Over 80 percent of Winnipeg’s Jewish and Slavic families lived here in 1919.

Selkirk Avenue was the retail and cultural focus of the new neighbourhood. Confectioneries, butcher shops, grocery stores, banks, real estate agencies, loan offices, theatres, and meeting halls lined the street. German, Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian, and English-language community newspapers kept residents up to date on local news and events in their homelands. Mutual benefit societies like the North End Relief Association, the Hungarian Kossuth Sick Benefit Association, and the United Hebrew Charities offered companionship and financial assistance to those in need.

The North End, with its diversity of languages, religions, dress, and culture, stood in sharp contrast to other <--caption-->Winnipeg neighbourhoods. Immigrants felt at home walking and shopping here. These families contributed to the remarkable solidarity of workers across Winnipeg’s working-class neighbourhoods in 1919.

<--column break-->

Not everyone in Winnipeg found the diversity of Selkirk Avenue to their liking, however. Many newcomers experienced intense discrimination. They heard their neighbourhoods belittled by outsiders as “the foreign quarter,” “CPR town,” or “New Jerusalem.”

<--caption-->