Female Spending Running the Nation

In the pages of Chatelaine, Saturday Night, Maclean's and other popular publications, the experts who stressed 'learning to budget' during the years of depression and war began instead to emphasize 'learning to buy.'" 1 Despite the historic expectation that men should be a family's primary breadwinner, companies quickly realized that women would be the most effective target of advertisements as they were in control of almost all household purchases. 2The role of women in spending the Canadian consumer dollar in the twentieth century transcends political, cultural, gender, and even environmental history.Examining the role of women in building a Canadian consumer identity is important because it allows one to see when and how women took ownership of the domestic sector of consumerism and, by extension, the ways it allowed them to empower themselves, their communities, and women across Canada.The topic has been divided into three sections following a theme-based analysis.The first section discusses the Canadian dollar for economic context and importance, including early spending statistics from the 1930s and the post-Depression consumer boom.It also discusses how women got involved in the Wartime Prices and Trade Board (WPTB).The second section focuses on the role of women in postwar consumer organizations.It discusses how women joined together to create the Consumers' Association of Canada (CAC), how women in the CAC protected Canadian consumers, as well as the relationship between women in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and women in the CAC.The final section focuses on women as consumers in the domestic sphere and the gender roles that influenced advertising.Additionally, the second and third sections, both covering the postwar time period, make connections between the ideas discussed in Doug Owram's book, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby Boom Generation, to see the effects of the baby boom on the consumer choices of Canadian mothers.From the 1930s through to the post-war period, whether as consumers in charge of purchases in their homes or as active members in consumer organizations, women have played a central role in the development of Canada's consumer identity.Looking at the history of the Canadian economy allows one to see the economic context behind varying degrees of consumerism among Canadian society.It is important to consider how foreign factors impacted the spending of those in charge of money in the Canadian household: women.In the twentieth century, the Canadian economy developed strong ties with, and even became somewhat dependent on, the United States when it came to foreign investment.By the 1950s, Canada received approximately one out of every three dollars given to foreign investment by the U.S. 3 The Canadian economy faltered in the years following the end of the Korean War and was directly impacted by the draining of dividend and interest payments from sectors of the Canadian economy with heavy U.S. investment. 4 In 1957, the employment rate