Eye on History

Glen Hancock

Further to my recent column about the role the weekly newspaper has played in the development of our modern society, a reader has passed on to me a copy of the Wolfville Acadian, dated Jan. 23, 1920.

The eight yellowed pages, crumbling as they are, demonstrate remarkably how little the focus of news has changed over the years. Of course, papers today are more attractive; better written, better organized and better designed. But way back in the wake of World War I, the informational needs of people were met as they are today.

The advertisements in this old Wolfville newspaper not only describe what was available in the marketplace, but identifies the personalities who operated the shops and factories, who provided the services such as banking, insurance, health care and funerals. The places we do business with today are often faceless and lack personality.

H. Vanzoost was paying “highest prices for all kinds of second-hand furniture while H.E. Blakeney – bookseller and stationer of Wolfville – was offering a 20 per cent discount. C.H. Porter offered all sizes of quilts for the cold winter from $2.45. the Evangeline rink offered skating as usual with season tickets for $5.

Although the 1920s edition of the Acadian came in the wake of World War I and the world was posturing for its next step into the future, life in small towns continued in the style of the past, at least for awhile. Changes in communication and entertainment were on the horizon.

Reader’s Digest was founded in 1922; Time Magazine in 1923 and the New Yorker in 1925. In 1927, Al Jolson introduced the talkies as the Jazz Singer. The Wolfville Opera House in 1920 presented a two-reel comedy, probably Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd.

Back then, newspaper pages were concerned about people and their doings. The Acadian reported births, deaths, old jokes, an occasional long story about government or the evils of strong drink, perhaps a serialized novel and sometimes a poem written by a local muse.

In “items of local interest” the Acadian reported that the average cost of milk in Nova Scotia had been 14 cents a quart in 1919. It did not say that the price in Wolfville in 1920 was 10 cents a quart delivered to the door. The Ladies Seminary had taken on Mrs. Hanna Russell Gregory as teacher of voice, and “Mrs. Rodgers of Toronto is visiting at the home of Frank Barteaux.” In “Hospital Notes” it was mentioned “We are glad to hear that Mr. Crockett, who has been seriously ill in Westwood hospital, is now able to sit up.” Today, the media keeps us informed about the pregnancies of the Hollywood set.

There was a regular column about the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and a lengthy column about doings in Greenwich.

Hard news is limited in this edition. “Canada’s Trade with the U.S. Declines.” “The United States is now legally ‘bone dry’ but ample time has been allowed to make a lot of cellars ‘wet’.

Every word in all eight pages would have been read, even sermons from local churches when they were supplied.