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Toronto's Industrial Revolution of the 1850s and 1860s transformed the city's economy and created a distinct working class. This book examines the workers' role in the transition to industrial capitalism and traces the emergence of a strong trade union movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Immigrant workers were already organized along ethnic lines and vol­untary societies like the Orange Order played an informal but active part in the broad pattern of social change. Artisan groups were more directly instrumental in developing strategies to cope with the new pressures of industrial capitalism. In the period covered by this book Toronto's moul­ders and printers maintained and even strengthened the traditions of work­ers' control in the shop. The shoemakers and coopers were less successful, but the lessons of their defeats made them important early members of the Knights of Labor in the 1880s.The Knights of Labor gave new direction to labour organization. Ttiey recruited all workers regardless of skill, sex, creed, or race, and spear­headed the direct involvement of Toronto workers in electoral politics. The final chapters of the book trace the tortured path of working class politics from the early activities of the Orange Order to the emergence of a vibrant minority socialist tradition. Between I867 and I892 Toronto workers established a strong institu­tional base for the new struggles between craft unionism and monopoly capitalism in the early twentieth century and Kealey's detailed study of its development adds a new and important dimension to our understanding of Canadian labour history. -- Publisher's description.

The essays are gathered around two themes: the relationship of sociology and social history, and the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and region with class. Unlike most Canadian essay collections, the contributors and their subjects cover Canada from British Columbia to Newfoundland, with forays into Cape Breton and central Canada. The volume contains articles by Ian McKay, Gordon Darroch, James R. Conley, Alicja Muszynski, Gillian Creese, and Jim Overton. An interesting collection of some of the new work being done in Canada by historians and sociologists, Class, Gender, and Region reflects Charles Tilly’s suggestion that “there should be no disciplinary division of labour: simply both doing social history.” --Publisher's description (Athabasca University Press) Contents: Introduction / Gregory S. Kealey -- The crisis of dependent development: class conflict in the Nova Scotia coalfields, 1872-1876 / Ian McKay --Class in nineteenth-century, central Ontario: a reassessment of the crisis and demise of small producers during early industrialization, 1861-1871 /Gordon Darroch -- “More theory, less fact?” Social reproduction and class conflict in a sociological approach to working-class history / James R. Conley -- Race and gender: structural determinants in the formation of British Columbia’s salmon cannery labour force / Alicja Muszynski -- The politics of dependence: women, work, and unemployment in the Vancouver labour movement before World War II / Gillian Creese -- Public relief and social unrest in Newfoundland in the 1930s: an evaluation of the ideas of Piven and Cloward / James Overton.

The essays are gathered around two themes: the relationship of sociology and social history, and the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and region with class. Unlike most Canadian essay collections, the contributors and their subjects cover Canada from British Columbia to Newfoundland, with forays into Cape Breton and central Canada. The volume contains articles by Ian McKay, Gordon Darroch, James R. Conley, Alicja Muszynski, Gillian Creese, and Jim Overton. An interesting collection of some of the new work being done in Canada by historians and sociologists, Class, Gender, and Region reflects Charles Tilly's suggestion that "there should be no disciplinary division of labour: simply both doing social history." --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 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

...This volume presents a series of scholarly articles which range from an essay by Gregory Kealey on Toronto's Industrial Revolution in the last half of the nineteenth century to a fascinating study by Wendy Mitchener of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, "A Study of Nineteenth-Century Feminism." Also included are examinations of the working class, violence and protest, social structure and government encouragement of industrial development from 1849 to 1896. --Publisher's description

...As an introduction to the birth and growth of society in New France, the scholarly articles contained in the volume draw from the translated writings of Marcel Trudel and Fernand Ouellet, two of French Canada's leading historians. As well, contributions from Bruce Trigger and Calvin Martin look at the impact of European society on the culture of Native peoples. Together with articles on land use and labour, this informative volume offers a discerning view of the earliest of French Canada - the life of the habitant, the raucous beginning of the first craft brotherhoods, the movement toward a new social order which early European inhabitants took to with a "missionary zeal." By exploring the social roots of modern day Quebec [the book] sheds new light on our understanding of French Canada. --Publisher's description

In 1983 and 1984 the Canadian Studies Program of the Secretary of State funded four lecture series at Canadian universities on the history of the Canadian working class. This volume presents many of the lectures in a published version. Ranging from east to west and covering two centuries of Canadian labour history, the volume includes a selection of essays by some of Canada's leading social historians including Michael Cross, David Frank, Ross McCormack, Bryan Palmer and Joy Parr. Outstanding participants in the making of Canadian labour history Eugene Forsey and H. Landon Ladd have also contributed. Directed at a popular audience these fourteen lectures provide a major survey of Canada's labour past. --Publisher's description

This work is founded on the extensive working files of John Battye and Gregory Kealey, to which were added references pirated from other bibliographies, items accumulated from computer-assisted literature searches, and literary débris collected by methodical screening of such collections as Canadiana, Library of Congress Books: Subjects, and the Canadian Periodical Index. --Introduction

This collection of essays stems from a joint conference held at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth by the Committee on Canadian Labour History and the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History. An Introduction by David Montgomery places the essays in a broader international perspective. Contributors from Wales include John Williams, Christopher Turner, Merfyn Jones, Dot Jones, and Deian R. Hopkin. Canadian essays are by Craig Heron, Robert Babcock, Bruno Ramirez, Allen Seager, Linda Kealey, Varpu Lindstrom-Best, and Gregory S. Kealey. The volume includes photographs, maps and tables. --Publisher's description. Contents: The rise and decline of the Welsh economy, 1890-1930 / John Williams -- Labour and industrial capitalist development in the North Atlantic Region, 1880-1920 / Robert Babcock -- The second Industrial Revolution in Canada, 1890-1930 / Craig Heron -- Conflicts of faith? / Christopher Turner -- Serfdom and slavery / Dot Jones -- Of men and stones / Merfyn Jones -- Migration and regional labour markets, 1870-1915 / Bruno Ramirez -- No special protection--no sympathy / Linda Kealey -- Miners'struggles in Western Canada, 1890-1930 / Allan Seager -- Canadian mining towns / Varpu Linstrom-Best -- The parameters of class conflict / Gregory S. Kealey -- The great unrest in Wales, 1910-1913 / Deian R. Hopkin. Papers from a conference of Committee on Canadian Labour History and Llafur, the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History, held in April 1987 near Newtown in Mid-Wales.

These essays introduce readers to the changing and complex character of class struggle in Canada. Individual essays focus on specific features of Canadian class struggle: regional differences, the role of gender, the character of trade union leadership to the specific nature of conflict in particular industries; and the general features of national periods of upheaval such as the year 1919 and the World War II period. [Of the eight essays, two are original to the volume, while the others are abridged or revised versions of articles that previously appeared in publications such as Labour/Le Travail and New Left Review.] --Publisher's description

Every day millions of Canadians go out to work. They labour in factories, offices, restaurants, and retail stores, on ships, and deep in mines. And every day millions of other Canadians, mostly women, begin work in their homes, performing the many tasks that ensure the well-being of their families and ultimately, the reproduction of the paid labour force. Yet, for all its undoubted importance, there has been remarkably little systematic research into the past and present dynamics of the world of work in Canada. The essays in this volume enhance our understanding of Canadians on the job. Focusing on specific industries and kinds of work, from logging and longshoring to restaurant work and the needle trades, the contributors consider such issues as job skill, mass production, and the transformation of resource industries. They raise questions about how particular jobs are structured and changed over time, the role of workers' resistance and trade unions in shaping the lives of workers, and the impact of technology. Together these essays clarify a fundamental characteristic shared by all labour processes: they are shaped and conditioned by the social, economic, and political struggles of labour and capital both inside and outside the workplace. They argue that technological change, as well as all the transformations in the workplace, must become a social process that we all control. --Publisher's description