Creating the World Featured in Rose’s Assignment

Life in the 1850s

The 1850s were a turbulent decade defined by wars and colonization. It also was a world on the brink of modernity. Set in 1859 Canada West, Rose’s Assignment follows Rose Goodwin, a wife and mother, and her involvement in the Underground Railroad. When compassion challenges her comfort, Rose must choose between safety and conscience — and her decision will shape generations to come.

Numbers vary widely, but as many as 100,000 slaves escaped north via the Underground Railroad, the largest anti-slavery freedom movement in North America. The destination most often was Canada West (what is today Ontario).

The Canadian Act to Limit Slavery of 1793 ensured that any enslaved person who reached Upper Canada (the name for Canada West at the time) became free upon arrival. While the act sounds like a victory, it did not free enslaved adults already living in Upper Canada and humans continued to be bought and sold until New York abolished slavery later that decade. Children were freed upon reaching the age of 25, and newborns were free at birth. Slaveholders were required to provide security for freed slaves.

By the time Rose joins the abolitionist movement, the number of slaves reaching Canada had increased dramatically. While many Canadians were willing to help the new arrivals, others believed slaves should be sent back and that the United States needed to deal with its sins itself.

The slaves Rose encountered would have originated primarily in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. They crossed the Detroit River and entered Canada via Windsor. But there were other routes as well crossing Lake Erie or Lake Huron.

The refugees (the term for escaped slaves) established communities, some segregated and some integrated, in towns and cities throughout Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. These included Niagara Falls and Toronto. Although Canadians were against slavery, prejudices existed and refugees faced discrimination.

Many anti-slavery societies formed in the Canadian colonies prior to the American Civil War, including the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, which was founded in Toronto in 1851 by mostly Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Whites and blacks from the church and the business world comprised the organization, and members included professionals, the elite, intellectuals, orators and refugees. The society, which was active into the early 1860s, raised funds to feed, house and clothe refugees with the goal of providing them with opportunities.

Rose’s hometown of Barrie was an Underground Railroad branch terminus. Refugees in Simcoe County settled approximately six miles from Barrie in Shanty Bay. The community, named after its shanties, had a population of 500 in 1840, the only year I could find the village’s population information.

Politics in 1850s Canada

Rose was born into pre-Confederation Canada, meaning it was still a collection of sparsely populated colonies north of the American border. By 1840, only 10 communities had a population of 3,000 or more. Montreal was the largest with 40,000 residents.

Each colony had its own governor, custom house, administration and postage stamp. Governors were appointed in London and served five to seven years. While the system worked, the colonies became oligarchies, power in the hands of a small group of people.

The Province of Canada (modern Ontario and Quebec, then called Canada West and Canada East) adopted a new constitution in February 1841 and made Kingston its capital. By the 1840s, the French had been in Canada for seven generations while those of English, Scottish and Irish decent arrived more recently. The immigrants were displaced because of economic difficulties, but they were not impoverished. They generally were young, ambitious, had some money saved, and were from a society too oppressive for upward mobility. The exception was during the Irish Potato Famine. To save money, the Irish traveled on ships that normally were empty on the Canadian leg of the journey. They arrived in poor health and weren’t always welcomed.

The Reform Party met in Toronto in 1859 to demand a common economy but separate cultural institutions, and representation in the colony’s general assembly based on population. If “Representation by Population!,” the party’s rallying cry, came to pass Québécois’ influence would be greatly diminished as the French side of the colony was half a million people smaller than the English side. The party also supported the annexation of the western prairies and opposed schools segregated by religion.

Rebellions were common in Colonial Canada as residents often disagreed with the government and include burning the Parliament in Quebec, along with records, paintings and a library, in 1849.

Life in Rose’s Canada

The Rideau and Trent canals were built in the 1830s, but news still traveled slowly and appeared in newspapers generally 10 to 14 days after events occurred. It wasn’t until 1847 when the Montreal Telegraph Co. connected Montreal to Toronto, Detroit and Portland, Maine, that communication was revolutionized and news could be spread in real time. A decade later, the first trans-Atlantic cable was installed, but it eventually stopped working and wasn’t replaced until 1866.

The demand in urban areas for goods and services increased and every town had a commercial center with offices, banks, hotels, insurance companies, taverns, stores, warehouses and homes. Smaller areas were less dense, but people felt a sense of community. Voting was public, and crowds cheered or jeered voters.

Women were gaining small freedoms. New career opportunities, such as teaching, became available. The high cost of living in urban areas, however, necessitated a two-income household.

New inventions, such as the sewing machine, made lives easier but gave rise to large factories, often staffed by immigrants and the poor.

Dueling was made illegal in the 1840s, but it still occurred.

The Temperance Movement was a political and social movement that began in Canada in the 1830s that sought to make alcohol illegal. Members believed this would solve many of society’s ills including domestic violence, neglect and poverty. The movement was popular among Protestants who sponsored dances, picnics, suppers and sleigh rides to spread their message. Prohibition went into effect in New Brunswick from 1850-54. Another version in 1856 was tried and repealed.

A large portion of the population still lived on farms. Farm life hadn’t changed much since the start of the century. Chores included clearing land, milking cows, feeding animals, cutting and splitting wood, building and maintaining fences, making jams and jellies, spinning, weaving, quilting, sewing, and candle making. Square dances were one form of country recreation.

During the first half of the 19^th century, Canadian children died of diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, typhoid and smallpox. Cholera outbreaks were frequent. One in June 1832 killed 9,000 people. But it wasn’t all bad news in the world of medicine. Ether and chloroform began being used in 1846, the first innovation that made surgery safer.

Early Railroads

The first touch of the modern world many colonial Canadians experienced was the introduction of the locomotive. Railroads were financed using a government guarantee on railway bonds. The first rail line opened in 1836. The Champlain and St. Lawrence ran from St. Jean to Richelieu in Quebec. John Molson, of Molson’s Brewery, provided 20 percent of the railway’s startup funding, and the line operated year round by 1851.

Before commercial railways opened, several rail lines were used during construction projects or to traverse short distances. The first North American rail lines used British locomotives that proved unsuitable to North American conditions and often derailed.

The first sleeper cars were invented in the 1830s with the famous Pullman Sleeping Car entering service in 1857.

The new technology changed lives. Travel during winter was possible without a sleigh, and train travel kept people out of the dirt and mud during the summer. Early railroads traveled at the whopping (for the 1830s) speed of 30 to 40 miles per hour. Business owners liked trains’ speed and punctuality and took advantage of new markets and the ability to offer novel goods for sale.

Not every business prospered. Taverns located every five miles along roads to feed and house travelers began to disappear. Noxious fumes also were a problem as steam engines produced a large amount of smoke, but by the 1880s, many municipal transportation lines were being replaced by electric tram lines and subways.

Fashion in the 1850s

Over the course of the early 19^th century, women’s hemlines and sleeves became increasingly more voluminous. While Rose’s dresses are a running gag in Rose’s Assignment, the skirts were dangerous in reality. They easily set ablaze while a woman cooked or warmed herself by a fire, and they caught on wagons’ axles, dragging women down the road and severely injuring or killing them.

The crinoline, also know as the hoop skirt, arrived on the fashion scene in 1856. It was comprised of a bell-shaped cage worn under women’s clothing. It replaced the dozen or so starched petticoats women previously had worn to achieved the same look.

Proper undergarments included a corset, pantalets, petticoats and a chemise. Corsets were worn looser in the 1850s as skirts’ waistlines sat at the natural waist. Pantalets, once only worn by girls, were adopted by women to cover the legs for modesty should they become exposed by a swinging crinoline.

Dresses also were categorized by their pagoda sleeves. These wide bell-shaped sleeves were worn over false undersleeves decorated in lace or other trimming. The sleeves reached their widest point in the final years of the decade.

Women wore boots when outdoors (for modesty) and slippers or slip-on shoes when indoors. They wore bonnets decorated in ribbons and flowers over curled hair. Other fashion accessories of the period included a parasol, a shawl and a purse (called a reticule).

The fashion world witnessed two radical changes – the sewing machine and synthetic fabric dyes. Fashion magazines, such as Godey’s Lady Book, provided readers with patterns so they could replicate the latest styles.

While women’s hems grew to ridiculous proportions, menswear became more relaxed. The sewing machine dramatically cut down the amount of time needed to make clothing and now even working-class men could afford to dress sharply.

Plaids and checks were popular patterns for trousers and waistcoats, although black became vogue by 1859. Sideburns and other facial hair were popular among men. Top hats grew increasingly taller while the bowler hat, a clothing staple by century’s end, made its debut as a working man’s hat.