Times of Trouble: Labour Quiescence in Winnipeg, 1920-1929

This thesis originated in my curiosity over the last decade or more, as to the fate of the "golden age" of labour radicalism in Winnipeg after the First World War. As a radical and trade unionist I wanted to understand why this radicalism declined so drastically over the half century to the leve1s it existed in the city's unions in 1969 when I first got involved in the labour movement. The logical place to start looking for answers was the decade following the general strike and preceding the depression of the thirties. In researching and writing this thesis I have found some answers, although they have seldom been simple, about the effects of the twenties on union radicalism. The task has been made more difficult and at the same time more stimulating by the almost total lack of work by labour historians on the twenties. To the extent that the period has been dealt with at all it was as a prelude to the great depression and the rise of the C.I.O. in Canada, or as a postscript to work on labour and radicalism before and during the post war upsurge and in Winnipeg, the general strike...