Chapter 6 - Growth and War

Workers pose for a photo during the construction of a new post office in Vancouver in 1890. After the railway arrived in Vancouver in 1886, the city grew rapidly. City of Vancouver Archives CVA Bu-P52

It was a period of rapid economic growth in British Columbia and it was concentrated in the southwest corner of the province, the area that came to be known as the Lower Mainland.

BOOM TIME

Children playing on swings in New Westminster,1902. Vancouver Public Library Special Collections 2287

At the beginning of the twentieth century, British Columbia enjoyed a period of rapid expansion. Newcomers poured into the province. Between 1881 and 1911, the population increased from 50,000 to 392,000 people.

Most of the newcomers settled in British Columbia's three main cities: New Westminster, Victoria and Vancouver. By the turn of the century, these were all growing communities with the latest modern conveniences: electric streetcars, electric lights, telephones and fresh drinking water.

THE ROYAL CITY

Three women on the sidewalk outside a house in New Westminster in 1902. The woman on the left is Mattie Gunterman, a well-known photographer who was visiting from the Kootenays. Vancouver Public Library Special collections 2413

British Columbia's first city was New Westminster. It was founded in 1859 to be the capital. It is the oldest Canadian city west of Ontario.

New Westminster is located on a hill overlooking the Fraser River not far from its mouth. It used to be the site of an ancient Aboriginal village. The capital of the province moved to Victoria in 1868, but New Westminster continued to grow as an economic centre. Steamboats traveling on the river stopped there. The salmon canning industry flourished nearby. Several sawmills were built to make lumber out of logs from the surrounding forest.

East of New Westminster lay the fertile valley of the Fraser River. As this land filled with settlers growing vegetables and fruit and raising dairy herds, the city became the main market where the farmers brought their produce for sale.

A century ago, cities were mostly wood. The buildings were made of lumber, and even the sidewalks were plank. Fire was a constant threat. On the night of September 10, 1898, fire started in a steamboat moored on the waterfront. Flames spread from the boat to a pile of hay stored on the dock. From there the fire swept through the centre of the city, destroying all the buildings in its path. By morning, most of downtown New Westminster lay in ashes.

But fire could not destroy the spirit of the residents. Immediately they began rebuilding. Donations came from across Canada. Within a year most of downtown New Westminster was rebuilt and the Royal City was back in business.

On September 10, 1898, a fire started in a steamboat and spread quickly through the city, destroying most of downtown New Westminster by morning.

ELECTRIC STREETCARS

A streetcar takes on passengers in Victoria in the 1890s. Note the overhead wires, which carried electricity to the car. The conductor is standing at the control. BC Archives E-01978

For many years, travel around the Lower Mainland was by horseback or wagon on dirt roads littered with stumps and boulders. In rainy season, the roads turned to impassable mud.

In 1891, an electric railway opened between New Westminster and Vancouver. It was called an interurban railway because it operated between two urban communities. At the time, it was the only interurban in North America. Interurbans ran on steel tracks, just like a steam railway, but they were powered by electricity passing through overhead wires. Each train connected to the wires by trolley poles.

The Westminster and Vancouver Tramway was just the beginning. Soon there were electric trains running between Vancouver and Richmond, and in 1910 a line opened to connect New Westminster out the Fraser Valley 100 kilometres to the town of Chilliwack. Farmers used the line to carry their produce to the larger centres. Special trains raced in daily from Valley farms carrying milk for urban households.

Meanwhile, electric streetcars were also put into operation in the major cities. Victoria was first. In February 1890, Car #1, loaded with dignitaries, rattled down Store Street. It was the official opening of the third street railway in Canada, the first in British Columbia. Four months later, Vancouver opened its street railway, followed by New Westminster the next year.

Street railways had an important effect on the shape of the modern city. They were the first means of moving large numbers of people quickly and cheaply. People no longer had to live close to where they worked. They could live at a distance from their jobs and commute to work by streetcar. Wealthier residents left the inner city altogether, moving to suburbs away from the hustle and bustle of downtown.

CAPITAL CITY

The Parliament Buildings in Victoria shortly after they opened in 1898. They were designed by Francis Rattenbury, an architect who designed many important public buildings in early British Columbia. BC Archives E-04093

Victoria has always had a reputation as a British city. Many fur traders from the Hudson's Bay Company retired to farm there. In the days of the colony, most government officials came out from England and many stayed on with their families. Their palatial homes were the centre of fashionable society.

Another British influence was the naval base at Esquimalt, next door to Victoria. For many years it was the headquarters of the British navy in the Pacific Ocean. Warships visited the harbour to take on supplies and allow the sailors some time on shore. In 1910, the Canadian navy took over the base and today Esquimalt remains a naval centre.

The arrival of the railway in Vancouver in 1886 attracted industry to the mainland city. As a result, Victoria took second place as an economic centre. But it held centre stage as the capital of the province. In 1898, the new Parliament Buildings opened. They featured marble walls, stained-glass windows, mahogany carvings, and on the top, a golden statue of Captain George Vancouver. Today the buildings remain the place where the government meets.

A croquet party at “Fairfield,” the Victoria home of Joseph Trutch, an influential government official, around 1870. Garden parties like this one reflected the city’s British origins. BC Archives C-05218

BC People WEST COAST PAINTER Victoria was home to one of Canada's best artists. She was Emily Carr, born the same year that British Columbia entered Confederation. She studied painting in London and Paris, but she found her inspiration in the tall forests of the Pacific Coast. Fearing that the way of life of the First Nations people was disappearing, Carr devoted herself to painting it. She traveled up and down the coast painting totem poles and Aboriginal villages. Often she camped out in the woods by herself.The house where Carr grew up in Victoria is today a museum open to the public. In her travels, Emily Carr sometimes camped out in her trailer, which she called the Elephant. In this photograph she is sitting at the door of the Elephant with her monkey, Woo, on her shoulder, and surrounded by pet dogs. BC Archives F-07885

ASIAN NEWCOMERS

A street in Vancouver’s Chinatown in 1904. It is early morning and vegetable farmers have brought their produce to town by wagon to sell. Most Chinese people preferred to live in Chinatown among friends and family. At the same time, in Vancouver the Chinese were not allowed to own property outside Chinatown so they were more or less forced to live there. Vancouver Public Library 6729

Among the newcomers pouring into British Columbia were thousands of Chinese people. They came to work on railway construction, in the salmon canneries and coal mines, and as merchants and farmers.

For the most part the Chinese newcomers lived together in their own neighbourhoods, called Chinatowns. They wanted to be in familiar surroundings, close to relatives. Victoria had the first Chinatown in Canada, and until 1910 it was the largest. Vancouver also attracted many Chinese. Its Chinatown surpassed Victoria's as the largest in Canada and one of the largest in North America.

The Chinese were not the only newcomers from Asia. Immigrants from Japan and India also settled in their own areas of the city.

By 1911, people from east Asia made up eight percent of the population of British Columbia. This was not a large number, but it was enough to raise fears among the white majority. White British Columbians believed that people from Asia, because of their different customs and languages, would not mix with the rest of society. Workers were afraid that the newcomers would take their jobs. Some white people believed that if Asian immigration continued, the newcomers would soon control British Columbia society.

In response to these fears, the government made laws to restrict immigration to British Columbia from Asia. In 1885, a new tax was introduced requiring Chinese to pay $50 each to enter Canada. This was the so-called “head tax”, and over the years it rose to $500. No other immigrant group had to pay such a tax. Then, in 1923, the government halted all immigration from China. Similar restrictions were put in place against newcomers from India and Japan. At the same time people of Asian background were not allowed to vote or to hold certain jobs.

The restrictions against Asians remained in force until 1947.

In Their Own Words A CHINESE HOUSEBOY Wing Wong, who arrived in Vancouver in 1912 to work as a houseboy, described his life: "I was small in those days, twelve or thirteen. I studied after school and then I did my work: chopping wood, bringing up coal, house cleaning, taking care of the furnace, washing dishes. Just to get my room and board." Many young people from China came to British Columbia as servants— houseboys and maids—for white families. This photograph shows a houseboy with his family in Vancouver about 1900. BC Archives B-03779

PACIFIC PORT

An automobile in Vancouver in the 1920s. Note the wooden plank sidewalk and streets. Only gradually were city streets paved. Vancouver Public Library 7431

Few cities have appeared as suddenly as Vancouver. In 1881, a few dozen loggers and sawmill workers lived along the shore of Burrard Inlet. Then the railway arrived, followed by merchants and builders of all descriptions. By 1900, the population numbered 27,000 and was growing fast. Where a lonely forest once stood, there were solid stone buildings, paved streets, and houses spreading in all directions. “Chop, chop, chop. The forest vanished, and up went the city,” wrote novelist Ethel Wilson.

Vancouver faced in two directions at once. It looked outward across the Pacific to the Orient and Australia where there was a ready market for its products. Vancouver was a busy port, welcoming ships from around the world. The Canadian Pacific Railway operated a fleet of ocean-going steamships. These vessels, called the Empress ships, set a new standard of speed and elegance. They steamed between Vancouver and the Orient, carrying passengers, mail and cargo of all types. Vancouver's harbour shipped lumber, salmon, coal, and other minerals to many countries.

One of the CPR’s gleaming ships, Empress of Japan, arriving in Vancouver in 1930. BC Archives I-60999

At the same time, Vancouver looked to the interior. The CPR, and the other railways that followed, connected the port city to the rest of the continent. Goods came by ship to be loaded onto the trains that carried them across the mountains to the Prairies and beyond.

One especially exotic product was silk. It was imported on the Empress ships from the Orient, then loaded on trains for shipment to eastern Canada and the United States. Raw silk spoils very quickly. Speed was crucial. When a train carrying silk was passing, all other traffic on the railway stopped.

Vancouver’s first “skyscraper” was the World Building, so named because it was home to the World newspaper. It was seventeen storeys high. When it was built in 1913, it was the tallest building in the British Empire and a symbol of Vancouver’s “big city” status. Vancouver Public Library 4658

Vancouver was more than a port city. It was also the centre of the province's industrial activity. The large salmon canning companies had head offices there. The lumber industry provided more jobs than any other industry. By 1915, three railway lines from across the continent entered the city. Three quarters of all the goods manufactured in British Columbia were made in Vancouver.

Automobiles began appearing on Vancouver streets as early as 1904. The first gasoline car was purchased by John Hendry, a sawmill owner. They rumbled through the streets at 10 kilometres an hour, coughing smoke and frightening the horses. For some years, only the wealthy could afford one. By the 1920s there were enough motorcars so that the city's first traffic light had to be installed.

BC People JOE CAPILANO Joe Capilano was a prominent First Nations leader, and his wife Mary was a noted storyteller. They were members of the Squamish people, who live in North Vancouver. This photograph shows Joe Capilano in 1906, when he led a group of Aboriginal leaders to London, England. They wanted to explain to the King of England why the Aboriginal people believed they had been pushed off their land by white settlers. But the British government told the delegation that its complaint was a matter for the government of Canada to settle.

WORLD WAR ONE

World War One began in 1914 and lasted four years. The fighting occurred far from Canada in Europe, where the armies of Britain, France and Russia struggled against the German and Austrian empires. Many Canadians felt strong ties to Britain and volunteered in large numbers to join the conflict.

At first the war seemed like a big adventure. Young soldiers hurried to sign up because they feared it would all be over before they could see any action. Only slowly did the true horror of the conflict sink in. Far from ending quickly, the war dragged on year after year. Millions of lives were lost, and millions more soldiers were badly maimed.

After three years of war, Canada was running short of volunteers willing to fight. In 1917, the government passed a law forcing young men who were not married into the army. This was called conscription, and it was unpopular with many people who for one reason or another opposed the war.

Vancouver’s first airport, shown in 1929. Planes had been used in battle during World War I, but flying as recreation did not catch on until after the war, during the 1920s. These small two-seater aircraft carried sightseers over the city. It was 1939 before the first passenger airplanes began flying from Vancouver to eastern Canada on a regular schedule. Leonard Frank photo

British Columbia was divided by the impact of war. In some ways the province prospered. Shipyards hummed with activity, as many vessels were needed for the war effort. The conflict created a huge demand for raw materials produced in British Columbia: copper, lumber, coal and wood.

But the cost in human lives was high. British Columbia had more volunteers per capita than any other province in Canada. By war's end, 6,225 British Columbians were dead, and more than 13,000 more suffered horrible wounds.

BC People PREMIER MCBRIDE Richard McBride was born in New Westminster and worked as a lawyer before he got into politics. He became leader of the Conservative Party and was elected premier in 1903. He was thirty- two years old, the youngest person ever to become premier. Voters called him “Handsome Dick,” and he was very popular for his friendly, open manner. McBride led his party to victory in four elections. In 1912 he won a knighthood from the King of England, making him the only premier in Canadian history to be called “Sir.” McBride was successful in attracting investors to the province. He made large grants of land to railway, logging and mining companies. His years as premier are sometimes called the “Great Potlatch” because he gave away so many of British Columbia’s natural resources.

WOMEN AND THE WAR

These women working at a gas station in Vancouver during World War I were part of a whole “army” of women who took over jobs that only men had done before they went to war. Vancouver Public Library Special Collections 13212

The outbreak of World War One opened new opportunities for Canadian women. With so many men away in the armed forces, women were called upon to take their place in the work force.

Up to this time, most women had worked in the home, raising children and looking after the household chores. Women with jobs had worked as schoolteachers, nurses or at one of a few other traditional jobs. Most of the work world was closed to them.

This changed with the war, and the urgent need for workers in the factories and war industries. Women became airplane mechanics and munitions makers. They took jobs in business offices. Some went overseas to serve in the front lines in the medical corps or as ambulance drivers.

Mary Ellen Smith was a Vancouver politician. In 1918 she became the first woman elected to a provincial parliament. BC Archives B-01563

Their new importance in the work world gave women new influence in the political world as well. Until the war, only men were allowed to vote in elections. That changed in 1917 when British Columbia women received the right to vote in provincial election. The next year the same right was extended to federal elections.

Changes to the law meant that women could run for elected office. In 1918, Mary Ellen Smith of Vancouver became the first woman anywhere in Canada elected to a provincial parliament. A few years later she became a cabinet minister in the government, another first.

Of course, this right was not won by all women. First Nations women and women of Asian background were still denied the vote, along with their men folk.

KILLER EPIDEMIC

With the end of war came a new killer. An outbreak of deadly influenza began in Europe and spread to Canada with returning soldiers. Before it was over, the flu killed 21 million people worldwide, 50,000 in Canada.

The first cases appeared in British Columbia in October, 1918. People easily caught it from each other, so health officials asked everyone to avoid public places where they might be infected. Schools, shops, churches and theatres all closed. All public meetings were banned. Hospitals filled to overflowing. People wore masks over their faces to keep from spreading germs. Doctors were powerless. There was no drug or vaccine; patients could only stay in bed hoping to get better.

By the time the epidemic faded away in the spring of 1919, about one out of every three people had been sick. In Vancouver alone, 900 people died. It was the worst public health disaster since the smallpox epidemic many years earlier.

THE NEW CITY

Industry and immigration together created a new kind of city. New Westminster, Vancouver and Victoria were very unlike the small farming and trading communities of British Columbia's early years. They were bigger, noisier, richer and more varied.

The new city was divided into neighbourhoods of rich and poor. Immigrants from China, Japan and India lived in their own sections. For some, the city presented great opportunities. For others, it brought poverty and injustice.

One of the biggest changes was the rapid growth of the Lower Mainland. When British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871, not many people lived in that part of the province. Then, with the arrival of the railway, the Lower Mainland boomed. By the 1920s, Vancouver and its surrounding area was home to about half of all the people who lived in British Columbia, and its industries were producing most of the wealth.

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