Boosters and Barkers

Financing Canada’s Involvement in the First World War

By David Roberts
Categories: History, Military History, Canadian History, Political Science, Public & Social Policy
Series: Studies in Canadian Military History
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774869584, 408 pages, November 2023
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774869607, 408 pages, November 2023
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780774869614, 408 pages, November 2023
Paperback : 9780774869591, 408 pages, June 2024
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Table of contents

Introduction

Part 1: Getting the Money to Finance Canada’s War

1 Business as Usual, 1914

2 Inching Toward Innovation, 1915–16

3 Crises and Victories, 1917–18

4 Legacies in Peacetime, 1919–20s

Part 2: From Broadside to Vaudeville in the War-Loan Campaigns

5 The Dominion War Loans, 1915–17

6 The First Victory Loan, 1917

7 Pandemic and Peace, 1918

8 Thrift, War Savings, Markets, and the Clean-Up Campaign of 1919

9 The Aftermath, 1919–20s

Part 3: Newfoundland and the Canadian Connection

10 Finance in Newfoundland and the Campaign of 1918

Part 4: Consensus and Resistance

11 The Limits of Patriotism

Part 5: The Images, Sounds, and Words of the War Loans

12 Selling through Posters, Cartoons, and Illustrations

13 Selling through Film, Theatre, Music, and Words

Conclusion

Appendixes; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index

Description

“Stick it, Canada! Buy more Victory Bonds.” The First World War demanded deep personal sacrifice on the battlefield and on the home front – and it also made unrelenting financial demands. Boosters and Barkers is a highly original examination of the drive to finance Canadian participation in the conflict. David Roberts examines Ottawa’s calls for direct public contributions in the form of war bonds; the intersections with imperial funding, taxation, and conventional revenue; and the substantial fiscal implications of participation in the conflict during and after the war. Canada’s bond campaigns used print, images, and music to sell both the war and public engagement. They received an astounding response, generating revenue to cover almost a third of the country’s total war costs, which were estimated at $6.6 billion – a dramatic charge on a dominion so far from the front. This story is one of inexorable need, shrewd propaganda, resistance, engagement, and long-term consequences.