Winnipeg, First Century

The story of the origin of Winnipeg and its economic development up to the 1970's is a story worth telling: especially in the half century before the Second World War the city was a microcosm whose fortunes reflected the historic forces which shaped the course of events in the western world. During those five decades Winnipeg was the metropolitan centre of the agricultural economy, based primarily on wheat, that emerged from the plains of Western Canada just before this century began. As with any metropolitan centre, its fortunes reflected the vicissitudes of its hinterland. That hinterland, the Prairie Wheat Economy, drew its people from the excess population of Europe and the ambitious land seekers of America, obtained its capital from the advanced industrial nations of Europe, and depended for its markets upon their white-bread eating populations. At one remove, therefore, what happened in Winnipeg reflected the population growth and movement, the technological advances, the progress in living standards, and the alternations of peace and war, prosperity and depression, which characterized the trans-Atlantic economy of Europe and America. The city's economy underwent a major transformation following the Second World War. Prairie agriculture became highly mechanized, new resource -based industries were developed in the West and North, the march of technology threw up new industries and threw out old ones, and the economic role of government increased enormously.