1930's/40's Canadian elite

[zellieh]

I'm looking for some verbal shorthand that would have been around in the 1930's and 1940's that I can drop into a conversation to show that this particular Canadian is from a good family, wealthy & well-educated, etc. He's a man aged 25-35, if that makes a difference, and the piece I'm writing is set in New York in 1946.

Comments

[anidada]

1. Family Compact -- IIRC, that term was used up until fairly recently to refer to the old guard of wealthy Canadians. More recently it's been referred to as The Canadian Establishment. (I have the book somewhere, it makes for strange reading, esp. thirty years on, as many of the old families are now broke or out of the family business, whatever it was.)

2. You can't go wrong with Rosedale. My partner's family is from there -- I can ask his mom for more details, if necessary.

3. Much depends on their religion. Private schools, for sure (I think these have always been from primary on):

Girls: Branksome Hall, Bishop Strachan, or Havergal College, all in Toronto.
Boys: St. Michael's College, Trinity College School (in Port Hope, Ontario, so they'd be boarding), or Upper Canada College.

They would then have gone to the University of Toronto (most likely affiliated with one of St. Michael's College, Trinity College or Victoria College, within the university), or if they'd gone away, probably Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario), McGill (Montreal), or Dalhousie (Halifax).

[anidada]

Sorry, ignore the girls' schools. :) All the schools are on Wikipedia and have their own sites, btw, if you're looking for more info.

[zellieh]

Thank you so much for all your comments - it's made it much easier for me to find the sort of specific information I was looking for. (I kept getting stuck in WWII before.)

I've already filled in several blanks in my character's backstory, and he's looking more and more interestingly well-rounded all the time. *g*

Thanks!

[phoenixy]

Anidada's response is consistient with my experience, but it should be noted that those colleges aren't code for privilege the way "Ivy League" or "Oxbridge" might be--they are good schools, and the best in Canada, but also large and public--McGill, for example, has over 20,000 undergrads. Canada doesn't, or at least didn't in the period that you're talking about (I don't know about now), have a super-elite college tradition in the same way that, say, the US does.

[anidada]

*nods* The main reason I was listing those schools is because they're among the oldest, and there's definitely an "older = better" mentality when it comes to schools, up here. (Says the gal who went to hippie universities. :)

[zellieh]

those colleges aren't code for privilege the way "Ivy League" or "Oxbridge" might be

Right - thanks for clearing that up. I think I might send my character off to 'Oxbridge' or the 'Ivy League' for a postgrad degree, then, just to make the privileged part clear. *g*

Thanks!

[anidada]

Within its ranks, it seems to have held ground well into the 20th century. I'll have to double-check with the MIL, though. There might be more specific terms (esp. local).