Women's Voluntary Contribution through Increased Domestic Production.
Millions of Canadian women made a substantial voluntary contribution to the war effort by increasing their domestic production of food and clothing items. In cities and on farms women knitted, sewed and quilted, made jam and baked cakes; the products of their effort were either sent overseas or sold at fund raising events bake sales, quilt auctions and whist drives.
One urban middle-class woman remembers what it was like to attend the afternoon matinee at a local movie theatre during the war:
It would be totally dark, and all you could hear was click, click, click women would be knitting away and looking at the movies. They'd come out into the lobby after the show and there'd be scarves and toques and socks ready to be dropped off at the Red Cross depot and more wool to be picked up! Sometimes quite young girls were engaged in this work, as recorded in this photograph of the "Little Happy Gang" knitting club of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, doing its bit for the Red Cross and soldiers in May 1940.
Courtesy: National Film Board Second World War Still Photograph Collection, National Photography Collection, Public Archives of Canada (C-53880)
