Music held many different purposes for Canadians on the home front during the First World War. For some, music provided a form of escape from the daily worries of war, while others listened to music as a way of coping with the loss of loved ones. Another significant use for music was to encourage enlistment for the Canadian military. This map presents some of the locations across Ontario in which music was played by regimental bands and other performers for the purpose of recruitment throughout the years of the war. While this map does not include every single performance of music at recruitment rallies and concerts during the war, it does feature those performances covered by the major daily newspapers in the province, as well as some local newspapers.

This map provides a visual for tracking changes across time and space with regard to the performance of popular songs in recruitment for the war. It reveals that the vast majority of performances covered in the newspaper articles examined were concentrated in 1915 and 1916. At this time, the military was actively seeking voluntary recruits, as conscription was not enacted until 1917. The language used in the articles to describe popular songs played by regimental bands and other performers also provides a small indication of how the music was received by Canadians.

Explore the map – zoom in to different regions of Ontario, isolate performances within a single year of the war, and compare the music played by regimental bands with other performers. The dark blue icons indicate performances by regimental bands, while the light orange icons mark performances of other popular singers of the time.