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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. Contents: On the job in Canada / Craig Heron and Robert Storey (pages 3-46) -- Dimensions of paternalism: Discipline and culture in Canadian railway operations in the 1850s / Paul Craven and Tom Traves (pages 47-74) -- Work control, the labour process, and nineteen-century Canadian printers / Gregory S. Kealey (pages 75-101) -- Contested terrain: workers' control in the Cape Breton coal mines in the 1920s / David Frank (pages 102-123) -- Keeping house in God's country: Canadian women at work in the home  / Veronica Strong-Boag (pages 124-151) -- Skill and gender in the Canadian clothing industry, 1890-1940 / Mercedes Steedman (pages 152-176) -- Mechanization, feminization, and managerial control in the early twentieth-century Canadian office / Graham S. Lowe (pages 177-209) -- Work and struggle in the Canadian steel industry, 1900-1950 / Craig Heron and Robert Storey (pages 210-244) -- Logging pulpwood in Northern Ontario / Ian Radforth (pages 245-280) -- On the waterfront: longshoring in Canada / John Bellamy Foster (pages 281-308) -- Life in a fast-food factory / Ester Reiter (pages 309-326) -- Autoworkers on the firing line / Don Wells (pages 327-352).

The work of Bryan D. Palmer, one of North America’s leading historians, has influenced the fields of labour history, social history, discourse analysis, communist history, and Canadian history, as well as the theoretical frameworks surrounding them. Palmer’s work reveals a life dedicated to dissent and the difficult task of imagining alternatives by understanding the past in all of its contradictions, victories, and failures. Dissenting Traditions gathers Palmer’s contemporaries, students, and sometimes critics to examine and expand on the topics and themes that have defined Palmer’s career, from labour history to Marxism and communist politics. Paying attention to Palmer’s participation in key debates, contributors demonstrate that class analysis, labour history, building institutions, and engaging the public are vital for social change. In this moment of increasing precarity and growing class inequality, Palmer’s politically engaged scholarship offers a useful roadmap for scholars and activists alike and underlines the importance of working-class history. --Publisher's description

Although the 1960s are overwhelmingly associated with student radicalism and the New Left, most Canadians witnessed the decade's political, economic, and cultural turmoil from a different perspective. Debating Dissent dispels the myths and stereotypes associated with the 1960s by examining what this era's transformations meant to diverse groups of Canadians - and not only protestors, youth, or the white middle-class.With critical contributions from new and senior scholars, Debating Dissent integrates traditional conceptions of the 1960s as a 'time apart' within the broader framework of the 'long-sixties' and post-1945 Canada, and places Canada within a local, national, an international context. Cutting-edge essays in social, intellectual, and political history reflect a range of historical interpretation and explore such diverse topics as narcotics, the environment, education, workers, Aboriginal and Black activism, nationalism, Quebec, women, and bilingualism. Touching on the decade's biggest issues, from changing cultural norms to the role of the state, Debating Dissent critically examines ideas of generational change and the sixties. --Publisher's description