Discussions

In the 1900’s the Canadian West, (the Prairies) was a frontier area populated by only by about four hundred thousand people. It was the Promised Land for young people, just like Alberta still is today. The Dominion government offered 160 acres of land to any adult male, (single or married women were not permitted to become Homesteaders) who could within three years, establish a home and have cultivated at least fifteen acres. This generous offer was too lucrative to overlook and so with the help of the Railroad expansion thousands of young people travelled west. Over six hundred thousand immigrants moved here between 1869 and 1914, most were British or American, with two hundred and fifty thousand coming from central and eastern Canada, making this region predominantly white Caucasian, English speaking and protestant. Other ethnic groups were also attracted, but the records of these people are scarcer.  
Loneliness was a major problem in these days before transportation, telephones, and regular train service became the norm. Young male immigrants spent most of the daylight hours alone, breaking the land, caring for the livestock, constructing buildings, improving their homes, and repairing the farm implements. They had little energy at day’s end to socialize with women, even if there were any close at hand. Even when young bachelors had a horse or lived near a Rail Depot, the long distances from neighbours and villages prohibited meeting. Wintertime was even lonelier, the male Homesteader had more time on his hands, but was cooped up in his simple shack. Some young men worked in isolated lumber camps or railroad camps, which made them even lonelier. There was a ten to one disparity between men and women in the West: it was caused because there were greater job opportunities for women in the cities, like schoolteacher or domestic servant. The reputation of the West among Eastern women was that it was for drinking and lawlessness, but the Western men felt that the greatest hardship they faced was the absence of the fair sex.  
 
Of course women were also lonely, but the men were too busy trying to “prove up”, that is gain title to their Homestead with in three years. Women did not have a great deal of freedom in these times, because they were prevented by their parents, or by society to initiate contact with men, such behaviour was considered “unlady like”. This was a no win situation because the men were also shy, they could not get introductions from friends or family because these had been left behind in the East. The answer that both genders found to appease the desperate desire to find a partner was to correspond with some one through a newspaper column. This method of dating must have been successful because by the time the First World War came the amount of correspondence had declined. Wars have their own forms of loneliness, both for the maid at home and the Batchelor in the trenches, and it seems that both men and women were not going to put up with loneliness any more. The women felt more confident and assertive after the First World War because of their patriotic war efforts, and their successful struggles to obtain the right to vote and the more liberal attitudes towards women and therefore they would most likely to solicit their own introductions.  
 
By studying newspaper letters from the early 1900’s we can identify the ideal man and woman, this can be seen in two ways, the first is when a correspondent described the characteristics they required in a mate of the opposite sex, and secondly when correspondents described their own qualities. No doubt, as are today people tended to exaggerate or even down right lie. Before 1910 the ideal man must have abstained from “vices” primarily Alcohol. Women of this time wrote again and again that they were willing to give themselves to a sober and industrious young man, but they refused to become a life partner of a man who has contracted “the drink habit”, they would tolerate the lesser addictions of smoking cigarettes or chewed tobacco if indulged in moderation. Some women never married because of these habits believing that “ninety-nine percent of the young men one meet’s now days are unfit companions for any honourable woman”. Other women chose to overlook such behaviour believing that the influence of a loving wife could overcome these problems. Good looks were not important to women, some men wrote that they were as ugly as sin, but would forward photo on request. Men on the other hand were content to only expect his wife to do mostly housework and never have to do heavy labour around the farm, and were only expected outside the house for pleasure.  
 
When the west became more settled there became a demand for a “Sporting” culture, where women required their partners to participate in dancing, skating, horseback riding, and sport. Rinks, playing fields, and dancehalls were built, plus there was a greater availability and affordability of musical instruments and gramophones gave a new emphasis on the physically active male partner.  
 
Source: The Unmentionable History of the West.