Making New Identities: Alberta Small Towns Confront the City, 1900-1950

Abstract

Based on a sample of nine towns in Alberta, this essay studies how town corporate identity was constructed in response to the challenge of the city between 1900 and 1950. Towns first developed their civic identity on the basis of optimistic prospects, which were directly shaped by the competition, model, and power of the city. Between 1900 and the beginning of the Second World War, the civic identity of towns was styled as that of a city in waiting whose future growth depended on promotion and policies favouring development. The collapse of such prospects in 1912-13 and the persistence of economic uncertainty during and immediately after the war resulted in a reconstruction of civic identity. With reduced growth, towns during the interwar years began to view themselves as places of social stability and order that served and promoted the social and economic well-being of the society at large.