Shopping

Price controls constituted a major step for Canada's government of the Second World War, so Donald Gordon, the man in charge of implementing them, took every opportunity to explain the process to community groups.

The ceiling price - the maximum price that could be charged for any good purchased - was a key element of Canada's wartime strategy to control inflation, and the government relied on shoppers to help enforce price ceilings.

This Winnipeg insurance company used an image of an army jeep to remind people to pay their premiums.

Admiral Percy Nelles was Canada's Chief of Naval Staff during the Second World War - but one wonders if he gave his permission for his image to be used on this advertisement from a New Brunswick dry goods store.

This Second World War advertising premium invoked British cabinet minister Herbert Morrison in urging Canadians to buy War Savings Certificates.

John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" was among the most widely reproduced Canadian poems of the twentieth century. A lack of copyright protection meant that it could be freely used for almost any purpose, as in this sheet that accompanied a packet of poppy seeds.