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SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Elizabeth Wilson : unemployed struggles in the 1930s in Vancouver RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-05-26 & 27 ; 1979-06-04 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Wilson describes the conditions and the struggles of the unemployed during the 1930s. A meeting on the Cambie Street grounds was broken up by police on horseback with riot sticks. The organizers were deported. She worked for the CCF to build Dorothy Steeves' campaign. Inhabitants of Vancouver East were particularly militant, fighting evictions and assisting the less aware West Enders. Mrs. Wilson was forced onto relief; she had formerly worked as a waitress. After a demonstration at the Holden Building, Gerry McGeer read the Riot Act at the cenotaph (1935). Relief recipients all received the same marked clothing. Women received thirteen dollars a month on relief. Andrew Roddan, the minister of the First [United?] Church, preached to the unemployed and visited False Creek, and distributed loaves of bread to the shantytown of unemployed men. The Communist Party was central in leading the unemployed. TRACK 2: Women during the Depression faced great difficulties in controlling unwanted pregnancy. Many women resorted to abortion using knitting needles or slippery elm. Only one local doctor, Dr. Telford, dispensed birth control. The welfare system provided constant harassment of recipients by social workers. Deserted women were forced off relief and onto alimony, but most of their husbands never paid up.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Vivian Dowding : early birth control organizing in B.C., 1930s RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-24 SUMMARY: Mrs. Dowding was a pioneer of birth control in BC. She was a member of the CCF and is still active in the NDP. Her work was influenced by Margaret Sanger and other early pioneers of birth control in North America. She was employed by the Kaufman Rubber Company, distributor of birth control devices in Canada. She describes conditions in working class communities during the 1930s; the distribution process for birth control devices; attitudes towards family planning on the part of Church and Kaufman; the role of the CCF in promoting birth control. She often faced harassment by the police when visiting towns to see women. She only saw people who were recommended by word of mouth, as public distribution of birth control was prohibited. While Kaufman saw birth control as a way of freeing government from having to support unwanted members of a surplus labour force, Mrs. Dowding and many women like her, saw birth control as a first step to liberate women and alleviate the misery and poverty of many working class families.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Ruth Bullock : women in the C.C.F. and workforce, 1935-1950 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-25 SUMMARY: Ruth Bullock grew up in Beaton, B.C. She attended school until the age of 10 and a half, when her father was killed in a mining explosion, leaving her mother as the single support of five small children. The family later moved to a sheep ranch on Saltspring Island. At 17, she left the farm and became a domestic in Hatzic for $15 a month. Later, she moved to another farm for $20 a month. There were no unions for domestics and they were not protected by government legislation. She first married in 1929 and soon had a daughter. Ruth grew up in the radical Scots tradition, first becoming interested in birth control after her daughter's birth and difficult delivery. She joined the newly formed C.C.F. in 1932-33, where she met Vivian Dowding of the Parent's Information Service. At this time, unions were very weak. The Spanish Civil War further radicalized her and she helped to support the struggles of the unemployed and the Longshore Strike. She later left her husband. In 1944 she became interested in the Trotskyists, disagreeing with the Labour Progressive Party's no-strike policy in the war industries. She worked in a canning factory where the workers resisted speed-ups and the distribution of poor quality food to the rank and file soldiers and high quality food to the officers. She was a member of the I.W.A. Women's Auxiliary, and assisted in organizing clerical workers at Burrard; Drydocks in the 1950s.