Catastrophe and Social Change / Based Upon a Sociological Study of the Halifax Disaster

by Samuel Henry Prince

[169] A model housing development of 346 houses in the new north end has followed the disaster. “It is reasonable to assume,” writes an observer, “that the standard of living will ascend. Already the influence of these new houses is showing itself in the homes that are springing up all over the city.”

[170] London's is 14.6, New York's 13.6.

[171] New York's is 90, New Zealand's 60.

[172] These funds are from the munificent gift of Massachusetts. A Massachusetts-Halifax Health Commission has been formed—Dr. B. Franklin Royer is the executive officer.

[173] Dalhousie University has recently graduated the first class of nurses in Canada to receive the Diploma of Public Health.

[174] It should be stated that the supervised playground movement had been developing in Halifax for a period of fourteen years, first under the Women's Council, afterwards under a regularly incorporated association with which the Women's Council merged.

[175] In view of the explosion and the resulting housing conditions, an increase in juvenile delinquency might have been expected, but the “playgrounds which were established immediately after the disaster, and which adjoined both of the large temporary housing projects, are, it is felt, responsible for the excellent conditions which exist. The records of the Superintendent of Neglected and Delinquent Children show that there was an actual decrease in the number of juvenile arrests in 1918 over 1917.”—(Leland, Arthur, “Recreation as a Part of the City Plan for Halifax, N. S., Canada,” Playground, vol. xiii, no. 10, p. 493.)

[176] Halifax Evening Mail, March 22, 1918.

[177] Carstens, C. C., “From the Ashes of Halifax,” Survey, vol. xxxix, no. 13, p. 61.

[178] The two additional propositions suggested in the [Introduction], namely, that the degree of fluidity seems to vary directly as the shock of the catastrophe, and that brusk revolution in the conditions of life accomplish not sudden, but gradual changes in society, require a study of comparative catastrophic phenomena for verification or rejection.