joke way) but the announcer refused to voice it, anyway.

The Catch-22, the harder you worked, the less respect you got. Weird!

Anyway, this is really water under a far away bridge, but I write this because yesterday I see a news item saying that our Labour Minister Raitt is intent on dismantling unions. Strikes are bad for business.

Well, of course they are!  That’s the point. That’s the leverage. Who cares if I go on STRIKE. My husband, maybe, and even then, he’ll just cook his own meals. (I’ve been injured and he’s done all the work lately, anyway.)

I’ve spent the last five years on a personal project about the Edwardian Era and I’ve been chronicling the life of Laurier Era teachers, mostly. Flora, Marion and Edith Nicholson of Richmond Quebec working in Montreal.  Threshold Girl and Biology and Ambition are two ebooks in a series of three.

Back then most people worked long long hours for low low pay. Their brother Herb in 1910 is working for the CPR in Saskatoon (Yes) 10 am to 10 pm for 50 dollars a month. He had Academy III from Richmond’s St Francis Academy, a very high-class  high school diploma and about 5 years experience in banks. (OK, he’s a bit of a crook. ) The cost of living is very high out West in 1910, due to the Wheat Boom so the salary is extra paltry. And the hours, he writes in a letter home, make it difficult to  look for another job. (And he got that job due to connections.)

So Herb is making 600 a year, the same salary as Marion Nicholson is making working the in big city with a diploma. Teaching 50 kids, mostly very poor and many newly landed immigrants without English. Edith was making 200 a year working as a teacher without a diploma at a boarding school, so her hours were 24/7. Her boss would have claimed hers was a ‘vocation’ not a ‘job.’

According to historians, in 1910, a Canadian family needed 1,500 a year to live in dignity. Few families in Canada, in Montreal were making close to that.

There was a great disparity, in the Laurier Era, between the Haves and Have Nots. A gaping divide, actually. The 1911 Census is online, you just have to read it.

My Threshold Girl story has a child labour theme. I created a French Canadian character who works at Dominion Textile in Magog.

The Census page for Magog Textile workers shows EVERY employee working 60 hours, even part time ones. Hmm. 60 hours was the legal limit. Someone fudged the numbers. That company was powerful, they could buy off the enumerator, maybe??

Biology and Ambition is about Marion Nicholson’s early years. She went on to become a Union Leader and fought for better salaries and pensions for teachers. Threshold Girl contains a great deal about ‘the servant problem’.

Start of School 1909 and 1910

Dominion Park, postcard, colourized. The woman looking at the camera looks like Marion! Similar white dress!

This is one of my favorite letters from the Nicholson stash. Margaret is talking about being forced to buy a big hat…Hats were getting big in 1909. But the latest fashions are worn by young women. Trouble is, in towns like Richmond, in 1910, young women (like Edith and Marion) were moving to Montreal and buying their big fashionable hats at stores like Ogilvy. So the local town milliner had to push her hats on reluctant older buyers. (Seems that way.)

Anyway, Edith spends TWO days ironing to get ready for her work at Ecole Westmount Methodiste.

She starts later than Marion, who works on the Montreal board. I was just writing a scene for September 1909, when both Marion and Edith start jobs in the big bad city, and Marion has already gone in and visited Dominion Park.

Margaret warns her not to see Pauline. Pauline is a hypnotist.

Edith tells her mom that she has no interest in going to Dominion Park, but Marion had to go because their brother Herb has gone many times and told them all about it and Marion is not to be outdone.

Dominion Park was a thrill park opened in 1904 in the East End of Montreal. It had a fun house, an exhibit re=enacting the recent San Francisco quake and famously, the Infant Incubator exhibit, with real babies on display and nurses taking care of them. Shades of things to come with the Dionne Quintuplets.

October 2, 1909 Dear Marion, I had a letter today from Father written from the Queen’s. You saw his new suit, do you like it. He says it is all right. Also said he met Edith at the train. He did not say he met Charlie G. Of course, that is their last flirtation as he is going to Mexico. Grandma is here and we are not entirely alone but we feel lonesome. Father said you were well. You have got over your cold. I am glad that you are out of the church. Today we had Mr. Ross of Montreal as it was our Anniversary Service. Tomorrow we have our usual supper and entertainment. After seeing E off I went to Miss Hudon’s to cancel the order I had for a hat. She had already trimmed it, she did not wait for some trimming I was bringing. I think the hat too large. It would look well on you. Still, Mrs. Montgomery thinks it is becoming to me so I shall have to wear it. I met Edith McCourt at the church door with an immense black one on so I told her to come and sit with me. Mine would not look so large. So she did. So I guess it was all right. I don’t know whether Healy could see the Minister or not. We had a grand sermon, so I forgot about the size of my hat. I heard an old story that suited me about an old Scotch man who had two sons Jamie and Willie. Jamie went away from home to earn his living. The old man was praying that Jamie might be kept from all danger, sickness and evil temptations. But he said, don’t bother your head about Willie. I’ll keep him straight. I was telling them, that was like me, always worrying about the absent ones. Edith went away being tired. Just as you did, she ironed for two days. Have you heard from Herb? Write soon, Your loving mother, Margaret

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Norman Nicholson, 1900. Fuzzy, but it’s a blow up of a picture of him standing in front of his house. And it is the only photo of him with long white whiskers. There’s a family portrait, taken in 1896 showing him with long dark whiskers. And later on, he cut them off.

This fashion was on the wane in 1910. Herb mentions he doesn’t recognize someone because he has cut off his whiskers. Herb and other men in their twenties all appear clean shaven. I wonder if this is because of safety razors being invented. Must check.

I have Norman’s expenses before he married and a ‘shave and a haircut’ cost money.

Women didn’t spend anything on their hair. Hair salons were few and far between in North America. I saw an advert for a hair sculpting salon in Toronto. I guess society women went there when they wanted a fancy do like the Pompadour.

Of course, the hair industry is huge today. I think it got rolling after the WWII. And then hats slowly fell out of fashion.

Of course, as I recently discovered, a Toronto woman, Elizabeth Arden, moved to New York in 1909 and started a beauty salon based on the French fashion, but it was more about skin.

Arden wasn’t a beauty like Coco Chanel, but she did have a gorgeous complexion, apparently. She rose to become the richest woman in the world, supposedly. (Richer than royalty?) Chanel did pretty good herself, I suspect.

Below: Norman’s expenses as a bachelor: 15 for a haircut, once a month.