This image is part of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool’s Everett Baker slide collection housed at the University Archives.
For four decades starting in the 1930s, Mr. Baker travelled the province to document the life and times of ordinary Saskatchewan People.
Employed as a field man for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool from 1935 to 1957, he continued to take photographs until his eyesight began to fail in 1970.
In addition to a clarity and natural feel to them, each slide is annotated with the date, location and a description of the activity captured.
This particular image is of the “Pool Field staff on 13 July 1945.” As to the subject of the image, in 1937 the University of Saskatchewan hosted the first five-day Co-operative School in the province.
A series of one-day schools had proved popular in the 1920s but had disappeared during the early days of the Depression. The revised program offered accounting, marketing and history of the co-operative movement classes.
Within a few years several five-day co-op summers schools were being offered in various locations around the province. One- and two-day summer schools also became popular in smaller communities.
The U of S continued to act as a host until the 1960s.