Doctoral Degrees (History)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (History) by Subject "Afrikaners -- Oudtshoorn (South Africa) -- Social conditions -- History -- 20th century"

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    Die voorkoms van wit armoede in Oudtshoorn tussen 1914 en 1937
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Stander, Okert Petrus Jakobus; Visser, Wessel P.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Oudtshoorn is considered to be the capital of the Little Karoo and is positioned in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The climate varies from extremely high temperature (42 degrees C) during summer to very low temperature (-2 C) in the winter. The fertile earth next to the rivers, the accessibility of water and good pastures were some of the reasons for the town’s founding in 1863, and the establishment of the ostrich feather industry in 1869 have advantaged the community economically. The sudden economic advancement, mainly sparked by the ostrich feather industry, has left much of the white labour force on the farms redundant. The abrupt global rejection of ostrich feathers in woman’s fashion and the accompanying resistance to commerce in wild animals that require butchery, had caused the collapse of the ostrich feather industry in 1914. The economic folding, the isolation of the town and district, unprecedented natural disasters such as draughts, the destructive effect of certain thunder storms, as well as diseases and the Great Depression, were some of the main causes of impoverishment. The remoteness of the community, amongst other factors, had caused a diminishing of the population of the district’s educational level to such an extent that many of them were unable to meet the survival demands of the time. This had caused the emergence of poverty. The study of the socio- economic state of the community between 1914 and 1937 had brought to light significant disparities between landownership and land loss, great wealth alongside abject poverty, and a class difference between rich and poor. The focus of this study is to highlight the phenomenon of white poverty between 1914 and 1937. The establishment of the church and educational system after the town’s founding had played a significant role in the lives of the poor whites and is pointed out in this study. The church had functioned to them not only as a spiritual refuge, but also as a source of survival. It had answered to the poor whites’ needs in a controlled and structured way. With the waning financial means of the church after 1914 and the growing number of poor whites in the congregation, the Dutch Reformed Church was necessitated, in collaboration with the state government, to solve the problem. Church and state had also realised that education and training could play an important role to alleviate and negate poverty. The Union Government had extended its help by two means, namely the direct financial help that was administered mainly on a local level and the implementing of long term projects that have promoted job creation. Many of these government projects, which included the gathering of water in the Kammanassiedam in 1920, had still yielded a positive impact on the community after 1937. The phenomenon of white poverty in Oudtshoorn was a given. Before the inauguration of the study in 1914, poverty in Oudtshoorn was in a slumbering phase. With the collapse of the ostrich feather industry at the beginning of 1914, poverty had drastically increased and affected the economy of the community drastically. The emergence of white poverty in the community of Oudtshoorn had transformed the social welfare conditions of the town’s inhabitants dramatically until 1937 when poverty had finally begun to decrease.