Danforth's History — The 1930s

The 1930s were a decade of drastic changes and unforeseen hardships, a decade which turned millionaires into paupers, and which utterly demolished the lifestyle of prairie farmers living in the ‘dustbowl'. The Dionne Quintuplets became the obsession of a nation. Roller skates and miniature golf became full-fledged crazes, and 'talkies' had more people than ever flocking to the theatre.

In the thirties, R.B.T. was renamed Danforth Technical School, after the Massachusetts native,

"Students maintained a spirit of cheerfulness, despite the decade's hardships."

Asa Danforth, who helped transform Toronto with the construction of a busy street. School colours changed from purple and white to red and white with the announcement of a fourth year programme in 1929. By 1933, Danforth Tech became a full-fledged technical school with the introduction of a fifth year.

Meanwhile, the building underwent changes of its own. The north and south wings were elongated and the B-floor crossway – the 'drafting corridor' – was added to make room for additional equipment and subjects.

Danforth in the thirties was a school whose student population maintained a spirit of cheerfulness and adventure, despite the hardships experienced during this decade. They were encouraged to be charitable and sensitive to those who were impoverished by the harshness of the decade, but nevertheless performed several full-scale theatrical plays, hosted masquerades and corn-roasts, and continued to explore the changing fields of technology and new attitudes toward gender roles in such typically male-dominated fields as chemistry.