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Web Links
CHAPTER 1: A NEW CENTURY
INTERNET FOCUS QUESTIONS:
Demographic Patterns
- Who were the major groups that immigrated to Canada in the first decades
of the twentieth century?
- What were the circumstances that led to their immigration?
- How and why are contemporary immigration patterns different from historical
immigration patterns?
Researching, Recording,
and Organizing Information
- How can Internet sites be used effectively to research Canadian history
topics?
Analysing and Evaluating
Information
- How are Canadian viewpoints and policies on immigration different
now from those at the beginning of the twentieth century?
ACTIVITIES
THE LAST
BEST WEST
| 9.
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Use Internet resources to research
Laurier's "Last Best West" advertising campaign which succeeded
in attracting large numbers of immigrants to the Canadian prairies
in the late 1800s and early 1900s. What was the purpose of the campaign?
Who was the target audience? What groups were not targetted in the
campaign? Who was excluded from Canada in the early decades of the
century |
You
may have thought that multi-media advertising campaigns were a recent
phenomena. NOT SO!
| The Canadian Museum of Civilization has collected primary
sources from The
Last Best West advertising campaign in their Virtual Museum. Visit
their Web site and research the campaign that succeeded in convincing
3 million immigrants to come to Canada in the early decades of the
twentieth century. Be sure to view all of the different elements of
the campaign: for example, |
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Focus your research on the following questions and then write a report
on your conclusions:
- What media were used in the campaign?
- How do these media represent the technologies current at that time?
- What was the purpose of the different elements of the campaign?
- Who was the target audience?
- How would this campaign have convinced the target audience?
- What economic and political causes led to the campaign?
- How did the campaign help the Laurier government achieve its purpose?
Then, take a step back and consider these questions:
- Who was not targetted in the campaign?
- What groups were excluded from immigrating to Canada at that time?
- What government policies led to their exclusion?
IMMIGRATION PATTERNS
| 10.
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Compare the immigration patterns in
the last years of the twentieth century with those of the first
two decades. Brainstorm how and why Canadian immigration policies
are different now than they were then. |
Return to Canada: Our Century, Our Story and review the countries
of origin of the immigrants who came to Canada in the early decades of
the twentieth century (page 7). From where did most of the immigrants
come?
Then, at the Statistics Canada Web site, review the table, "Recent
Immigrants by Country of Last Residence." From which regions of the
world have the majority of recent immigrants come? To help you interpret
this data, create a pie chart using a spreadsheet computer program. How
is the recent data different from that of the early years of the century?
Work in small groups to brainstorm reasons why this change has occurred.
How do these two sets of data reflect different cultural attitudes and
government policies? In "History, Whose History?" (page 9 of Canada:
Our Century, Our Story), Michael Ignatieff is quoted as saying that
history "is the story of our arguments, . . . (and) the story of how we
managed to resolve them." How might this statement help you understand
the change in today's Canadian culture that has brought about the change
in Canadian immigration policy?
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