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In 1919 at the height of the post-war labour revolt,the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took responsibility for national security. This volume contains archival materials and other materials received through Canadian Access to Information legislation. It includes lists of personal files, subject files, and security bulletins circulated to the government. In general the material provides an excellent overview of the genesis of the Canadian state security system. --Publisher's description

These Bulletins show that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's continued fascination with the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) was broadened to include the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) in 1937. The RCMP believed the CPC's fingerprints were all over the CIO. Other topics examined in the bulletins include reports on the Spanish Civil War, municipal elections, ethnic newspapers and strikes. --Publisher's description

From its inception in 1919-1920 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police security service compiled periodic reports on "subversive" activity in Canada, which were circulated to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Through use of Canada's Access to Information legislation Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker have acquired copies of the extant Bulletins, which are now held by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service....This volume covers the early years of World War II when the Communist Party of Canada was illegal and many CPC leaders were interned. --Publisher's description

This volume completes the series of Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins for World War II, following on the War Series, Vol. 1, 1939-1941. These Bulletins allow us to see not only the nature of RCMP Security concerns but also the underlying ideology of the Security Service. The volume also contains a critical introduction by the editors. --Publisher's description

This volume completes the Depression Years Series and, for the time being, our publication of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Bulletins, John Manley examines the RCMP fascination with the CPC and how the CPC coped with the Popular Front and the Nazi-Soviet pact. Manley concludes that the CPC's anti-war line was a disaster, claiming that "undoubtedly..., the Comintern was the RCMP's best friend"(29) --Publisher's description

This volume is a continuation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins series on the Depression. The RCMP Security Service reported in these Bulletins on security and intelligence matters to Cabinet and other government officals. Those for 1936 contain much material on labour and the left. --Publisher's description

This volume documents the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's surveillance activities during 1935 and contains informants', agents', and operatives' perspectives on developments within the Communist Party of Canada on labour unions, and on unemployed organizations. It includes coverage of the 1935 federal election, the successes of red unions, and the development of popular front strategies. The introduction by historian John Manley provides a considered overview of the events. The volume is fully indexed. --Publisher's description

This volume completes the series of Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins for late 1933 and 1934. It begins a new series on the Depression years. These Bulletins allow us to see not only the nature of RCMP Security concerns but also the underlying ideology of the Security Service. The volume also contains a critical introduction by Gregory S. Kealey. --Publisher's description

Max Swerdlow's life as labour organizer and educator began in Depression-era Winnipeg and carried him to national and international prominence in the Trades and Labour Congress, the Canadian Labour Congress, and the International Labour Organization. In this lively memoir, Swerdlow recaptures the persons and events of his life in the Labour movement. --Publisher's description

Documents the exposure of Jack Esselwein, also known as Sergeant John Leopold, who, as an undercover operative of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, joined the Communist Party of Canada. His identity was revealed after a series of police raids on August 11, 1931, which led to the arrest of a number of leading Communists, including Tim Buck. Esselwein testified at the trial in November 1931 whereby the Communists were convicted and sentenced to penitentiary terms under the notorious section 98 of the criminal code. They had already discovered that Esselwein was a police spy. The Toronto Daily Star report (published November 13, 1931) on Esselwein's unmasking is included in the article.

Introduces the Communist writer, educator, and activist Margaret Fairley, who in the 1950s edited a book of Canadian oral labour history that was left unfinished. The book, entitled "With Our Own Hands," included three manuscripts - memoirs of Claude Theodore, Peter Cordoni, and A.J. MacDonald - that are published for the first time. Collectively, they shed light on the largely rural, immigrant, working-class experience of Canada in the early 20th century. MacDonald's reminiscences also describe life in the village of Cadott, Wisconsin, in the 1890s, before the family moved to Alberta. The manuscripts are located at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

This three-part report presents the results of a major research project underdertaken in the early 1980s. The project aimed to establish a new statistical time series for strikes in Canada. The final results of this work will appear in 1990 in volume three of the Historical Atlas of Canada which will contain a series of four plates on Canadian labour in the years 1891-1961. In this report we shall focus on the data concerning the years 1891-1950. An essay on method and sources is published here as Part II of this report and the data set is presented fully in Part III. In addition, we want to state at the outset that the more we work on this data, the more fully we agree with David Montgomery's assertion that "any attempt to formulate a positivistic 'natural history of strikes* is doomed to failure. Strikes can only be understood in the context of the changing totality of class conflicts, of which they are a part." --From authors' introduction

This three-part report presents the results of a major research project underdertaken in the early 1980s. The project aimed to establish a new statistical time series for strikes in Canada. The final results of this work will appear in 1990 in volume three of the Historical Atlas of Canada which will contain a series of four plates on Canadian labour in the years 1891-1961. In this report we shall focus on the data concerning the years 1891-1950. An essay on method and sources is published here as Part II of this report and the data set is presented fully in Part III. In addition, we want to state at the outset that the more we work on this data, the more fully we agree with David Montgomery's assertion that "any attempt to formulate a positivistic 'natural history of strikes* is doomed to failure. Strikes can only be understood in the context of the changing totality of class conflicts, of which they are a part." --From authors' introduction

This three-part report presents the results of a major research project underdertaken in the early 1980s. The project aimed to establish a new statistical time series for strikes in Canada. The final results of this work will appear in 1990 in volume three of the Historical Atlas of Canada which will contain a series of four plates on Canadian labour in the years 1891-1961. In this report we shall focus on the data concerning the years 1891-1950. An essay on method and sources is published here as Part II of this report and the data set is presented fully in Part III. In addition, we want to state at the outset that the more we work on this data, the more fully we agree with David Montgomery's assertion that "any attempt to formulate a positivistic 'natural history of strikes* is doomed to failure. Strikes can only be understood in the context of the changing totality of class conflicts, of which they are a part." --From authors' introduction

This collection of essays provides a generous introduction to the vibrant field of labour and working-class history in Canada's eastern provinces. Organized in four sections covering pre-industrial labour, the industrial revolution, labour's wars of the early twentieth century, and the rise of industrial legality, the book should prove useful in university classrooms and for all readers interested in the history of the region's ordinary people. Concluding chapters address topics of current interest such as public sector unionism, the role of women in the fishery, and the horrors of the Westray mine disaster. The editors provide an introduction, section heads, and suggestions for further reading. The volume is edited by David Frank, Department of History, University of New Brunswick, the former editor of Acadiensis, and Gregory S. Kealey, Department of History, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Dean of Graduate Studies. Authors include T. W. Acheson, Rusty Bittermann, Sean Cadigan, Jessie Chisholm, Patricia M. Connelly, Peter DeLottinville, E. R. Forbes, Eugene Forsey, Harry Glasbeek, Linda Little, Martha MacDonald, Robert McIntosh, Ian McKay, D. A. Muise, Nolan Reilly, Eric W. Sager, Anthony Thomson, and Eric Tucker. --Publisher's description

Provides an overview of the current issue, in particular the contributions to the ongoing discussion of the writing working-class and labour history in Canada. Changes to the structure and membership of the editorial board are discussed, with appreciation expressed to departing members, notably David Bercuson. The advisory board has been discontinued.

...This volume presents a selection of scholarly articles designed to introduce the student to currents of social change and development in Canada from 1760 to 1849. With contributions by such respected academic writers as Harold Adams Innis, Judith Fingard, and Sylvia Van Kirk, it provides valuable insights into the role of the working class, violence and protest, class conflicts, and the economic structure of a newly developing nation. --Publisher's description

[This book] is the fourth of a five-volume series of readers designed to present an overview of Canada's social history, encompassing such topics as economic development, social structure, politics, religion, work and workers, and the changing role of women. In this volume the editors have assembled a series of scholarly essays examining such historic developments as government support of big business and the concentration of capital, the decline of craft unionism in Hamilton factories, the business impetus behind municipal reform, and the circumstances for working women in the 1920s. Articles such as Donald Avery's account of labour exploitation in the hiring of "foreign" navvies to build railroads in Western Canada and Don Macgillivray's analysis of state intervention and the use of troops in strikes among Cape Breton miners and steel workers in the 1920s highlight the issues and controversies which makes this one of the most telling chapters of Canada's social history. --Publisher's description

[This book] is the last of a 5-volume series of readers designed to present an overview of Canada's social history, encompassing such topics as economic development, social structure, protest and violence, social control, work and workers, and the changing role of women. In this volume the editors have commissioned a collection of original essays designed to provide a scholarly response to the vital questions: "Who are we as a people? How did we become what we are?" The extent and influence of foreign ownership in the post-war world is examined by Paul Phillips and Stephen Watson. David Wolfe chronicles the emergence of the welfare state after the war and its recent decline. Michael Behiels explores the ideological tensions among federalist, nationalist, and socialist intellectuals in Quebec and Canada. Ruther Pierson and Marjorie Cohen discuss sexual bias in federal manpower policies in depression, war, and reconstruction. The struggles of labour, management, and government are examined in articles by Wayne Robert and John Bullen, and by Wallace Clement. And the education system as a instrument of social control is the subject of Paul Axelrod's essay. --Publisher's description

As Canada's most industrialised province, Ontario served as the regional centre of the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, an organisation which embodied a late nineteenth-century working-class vision of an alternative to the developing industrial-capitalist society. The Order opposed the exploitation of labor, and cultivated working-class unity by providing an institutional and cultural rallying point for North American workers. By 1886 thousands of industrial workers had enrolled within the ranks of Ontario's local and district assemblies. This book examines the rise and fall of the Order, providing case studies of its experience in Toronto and Hamilton and chronicling its impact across the province. --Publisher's description