A Small Price to Pay: Canadian Consumer Culture on the Home Front, 1939–1945
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by Graham Broad
UBC Press, Vancouver, 2014 292 pp., illus., $32.95 paperback
Putting together consumer culture and wartime austerity might sound like an oxymoron, but in A Small Price to Pay: Consumer Culture on the Canadian Home Front, 1939–45 history professor Graham Broad argues that Canadians made minor sacrifices during the war and that their overall standard of living improved compared to the Great Depression.
Broad makes his case by examining advertisements, popular media, sales figures, and government policy, which sent sometimes contradictory messages to money-holding Canadians coming out of the Depression. His book is brought to life with entertaining examples and images of advertisements that show the relationship between vices and sacrifices in wartime consumer culture.
For example, a 1942 advertisement in Maclean’s shows Adolf Hitler leaning over the shoulder of a woman who’s opening her purse. He whispers, “Go on. Spend it. What’s the difference?” The text of this propaganda ad discourages Canadians from spending needlessly, but in the same issue there are ads for luxury products such as clothing, cosmetics, and soft drinks.
Broad asserts in his well-researched book that wartime consumerism was vital to national economic planning and central to civilian life on the home front.
— Danelle Cloutier (Read bio)
Danelle Cloutier is a Red River College student in Winnipeg and recently completed an internship at Canada's History magazine.