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1930s – Tough Times Lead to Innovation


With the stock market crash of 1929, Canada and the rest of the world was plunged into a decade-long economic depression. Economic downturns are often thought to prevent innovation and risk taking. However, economic hard times can be a catalyst for innovation.

It was during the 1930s that Hilborn Hockey Sticks was forced to sell, abandoning a warehouse full of unsold hockey sticks in Ayr. When the locks were finally opened on the warehouse, there were more hockey sticks in Ayr than there were children to use them!

In the 1930s Henry Heldmann of Cress Laboratories found that his salary as a teacher had been cut in half – encouraging him to focus on his business of salves and bandages.

It was also the Great Depression that inspired A.R. Kaufman to promote birth control, as he was forced to lay off employees who had growing families but little or no income.


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