Post-War Canada

The cookbook, Your Good Neighbour Presents: 20 Good Luck Lunches, was published between 1952-1953. Canadians in the post-war era were experiencing new economic and social stability, which had never been seen before. This change greatly impacted the culture, demographics and way of life. To better understand the context of this cookbook, it is important to look at the factors influencing this time period.

Following the Second World War, Canada entered a “prolonged period of prosperity”. The economic successes and growth can be attributed to an increase in consumer demand due to the growing rates of new families, as well as increased trade of resources with the United States and Europe. Increases in social welfare benefits and labour unions created stable working-class employment. Canada’s middle class for the first time had significant “disposable income,” with more freedom to buy things that they wanted, rather than carefully saving for the essentials.

Another characteristic of the post-war era was population growth. Canada’s population nearly doubled, from 12.1 million in 1945 to 22.7 million in 1975. This was the period of the “baby boom” between 1945-1962, because of an increase in marriages, which were postponed due to the war, creating large number of young families in this era. Immigration also played an important part in increasing Canada’s population, with new immigrants arriving after the war from all over Europe as well as Asia. This larger Canadian population prompted an increase in urbanization and suburbanization. New and improved infrastructure was created to link residential areas to commercial areas.

This cookbook represents a tool for housewives to adapt to the changing times. This book focuses on the nuclear family, which aligns with the time period of the baby boom. The cookbook also highlights the diversity in diet and ingredient choice, as each meal for every member of the family is different. This represents the middle-class’s ability to afford these various ingredients, including fresh fruits.

Gender Dynamics

This cookbook is particularly geared towards the housewife. The cookbook has four sections: School Lunches, Office Girl’s Lunches, Husband’s Lunches and Afternoon Tea for the Wife. The gendered dynamic of this cookbook, with the assumption that the women pack the lunches, and that she has afternoons free to have tea with friends, along with role of “office girl,” represents a unique era. Many factors influenced this era, and place women in Canada in the role as caregivers and cooks for their family.

The Second World War has been attributed to shifting the role of women within the workforce. With the men away at war, woman entered the paid labour force and contributed to the war effort. However, many argue that the idea of women and femininity went unchanged, and women’s paid work was not socially valued.  There was a “renewed vigour in the post-war era to reinforce the middle-class ideal of the breadwinning husband and housekeeping wife”. There was a defined post-war culture, to protect the nuclear family, and reinforce a women’s role within the household.

 

These efforts to keep women within the home, however, were not entirely successful. A woman’s place changed considerably in the 1950s, and married women especially, entered the labour force.  According to Statistics Canada, in 1941, 19.8% of the labour force was women, while in 1951 it increased to 22.1%, followed by another increase to 27.3% in 1961. Women amounted for a small percentage of the overall workforce, however women’s participation was slowly increasing. One field that women traditionally worked in, before and after the war was clerical work. As shown in the cookbook and the daughter’s “Office Girl Lunches,” the role of secretary and clerk was a particularly gendered career. Clerical jobs were meant for middle-class women and was a “reachable goal for daughters of the working-class.” In 1951, 27.7% of all work employing women were within the clerical occupation.

This cookbook is an example of a way to reinforce this gendered role of housewife, as the language, pictures and theme exemplify the domesticity of women. Kate Aitken played a large role in creating Canada’s housewife, with her syndicated broadcast show which aired three times daily. Her topics included housekeeping, cooking, etiquette, and politics, as she was an accomplished and well-travelled journalist and entrepreneur. It is interesting that Kate Aitken, lived a professional and work filled life, while promoting and teaching women how to be better housewives.