EPISODE 1,233 –EDWARD FREEMAN EX HEAD GARDENER—PERSUASION EXAGERRATION: PAMPHLETS AND BROCHURES — 1900 -1914

EPISODE 1,233 –EDWARD FREEMAN EX HEAD GARDENER—PERSUASION, EXAGERRATION: PAMPHLETS AND BROCHURES — 1900 -1914

THE DECISION

Edward Freeman decided

to migrate to Canada sometime between 1900 and 1905.

Was it a spur of the moment decision or was it carefully planned like his flower gardens

at Eywood?   I never asked him even though there were many opportunities to do so.

250,000 others decided to immigrate in 1905…the biggest spike

occurred in 1910when 400,000 immigrants arrived  in Canada.

The Edward Freeman family were part of this mass movement of

people from the old world to the new world.  How is this explained?

EXPLAINING WHY EDWARD FREEMAN EMIGRATED TO CANADA IN 1905

A good part of the explanation can be summed up in one word, “advertising”

much of it done by one man, “Clifford Sifton”

Bright coloured optimistic brochures were sent to England and elsewhere in Europe.

Towards the end of the 19th century Canada’s Minister of the Interior authorized 

a seemingly endless stream  of positive paper images of Canada.

“Clifford Sifton, the Minister of the Interior from 1896 to 1905, was the driving force behind the greatest immigration scheme in Canadian history. Through his efforts, the Department of the Interior distributed tens of thousands of pamphlets similar to this 30-page atlas on western Canada. The atlas describes the opportunities and the free homesteads that were available for prospective immigrants in western Canada. The style is flamboyant and spectacular  –  not to mention overstated  –  and had some similarities to a travelling “medicine show.”

One historian notes that the flood of propaganda that glorified Manitoba was no just restricted

to brochures.   Photography, especially photographic post cards, also boosted emigration to

Canada WEst (i.e. Manitoba)

Ocean liners specialized in transporting settlers.   Such as The Allan Line ‘Victoria’

that EdwardFreeman chose … They boarded the Victoria in 1905 on its maiden voyage…landed

 at St. John, New Brunswick and then by an immigrant train to Toronto, Ontario.