Textile Workers and Textile Strikes in Cornwall, Sherbrooke, and St. Gregoire De Montmorency, 1936-1939

This thesis examines textile workers, unions and their strikes at Cornwall, Sherbrooke and St. Gregoire de Montmorency from 1936 to 1939. Via a community study approach, several themes important to textile unionism in particular and industrial unionism in general will be covered. All three places were mill towns. How did this affect political, financial and moral support? How did the corporate structure of the firms involved influence the outcome of the strikes? Were there differences between workers in terms of militancy and their reactions to unionism? What was the role of women at the rank-and-file and leadership levels in the union? --Excerpt.