uch of North America remembers the "Roaring Twenties" as a time of peace and prosperity, the era that put the horrors of the Great War behind it and was blissfully unaware of the trials to come in the Dirty Thirties and beyond. But Alberta was not so blessed. Terrible drought in the south drove thousands of farm families off the land, and the economic impact reverberated throughout the entire province.
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"Government by farmers, as such, is no more to be tolerated than government by doctors, butchers or plumbers."
--From the London Times, quoted
in the Lethbridge Herald (1924)
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Political disenchantment with the Liberal dynasty that had ruled the province since its birth in 1905 was one consequence of the economic malaise. The 1921 election unleashed a powerful new force in prairie politics: populism. It took the form of the United Farmers of Alberta, who swept the Liberals out of office and launched a dynasty of their own that would last 14 years. The province also turned firmly against the Liberals in Ottawa, and threw its support behind the populist federal reform movement known as the Progressives.
Beyond politics and economics, Volume 5 is also about the Famous Five Alberta suffragettes and the Persons Case that gave Canadian women equal legal status with men, the influence of the Ku Klux Klan on the prairies, the proliferation and impact of radio, the amazing Edmonton Grads basketball team, the birth of the United Church, the merciful end of Prohibition, and a herd of elephants stampeding down Jasper Avenue.
