What life was like in Montréal in the 1940s and 1950's

 The story of Duddy Kravitz takes place mostly during the late 1940s, early 1950s. This period, right after the end of World War Two, is called the Grande Noirceur. The expression mainly refers to the second term of the Prime Minister Maurice Duplessis, going from 1944 to 1959. 

The Grande Noirceur was a gloomy and scary time. The Catholic Church was omnipresent in the life of every family and dictated the day of every Quebecers. Modern and liberal ideas were systematically discarded in profit of a social conservatism. While the rest of the world was going forward in modernity, the Quebec society was refusing to move forward, not wanting to accept modernity.

Montréal was a very segregated society. For example, the rich anglophone owners lived almost exclusively in Westmount and other rich neighborhoods, while the poor workers lived in poorer neighborhoods like the Plateau Mont-Royal. In the immigrant neighborhoods like the Mile end, life was rough. Most people were very poor, because immigrant workers were not really welcome outside their community.

Links : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Duplessis (image), https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/fr/article/grande-noirceur