Essays in Canadian Working Class History

Part of the new aproach currently transforming the writing of Canadian history, this volume approaches the past in terms of people and the activities and events that shaped their existence. The essays explore the roots of the radical tradition and outline the struggle against industrial capitalism between 1850 and 1925. [This book] increases our understanding of the past, provides a valuable perspective on present struggles, and, in a broader sense, contributes substantially to a new and decisive synthesis of Canadian history. --Publisher's description. Contents: Contributors -- Introduction -- The Orange Order in Toronto: Religious riot and the working class / Gregory S. Kealey -- Brainworkers and the Knights of Labor: E.E. Sheppard, Phillips Thomson, and the Toronto News, 1883-1887 / Russell Hann -- Respected and profitable labour: Literacy, jobs and the working class in the Nineteenth Century / Harvey J. Graff -- Working Class housing in a small Nineteenth Century Canadian city: Hamilton, Ontario 1852-1881 / Michael J. Doucet -- Give us the road and we will run it: The social and cultural matrix of an emerging labour movement / Bryan D. Palmer -- The last artisans: Toronto printers, 1896-1914 / Wayne Roberts -- Ethnicity and violence: The Lakehead freight handlers before World War I / Jean Morrison -- Class conflict in the coal industry: Cape Breton 1922 / David Frank -- Bibliographic essay -- Notes.