A Small Price to Pay: Consumer Culture on the Canadian Home Front, 1939-45

We often picture life on the Canadian home front as a time of austerity, as a time when women went to work and men went to war. Graham Broad explodes this myth of home front sacrifice by bringing to light the contradictions of consumer society in wartime. Governments pressured Depression-weary citizens to save for the sake of the nation, but Canadians had money in their pockets, and advertisers tempted them with fresh groceries, glamorous movies, and new cars and appliances. Broad reveals that our greatest generation was not impervious to temptation but rather embarked on one of the biggest spending booms in our nation’s history.