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Specific Curriculum Expectations:
Communities: Local, National, Global
-Describe Canada's and Canadians contributions to the war effort at home during World War II as well as some of the effects the wars had on the home front. I.e. munitions industry, women war workers, the war effort in local communities.
Method of Historical Inquiry and Communication
-distinguish between fact, opinion, and inference in texts and visuals found in primary/secondary sources
-identify different viewpoints and bias in primary sources
-draw conclusions, make reasonable generalizations, and be able to communicate them.

Hook:
What characteristics define a hero? Name some examples of your hero's and why you chose them.

Secondary Question: Do you have any friends, family members, or know of any local Second World War heroes or home-front heroes? What was their story?

The purpose of this hook is to engage students through a general but evocative question. Most students will have heroes and will have an opinion of why they see that person as a hero. The question encourages participation and allows them to bring in personal stories where applicable. The hook also leads students to think critically and question traditional notions of heroism. The fact that the later lesson plan focuses on local history helps make the topic more relevant to the lives of the students. When they have heard of the places, people, and companies being discussed it helps them focus more on the tasks at hand.


Introduction:

-What ways do you think Canadians helped the war effort on the home-front? (Ask students the question and see what kind of list they can come up with. There is a list below to help fill in any blanks).

Methods of support for the Canadian War Effort:
1.) Sending practical comfort items i.e. toothpaste, shaving cream, cigarettes etc.
2.) Buying war bonds/raising money for the war effort
3.) Conserving resources i.e. food, gas, metal, victory garden etc.
4.) Recycling/saving items i.e. metal products etc.
5.) Volunteer services i.e. St. John ambulance etc.
6.) Sending personal items i.e. post cards, letters, pictures, etc.
7.) Gaining employment with an essential war industry
8.) Creating propaganda in support of the war
9.) Pressuring men to join the forces
10.) Reporting communists, spies, traitors, etc.
11.) Farming essential foods for the Canadian Forces

Additional Key Questions: What efforts/contributions were the most important? Why?
-What was the least significant? Why?
-Were any of these approaches of war support heroic acts?

The purpose of this introduction is three fold: 1.) To see if they read the homework from the night before. 2.) Give them knowledge on the different ways Canadians and citizens from Wallaceburg helped the war effort. 3.) To make them think critically. Were any of the aforementioned methods of support more important than the others? Were the people that did these things heroes?

Body:

Activity One
Have students look at the Dominion Glass Company War Services committee post cards and strike photos in the exhibit. Moreover, have the students read the information in the storylines. They must discern what acts of support and or dissension they see in the exhibit. Get students to make a point form chart. One side should be acts of support the other side should detail acts of dissension.

Key Questions:
-Do you think the making of beer bottles for men at the front was essential for the Canadian war effort?
-Would you have enjoyed receiving these postcards overseas? Why?
-Do you believe the Dominion Glass Company employees were supportive of the Canadian effort based on these pictures and what you have read?
-Do you think the strikers should have let the manager's car into the plant during the strike? Should the police have stopped the strikers protest at this time?

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate that the Dominion Glass Company helped the war effort in a number of ways. Nevertheless, it also illustrates that the strike could have hurt war production etc. This task makes students form an opinion. Do the number of supportive examples from the Glass Factory outweigh the lengthy strike that went on?



Activity Two
M.A. Sanderson, a Globe and Mail columnist, wrote numerous inflammatory pieces illustrating the harsh backlash for the 1943 Wallaceburg strike. The title of his daily entry was "You Bet I'M a Vet". He suggested, in a column from February 23, 1943, that any "labour legislation based on C.I.O. principals would place all workers, union funds, and all industry: "under the thumb" of Labour Racketeers and Gangsters." The C.I.O. was the major negotiating union that won the support of glass workers in Wallaceburg. When he asked himself in a later column, March 8, 1943, if he should apologize for these remarks he responded with inciting sarcasm. Sanderson wrote, "Yes I owe the C.I.O. Communists an apology, just as I owe an apology to Hitler and his Nazis for their inhuman treatment of Czech-Slovaks; the Poles; the Greeks; the Jews; and millions of others in blacked out Europe."

At the end of February frustrations between the police and strikers escalated. Wallaceburg law enforcement had trouble keeping order and called in 150 O.P.P. officers for assistance. On several occasions Wallaceburg's chief of police, Charles Worm, ordered his men to use tear gas and clubs on the crowds to disperse them. Thomas Sherwood, Chairman of the local 251 UAW-CIO union, remarked on the violence used by police: "The only difference between conditions at Wallaceburg during the strike and those under Czarist Russia was the fact that the Russians called out the Cossacks to settle difficulties and we got the provincial police."

Key Questions:
-What do you think Sanderson's position was on Wallaceburg's C.I.O. led strike/Sherwood's?
-Why do you think Sanderson held this particular bias? Sherwood?
-Was his comparison of the C.I.O. to Hitler and the Nazis warranted? Sanderson's to Communists?
-If you had to support one of these men's opinions whose would you choose?

This activity was used to engage students through controversy. The quotes from Sanderson and Sherwood encourage students to question their positions and to think critically about the primary sources they encounter. Could their town really be considered treasonous for striking? It raises the main issue for the lesson: To what degree did Wallaceburg support the Canadian war effort? Was there more positive contributions or more dissenting actions? Was the glass factory and its employees heroic? And how does one discern this?

Conclusion

1.) In your opinion was the Wallaceburg glass strike a treasonous act against the Canadian war effort? Or was it a heroic act changing labour laws in Ontario? Is there another interpretation of events? Explain.
2.) How would you have felt if you were a solider fighting overseas and you heard about the Wallaceburg glass strike? Would it have changed your opinion on what was going on back home?
3.) In your opinion should the Wallaceburg glass factory be considered a heroic industry? Explain.

These questions were developed so that students could use their depth and breadth of knowledge from things they learned during this lesson. All three questions are opinion based. They encourage students to draw their own conclusions, make reasonable generalizations, and communicate them verbally.

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Dominion Glass Company employees on strike
Circa 1943
Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada


Credits:
Wallaceburg & District Museum
Photographer, Roy Mathany

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Dominion Glass employees promoting the importance of beer bottle making for the troops
Circa 1942
Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada


Credits:
Roy Mathany, Photographer
Wallaceburg and District Museum