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Labour landmarks are memorial sites, commemorations, plaques, and burial sites that provide access to the themes and meanings of workers' past experiences. They are instrumental in enshrining workers' "public memories," which are the separate experiences of groups within society, within the larger "collective memory" of the community. A general exploration of the commemorative landscape reveals a number of themes and allows a detailed discussion of several labour landmarks. In the course of this research, 21 separate labour landmarks were identified in the communities of industrial Cape Breton. The majority of these monuments are dedicated to workers in the coal and steel industries. The 1980s saw an expansion in the frequency of labour commemorations, which indicates increased attention to the experiences of workers in Cape Breton. Two monuments in the community of New Waterford reveal the many layers of historical memory in the town. The first is dedicated to victims of the 1917 mine explosion, while the second commemorates the man killed during the 1925 strike. The explosion monument, unveiled in 1922, inserts the public memory of coal miners into the collective memory of New Waterford. The William Davis monument, dedicated in 1985, reveals an existing working-class consciousness in the town and merges individual and public memories of Davis while reflecting on a major event in the town's history. Another monument, dedicated to Sydney's steelworkers, now rests on the site of the former steel plant, and commemorates a century of experience. This memorial is used as an example of how one might "read" a labour landmark to access its themes and meanings, as well as to reach an understanding of the past experiences of workers.

Discusses the importance of labour landmarks, in particular the United Steelworker's Memorial Monument in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Provides the historical context of labour unrest and industrial fatalities that occurred at the Sydney steelplant, with summaries of the circumstances that resulted in the deaths of individual workers over the decades. Takes note of ownership changes, advances in workplace safety through unionism, and the plant's toxic legacy.

The article reviews the book, "Smokestacks in the Hills: Rural Industrial Workers in West Virginia," by Lou Martin.

This thesis is an historical examination of the multi-layered processes of deindustrialization in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The history of a steel plant formerly located in the centre of the city is used as a case study through which the mechanisms of deindustrialization are fully explored. In 1967, the provincial government of Nova Scotia nationalized the Sydney Works. This marks a significant divergence from previous studies of deindustrialization, which have traditionally focused on the wave of industrial closures in the North American heartland during the 1970s and 1980s. Framed by oral history accounts of former steelworkers, this dissertation reveals the combined impact of Canadian regionalism, political economy, and working-class cultures of resistance on local experiences of industrial decline. This represents a synthesis between the econo-political historiography of deindustrialization favoured in the 1980s and the cultural/representational approaches of the 1990s and 2000s. The title, “Deindustrialization on the Periphery,” speaks to the specific national and regional contexts that frame the decline of Sydney Steel. The longue durée of economic change on the rural resource frontier has been understudied. In Cape Breton, the devastation wrought by the end of industry has roots that stretch back to the early 20th century. Tracing these through the use of Harold Innis’ “staples trap,” my thesis reveals how deindustrialization stretches from decades before closure to the years after a mine, mill, or factory are shuttered for the last time. Workers and other residents in Sydney continue to face the bodily aftermath of workplace injury, occupational, and environmental illness long after the structures of the plant have been demolished. But so, too, have experiences of working at the mill and living in the neighbourhoods that surrounded its gates created particular forms of culture, solidarity, and identity. My research is more than a eulogy for a defunct steel town. It seeks to expose the tensions between different forms of memory and experience, and to examine how the industrial past remains inextricably connected to the “post-industrial” present.

The article reviews the book, "Canada, A Working History," by Jason Russell.

Following the industrial crisis of the 1920s and the Great Depression in the 1930s, consecutive provincial governments in Nova Scotia turned their efforts toward state-led economic development. After the election of Robert Stanfield and the Tories in 1956, a wholesale industrial planning model was unveiled. Indeed, Stanfieldian economic policy in Nova Scotia was predicated upon the belief that direct state-led interventionism was necessary to offset regional inequity. State corporate entities, such as Industrial Estates Limited, and renewed interest in a state-driven industrial relations paradigm were central in the province’s efforts to revitalize its flagging economy and offset predicted decline in the Cape Breton coal and steel industries. This article examines the fate of the Clairtone Sound Corporation, one of Nova Scotia’s “new industries” that emerged out of these state-led development efforts. A case study of this Stellarton-based firm reveals how structural processes of deindustrialization produced crisis even within sectors that were completely distinct from the province’s cornerstone industries of coal and steel. This case includes a reflection on the class composition of the modernist state in Nova Scotia and represents a convergence of the historiographical focus on state-led industrial development in the Maritimes and recent literature found within deindustrialization studies.

Labour landmarks are monuments, memorials, plaques and other sites that commemorate the past experiences of workers in society. These sites are also manifestations of the collective memory of labourers. In industrial Cape Breton, which has a long history of labour and class struggle, an analytical survey of labour landmarks reveals how the industrial past has been remembered and memorialized. This overview reflects the narratives that have been attached to these sites, the ways in which historical memory has been localized and constructed in industrial Cape Breton, and the new layers of meaning that are revealed as these communities transition into post-industrialism.

Introduces the theme of deindustrialization in Canada including history, gender, regions, technology, and resistance Summarizes the various contributions to this special issue of the journal.

The emergence, dominance, and alarmingly rapid retreat of modernist industrial capitalism on Cape Breton Island during the “long twentieth century” offers a particularly captivating window on the lasting and varied effects of deindustrialization. Now, at the tail end of the industrial moment in North American history, the story of Cape Breton Island presents an opportunity to reflect on how industrialization and deindustrialization have shaped human experiences. Covering the period between 1860 and the early 2000s, this volume looks at trade unionism, state and cultural responses to deindustrialization, including the more recent pivot towards the tourist industry, and the lived experiences of Indigenous and Black people. Rather than focusing on the separate or distinct nature of Cape Breton, contributors place the island within broad transnational networks such as the financial world of the Anglo-Atlantic, the Celtic music revival, the Black diaspora, Canadian development programs, and more. In capturing the vital elements of a region on the rural resource frontier that was battered by deindustrialization, the histories included here show how the interplay of the state, cultures, and transnational connections shaped how people navigated these heavy pressures, both individually and collectively. --Publisher's description

Since the 1970s, the closure of mines, mills, and factories has marked a rupture in working-class lives. The Deindustrialized World interrogates the process of industrial ruination, from the first impact of layoffs in metropolitan cities, suburban areas, and single-industry towns to the shock waves that rippled outward, affecting entire regions, countries, and beyond. Seeking to hear the “roar ... on the other side of the silence,” scholars from France, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States share their own stories of ruin and ruination and ask others what it means to be working class in a postindustrial world. In Part 1, they explore the ruination of former workplaces and the damaged health and injured bodies of industrial workers. Part 2 brings to light disparities of experiences between rural resource towns and cities, where hipster revitalization often overshadows industrial loss. Part 3 reveals the ongoing impact of deindustrialization on working people and their place in the new global economy. Together, the chapters open a window on the lived experiences of people living at ground zero of deindustrialization, revealing its layered impacts and examining how workers, environmentalists, activists, and the state have responded to its challenges. --Publisher's description