Collection search - Barnett, Edna - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Barnett, Edna - Interview

Item number (ISN):

379039

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-06-25/1974-06-27

Item number (ISN):

379039

Link to related resource:

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

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Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

THE GREAT WAR AND CANADIAN SOCIETY PROJECT

Accession:

1975-0098

Media:

Sound

Part:

2 of 2

Production date:

1974-06-25/1974-06-27

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Production credit:

interviewer, Lori Rotenberg

Description:

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Interview of Mrs. Edna Barnett of Toronto, age 85, who was born in 1888 in Toronto. Subjects discussed include: her childhood; her father's job as a traveling salesman; the family's religious background; the family's joining the Methodist Church; the family's move to London, Ontario; schooling in London; recreational activities such as the family putting on plays and seeing films and variety shows; attending the London Fair; reading the London Free Press newspaper; streetcars; her schooling; a girl from Dr. Barnardo's Home in England, hired to help Mrs. Barnett's mother; the family's rented cottage at Port Stanley; moving to Arden, Ontario; attending Albert College; activities such as elocution lessons and membership in the debating club; dating; teaching elementary school near Arden after she graduated from Albert College; the family background of the students; social activities in Arden; the Methodist religion; temperance; her move to Tweed in 1912; her work for the Temperance House hotel in Tweed; the community of Tweed; her membership as a child in London in the Templars, a young people's temperance group; her membership in Arden and Tweed in the Women's Christian Temperance Union; a morality play about a man who drank and ruined his family; her marriage in 1913; her husband's job; the shortage of building materials during the First World War; her sense of shame that she helped with recruiting during World War One, urging young men to enlist; a story of one of the young men, who came back from the war with a drinking problem and never made anything of his life; men learning to drink while overseas; her opinion that "we sent them like children into a situation that was terrible"; opposition by Methodists to the rum ration; a concert at the town hall to raise money for the Temperance House; her husband's view that a minister's sermon attacking the Kaiser was not very Christian; the anxiety felt by some of her friends who had a German background; advice from a friend that she should not be too critical of British policy in wartime; patriotism and enlistment in Tweed; the initial sense that the war would be over soon; acquaintance with soldiers who were killed; a friend who went on a dangerous mission; the difficulty of getting goods such as coal, clothing and goods made of metal; postwar employment of veterans; veterans selling magazines to earn a living and her response that she could not afford to buy any more; a story of boys around Arden who went into the woods to avoid conscription and remained in hiding until after the war; the false Armistice Day 48 hours before the real Armistice; attitudes among the Catholics and Protestants in Tweed; burning the Kaiser in effigy on Armistice Day; war bonds; singing at recruiting meetings; the readjustment of veterans; the treatment of German Canadians; membership in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; marching for peace; meetings of the Movement for a Christian Social Order; her growing support for socialism, especially after the 1929 stock market crash; attitudes about the Russian Revolution; more about the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Movement for a Christian Social Order; women’s suffrage; being unable to vote because her husband was only renting their home; the United Farmers of Ontario party and its leader Ernest C. Drury; a speech by Agnes MacPhail to the Women’s International League; the role of the church in 1920s Toronto as a centre of social activity; recreational activities such as going to the movies and to the cottage; summertime concerts in Arden to raise money for deaf and blind children; living in West Toronto after World War One; the significance of the period between the First and Second World Wars; the focus on local affairs by the residents of Tweed during World War One; and not hearing very much about the Winnipeg General Strike. ~She also talks about: a church minister who said that Moses was the first person to lead people out on strike; more about the Toronto branch of the Women’s International League; the close cooperation between Canadian and American members of the league; how all groups who wanted peace were suspect when World War Two broke out; and police monitoring of meetings of the Movement for Christian Social Order.

Language:

English

Notes:

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1. The interviews took place in 1974 and resulted in the publication of a book entitled "The Great War and Canadian Society" edited by Daphne Read - copyright 1978 - New Hogtown Press, Toronto.~2. Release forms, data sheets, and summary analysis/transcripts are available in binders labelled Opportunities for Youth - War and Canadian Society in VSA's audio-visual section.~3. Part of a series of recorded interviews with elderly citizens who lived in Canada during the period of World War I. The interview material consists of their opinions and observations about the war, the war years, and the effect on Canadian society during and after WWI. ~4. The interviewee signed an agreement giving consent for a recording of this interview to be placed in the Public Archives of Canada for the purposes of historical research and also signed a publication agreement allowing any transcribed portions of the interview to be used in the book under the condition that no full names, addresses or phone numbers would be published.~5. Subject description is based on information found in the fact sheet, deposit agreement, publication agreement and summary analysis.
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

Consultation copy number:

A1 2007-05-0058
A1 2007-05-0059

Restrictions on consultation:

No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

Reproduction access:

With written permission of Copyright Owner / Avec la permission écrite du détenteur des droits d'auteur

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Date modified:: 2024-06-04