Your search

If, as Sir Wilfrid Laurier said, the twentieth century would be the century of Canada, by the end of the first decade of the new century it was already apparent that it would not be the century of the Canadian working man. The twentieth century ushered in the great Canadian boom.The twentieth century ushered in the great Canadian boom. And boom conditions produced a boom psychology. Nothing could stop Canada. Incredible industrial expansion; two new transcontinental railways pushing across the West; seemingly unstoppable floods of capital and immigrants pouring into the country; these were the hallmark of the decade. Indeed, everyone seemed to be prospering. Everyone, that is, but the Canadian worker. To him the twentieth century ushered in no new changes - or at least, no changes for the better. His conditions of work were still appalling, and his wages--though somewhat higher--could not keep up with spiralling living costs. Indeed, the influx of hundreds of thousands of hungry, penniless immigrants even made it difficult to hold a job. And what jobs? Stuffy, unventilated factories; sixty hours a week; back-breaking work; all for a dollar a day. These were the conditions of work for the men, women and children of Canada. And a dollar a day was considered excellent pay for the thousands of boys and girls, some not yet in their teens, who were forced to find jobs. --Introduction

The Communist Party in Canada is the first thorough study of a political party whose limited size and position outside the mainstream of politics have not lessened its impact and the interest it has aroused among Canadians for over sixty years. Drawing on Communist sources in several languages, Ivan Avakumovic outlines the party's ups and downs from its origins at the turn of the century through to the present day, traces its connects with the American and Russian Communist parties, and describes its internal organization, its policies and tactics, its attitude to the rest of the left wing and other political parties, to labour groups, police, and the general public. Here is an objective, scholarly description, with appeal for the historian and the general reader. --Publisher's description

What was the Depression like? This book is made up of memories of it, memories collected by Barry Broadfoot from more than 600 men and women all across Canada. Although the stories they tell are true, anyone too young to remember the Depression will find them almost unbelievable. The Depression - as all its survivors know - was a time when unbelievable things happened regularly.... --Publisher's description

Leonard Hutchinson: Ten Years of Struggle is the first book in a series to be published by NC Press, collectively entitled Toward a People's Art. The series follows on the general study of our culture, The History of Painting in Canada: Toward a People's Art, and was conceived because NC Press, as Canadian Liberation Publishers, recognizes the need for a whole series of such books on our arts. There is a far vaster heritage of people's art in Canada than can be contained within the pages of one book. --From introduction

[The author] has undertaken to prove incorrect the notion previously widely held that the labour movement militancy associated with modern Quebec was a feature born in the post-World War II period, By examing, through the tradition of oral history, several strikes in the thirties and forties in transportation, textiles and other important industries, and by recording the impressions and feelings of some of the surviving strikers, whether leaders or rank-in-file militants, she captures the mood of the period. --Publisher's description, Translation of: Dans le sommeil de nos os [: quelques grèves au Québec de 1934 à 1944] (1971). Contents: Preface to the English edition (pages 11-14) -- Preface to the French edition (pages 15-18) -- The Basic Picture (pages 19-27) -- The Foreigners' Strike (pages 28-42) -- The Shmata Strikes (pages 43-49) -- The "Bleuets" Strikes (pages 70-77) -- The Tramway Strikes (pages 78-100) -- The Sky Will Be Red Hot (pages 101-127) -- Epilogue (pages 128-130) -- Appendix: The Choice of Conflicts and the Framework of the Study (pages 131-145).

Monograph on the work environment in Canada, with particular reference to efforts in quality of working life in Quebec - reviews the historical aspects of working conditions, trade union attitudes, group dynamics, workers participation, etc., and examines the type of work organization with would bring job satisfaction to a wide range of industrial worker. Bibliography and references. --WorldCat record

The roar of the fabled 1920's reverberated across the Canada's western prairies in ways in ways that were uniquely Canadian and often uniquely western. Decades after its release in 1975, James Gray's trademark energetic prose pulsates with the essence of this flamboyant era when idealism ran rampant across the prairies. Gray captures the: Political frustrations of the farmers and the resulting turbulent Progressive movement and the resulting Wheat Pools Radical idealism of the One Big Union, born after the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 Gambling fever that struck not only Western Canadians, but all North Americans, spawned by those who put their paychecks in football pools, horse races, and the spectacular ups and downs of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange Social and religious movements such as the birth of the United Church and the Ku Klux Klan. James Gray has written of an exciting and flamboyant era, a time never to be forgotten.

[This book] focuses on six important - but largely unknown - strikes where Canadian workers fought the combined forces of capital and government for basic union rights and for decent wages and working conditions. The strikes described - the Winnipeg 1919 general strike, Estevan 1931, Stratford 1933, Oshawa 1937, the Ford Windsor strike of 1945, and Asbestos 1949 - were all major events in Canadian labour and political history. They demonstrate the strength of the labour movement, and they show the willingness of governments to use police, troops, intimidation and violence in attempts to break strikes and crush unions. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction. The Winnipeg General Strike / David Bercuson -- Estevan, 1931 / S.D. Hanson -- Aid to the civil power: the Stratford strike of 1933 / Desmond Morton -- Oshawa 1937 / Irving M. Abella -- Ford, Windsor, 1945 / David Moulton -- Asbestos 1949 / Fraser Isbester.

Samuel Gompers, the charismatic chief of the American Federation of Labor at the turn of the century, claimed to represent the interests of all workers in North America, but it was not until American corporations began to export jobs to Canada via branch plants that he became concerned with representing Canadian workers. Within a very short time the Canadian labour movement was rationalized into a segment of the American craft-union empire. In order to secure the loyalty of these new recruits, the AFI reduced the national trade-union centre of Canada, the Trades and Labor Congress, to the level of an American state federation of labour. But Gombers failed to perceive the different political, historical, and cultural climates north of the forty-ninth parallel, and his policies inevitably generated friction. Although some Canadian workers felt sympathy for labour politicians inspired by left-wing doctrines and the social gospel movement, Gompers strove to keep Canadian socialists at bay. And although Canadian workers expressed considerable interest in governmental investigation of industrial disputes, Gompers remained inimical to such moves. Canadian labour groups desired a seat on international labour bodies, but Gompers would not allow them to speak through their own delegate. Canadian unions deemed rivals to AFL affiliates were banished. Dues were siphoned off into union treasuries in the US, and American labour leaders kept firm control over organizing efforts in Canada. Perhaps most importance, the AFLs actions at the TLC convention of 1902 its opposition to dual unionism helped spawn a separate labour movement in Quebec. Yet by 1914, following nearly two decades of effort by Gompers, many Canadian workers had become his willing subjects. Though others struggled to loosen Gompers' grip on the Canadian labour movement, Canadian trade unions appeared firmly wedded to the AFLs continentalism. The story of Gompers in Canada has never been properly treated: this book is a significant addition to Canadian and American labour history and to the study of American expansion. Based upon exhaustive research in the Gompers papers, the AFL-CIO archives, and in various Canadian manuscript and newspaper sources, it clearly reveals an important aspect of the growth of American s informal empire at the turn of the century. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction -- First encounter --The rise of branch plants -- Organizing boom -- Labour politics in Canada -- Dual unions -- Berlin victory -- A ‘state’ federation -- External enemies -- Jurisdictional disputes and secessions -- Political action -- Master and servant -- Labour continentalism -- Appendixes -- Notes -- Bibliography.

This collection of documents gives a picture of the life of the workingman in the nineteenth century - his conditions of work, his housing, diet, health, and recreations, the way he viewed his problems, and was viewed as a problem by the upper classes, and his gradually developing an interest in unionism. The sources are mostly contemporary accounts, drawn from books, newspapers, and evidence supplied to the Royal Commission on the Relations of Labour and Capital. The documents are livelly, often amusing, always very revealing of the life of the ordinary people. -- Publisher's description. Partial contents note: Introduction (pages 1-7) -- On farm and frontier (pages 8-70) -- Work (pages 71-135) -- Working-class life (pages 136-182) -- The workingman and social institutions (pages 183-231) -- Organizing the workingman (pages 232-312) -- Bibliographical note (pages 313-316).

Women's work has been fundamental to Canada's development - whether that work has involved serving the wealthy, struggling to maintain her own family, tending the ill, teaching, or producing profits for the owner of a garment factor through sweated labour. ...Women at Work attempts to explore the reality of Canadian women's experiences, and proposes the framework which begins to answer why the double exploitation of women as mothers and workers has persisted to the present day. --Publisher's description

A life history of a working class woman from the socialist milieu of WWI Berlin, accounts of that world and of emigration to and life in the resource frontier of western Canada from the 1930s to 1970. An underground classic of Canadian and immigrant history which ran through four printings in original. --Author's description

A complete history of painting in Canada, from the art of the native peoples right up to the 1970's. This outstanding work explodes many myths about Canadian and Quebecois art. In easy to understand language, it explains the effect on Canadian painting of the French, British , and U.S. imperialist regimes that have ruled Canada. This book shows how art has been part of the fight against that domination. --Publisher's description

In 1967 the United Fisherman and Allied Workers Union established a history project to collect historical materials with a view to preparing a comprehensive history of trade union organization in the British Columbia fishing industry. This outline story, the joint work of staff members of The Fisherman, past and present, is the first publication.