Life for Lucretia in The Unmarriable Kind is modern beyond her mother and grandmother’s wildest imaginations in their youth.  Canada is now a unified nation with a population of 4.3 million.

Medicine

Emily Stowe studies medicine in New York and returns to Toronto to practice.  She is the first women physician to practice in Canada.  In 1883, the Ontario Medical College for Women opens.  Three years later, the University of Toronto allows women to enroll.

People riot in Montreal after compulsory smallpox vaccines go into effect in the 1870s.  In 1885, smallpox epidemics strike Montreal and Ottawa.

By 1890, surgery was a safe, successful and sanitary medical treatment.

A doctor leans over and pricks the arm of a seated woman in a train car. Several other people either stand or sit and watch. 1885. Public domain.

A doctor leans over and pricks the arm of a seated woman in a train car. Several other people either stand or sit and watch. 1885. Public domain.

City vs Country

Between 1840 and 1900, the standard of living increased.  As industrial output grew, prices fell and the dollar purchased 25 percent more.

Rent in cities was high, and jobs usually were unskilled and routine.  Factory work was brutal.  So much so that plants had their own prisons to lock up apprentices who breeched discipline.

In the 1880s, child labor laws went into effect, although they were impossible to enforce.  Boys under the age of 12, and girls younger than 14, were prohibited from working in Ontario and Quebec.  In Nova Scotia, boys were required to be 10 before seeking work and 12 before working a 60-hour work week.

As the 19th century progressed, more people moved from rural areas to the city.  Annually, winter freeze-ups still caused layoffs, and an influx of workers reduced wages.

Toronto Street before 1891.

Toronto Street before 1891.

Technology

In the 1870s, homes began being built with running water connected to sewer service.  A decade later, they were built with telephones and electricity.

Ottawa’s first telephone book, published in 1882, contained 200 listings.

By 1890, large cities were a maze overhead of telephone, telegraph and electric wires.

Advertisement for an acoustic telephone system by the Consolidated Telephone Co., Jersey City, NJ, 1886.

Advertisement for an acoustic telephone system by the Consolidated Telephone Co., Jersey City, NJ, 1886.

Nationalism

To be Canadian in the 19th century was to create Canada.  How was the question.  Independence from the British empire was easier said than done.  Canada still needed the UK to protect it from the American threat of annexation.

A small group of Liberals wanted to be annexed to the United States, and half a million Québécois moved to New England.  In 1871, however, the Treaty of Washington settled many of the issues the United States and Canada had with one another.

Dominion Day on Parliament Hill, early 1900s.

Dominion Day on Parliament Hill, early 1900s. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

Expansion West

From 1871 to 1877, a series of treaties were negotiated with First Nations’ peoples.  These were followed by land surveys and the North-West Mounted Police policing the area. Founded in 1873, the North-West Mounted Police were intended to be temporary.  Constables apprehended criminals, and officers tried them.

The government purchased land from the First Nation’s people for the construction of a transcontinental railroad.  During the winter of 1883-84, one in 10 natives died on the plains.

Multiple rebellions happened in the prairies as the region had no representation in the federal government other than the Department of the Interior. The North-West Territorial Council in Regina, Saskatchewan, handled some issues.

Buffalo herds began disappearing by the end of the 1870s.  In the span of five years, tens of millions were killed and their bones sold as fertilizer.

Ranching became a viable profession when refrigerated ships allowed for the export of meat in 1880.  In 1884, 54,000 head of live cattle were exported to the UK, a figure that doubled by the end of the century.

North-West Mounted Police post, 1875, Calgary.

North-West Mounted Police post, 1875, Calgary.

 

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