Your search

The article reviews the book, "Civilization: From Enlightenment Philosophy to Canadian History," by Elsbeth A. Heaman.

At the "Challenging Labour" / «Le défi du travail» conference held at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, in October 2022, two plenary sessions invited scholars to engage in a dialogue on important historical and theoretical issues in the field of labour and working-class history/studies. One of these, on the entanglement of capitalism and colonialism, featured a paper delivered by Bryan D. Palmer and a response from hagwil hayetsk (Charles Menzies). These presentations are revised for publication here along with a rejoinder from Palmer in what is Labour/Le Travail's first "Forum" section. The aim of this section is to foster conversation, with scholars meaningfully engaging with each other's work across disciplinary, methodological, theoretical, or other kinds of differences in approach and understanding. The merit of this kind of dialogue is well demonstrated here by Palmer and hayetsk, and the editors would invite more such conversations for publication in this section in future issues. --Editors' introduction

Responds to hagwil hayetsk/Charles Menzie's paper, "Capitalism and Colonialism," published in the same issue.

The article reviews "WAC: Bennett and the Rise of British Columbia," by David J. Mitchell, "Louis Robichaud: A Decade of Power," by Delia M.M. Stanley, "Visions of History," edited by Henry Abelove et al., "A History of Capitalism, I500-1980," by Michel Beaud, "A Radical Reader: The Struggle for Change in England, 1381-1914," edited by Christopher Hampton, "Manufacture in Town and Country before the Factory," edited by Maxine Berg. Pat Hudson, and Michael Sonenscher, "From Chartism to Labourism: Historical Sketches of English Working-Class Movement," by Theodore Rothstein, "Dictionary of Labour Biography," v. 7, edited by Joyce M. Bellamy and John Saville, "The Coal Miners' General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.," by Andy Phillips and Raya Dunayevskaya, "Studies in Labour Theory and Practice," edited by William L. Rowe, "Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition," by Cedric J. Robinson, "First Facts of American Labor," edited by Philip S. Foner, "Failure of a Dream? Essays in the History of American Socialism," edited by John H.M. Laslett and Seymour Martin Lipset, "Plain Folk: The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans," edited by David M. Katzman and William M. Tuttle. Jr., "The Ties That Bind: Law, Marriage, and the Reproduction of Patriarchal Relations," by Carol Smart, "A Documentary History of Communism," v. 1: "Communism in Russia," and v. 2: "Communism and the World," edited by Robert V. Daniels, "After Marx," edited by Terrence Ball and James Fair, "Dialogue within the Dialectic," by Norman Levine, and "A Guide to Marx's Capital," by Anthony Brewer.

The article briefly reviews ""A Reader's Guide to Canadian History 1 : Beginnings to Confederation," edited by D.A. Muise, "A Reader's Guide to Canadian History 2: Confederation to the Present," edited by J.L. Granatstein and Paul Stevens, "Shaping the Urban Landscape: Aspects of the Canadian City-Building Process," edited by Gilbert A. Stelter and Alan F.J. Artibise, "Steve Nelson: American Radical," by Steve Nelson, James R. Barrett, and Rob Ruck, "Immigrant Women," edited by Maxine Schwartz Seller, "American Labor in the Southwest: The First One Hundred Years," edited by James C. Foster, "The Moral Response to Industrialism: The Lectures of Reverend Cook in Lynn, Massachusetts," edited by John T. Cumbler, "Wilhelm Liebknecht: Letters to the Chicago Workingman's Advocate, November 26 1870-December 2 1871," edited by Philip S. Foner, " Guide to the Local Assemblies of the Knights of Labor," by Jonathan Garlock, "The New England Mill Village, 1790-1860," edited by Gary Kulik, Roger Parks, and Theodore Z. Penn, "Democratic Socialism: The Mass Left in Advanced Industrial Societies," edited by Bogdan Denitch, "Marx and Engels on Law and Laws," by Paul Phillips, "The Degradation of Work? Skill, Deskilling and the Labour Process," edited by Stephen Wood, "Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology," by Richard R. Weiner,"Our Common History: The Transformation of Europe," edited by Paul Thompson, "Wives For Sale: An Ethnographic Study of British Popular Divorce," by Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, "Today the Struggle: A Novel," by Mervyn Jones, and "A History of European Socialism," by Albert S. Lindemann.

The Canadian worker has been a neglected figure in Canadian history. Workers have contributed in many ways to the development of Canadian society, but the history of working people — their families, communities and work places — has only gradually become part of our view of the past and an important component of understanding how we came to occupy our present. --Introduction. Contents: Early historiography -- Postwar scholarship -- 1970s-1980s -- Class and labour -- Scholarship proliferates -- New interpretation and debate -- Working women and gendered class relations -- Labour history at the current juncture.

Replies to Michael Piva's "comment" on statistics regarding the proportion of the Ontairo working population who were members of the Knights of Labor. Concedes that there was an error, but argues with Piva's usage of 1891 Canadian census data and his pessimistic assessment of the Knights' impact.

The article reviews "Scholars and Dollars: Politics, Economics, and the Universities of Ontario, 1945-1980," by Paul Axelrod, "Language and Nationhood: The Canadian Experience," review by Ronald Wardhaugh"Trouble at Lachine Mill," by Bill Freeman, "The Welfare State in Canada: A Select Bibliography, 1840-1978," by Allan Moscovitch et al., "The Canadian Prairie West and the Ranching Frontier, 1874-1924," by David H. Breen, "The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790," by Rhys Isaac, "The Divided Mind: Ideology and Imagination in America, 1898-1917," by Peter Conn, "The Hawsepipe: Newsletter of the Marine Workers Historical Association," newsletter started by Jack and Judy McCusker, "Ben Tillelt: Portrait of a Labour Leader," by Jonathan Schneer, "Industrial Democracy at Sea: Authority and Democracy on a Norwegian Freighter," edited by Robert Schrank, "What Rough Beast? The State and Social Order in Australian History," by Sydney Labour History Group, "Politics in the Ancient World," by M.I. Finley / reviews by Bryan D. Palmer -- "A Social History of the English Working Classes," by Eric Hopkins / review by Craig Calhoun.

The article presents a comparison of the working classes in Canada and the U.S. It states that a smaller low-wage manufacturing sector exists in Canada where workers are permanently trapped in poverty. The similarity of the levels and nature of unionization and attitudes toward social provisioning between the two countries are also mentioned.

What constitutes proletarianization? The conventional answer to this seemingly simple question often stresses waged labour. Yet many workers, past and present, are routinely unable,to secure paid employment, in part because of the persistence of capitalist crises of various kinds. This study of indigent workers in Toronto from the 1830s to the 1930s is premised on an understanding of proletarianization as dispossession, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the ways in which capitalism necessarily produces recurrent crises, leaving many workers wageless. It addresses how wagelessness and poverty were criminalized through the development of institutions of ostensible charitable relief, such as the Toronto House of Industry, in which those seeking shelter and/or sustenance were required to chop wood or, more onerously, break stone in order to be. admitted to the ranks of those 'deserving' of such support. By the end of the nineteenth century-resistance to such "labour tests" was increasingly evident. Protests took place in Toronto, where the black flag was carried in demonstrations demanding "work or bread." Refusing to "crack the stone" and demands that relief be administered differently were common features of mobilizations of the wageless in the opening decades of the twentieth century, in which socialists often took the lead. By the time of capitalism's devastating collapse in the Great Depression of the 1930s, Toronto's wageless were well situated to mount an outcasts' offensive.

Introduces "The Big Sleep" by Jack Timmerman (1915-1953), an unpublished, graphic account of the Malartic Mine Fire of 1947 that resuled in the deaths of 12 miners at the gold mine in northwestern Quebec. Provides a biography of Timmerman, who was working at the mine at the time, as well as framing the disaster in terms of the persistence and frequency of such events.

This text is a collection of classic and contemporary articles exploring the nature of work in Canadian history from the late eighteenth century to the current day. Class relations and labour form the core of the volume, but attention will also be paid to the state and its relations with workers both formal and informal. The volume is designed as a core text for classes in Canadian labour/working-class history, taught out of history and labour studies departments. --Publisher's description

Toronto’s Poor reveals the long and too often forgotten history of poor people’s resistance. It details how the homeless, the unemployed, and the destitute have struggled to survive and secure food and shelter in the wake of the many panics, downturns, recessions, and depressions that punctuate the years from the 1830s to the present. Written by a historian of the working-class and a poor people’s activist, this is a rebellious book that links past and present in an almost two-hundred year story of struggle and resistance. It is about men, women, and children relegated to lives of desperation by an uncaring system, and how they have refused to be defeated. In that refusal, and in winning better conditions for themselves, Toronto’s poor create the possibility of a new kind of society, one ordered not by acquisition and individual advance, but by appreciations of collective rights and responsibilities. --Publisher's description

The article briefly reviews "Ravished bx the Spirit: Religious Revivals, Baptists, and Henry Alline," by G.A. Rawylk, "The Acadiensis Reader, v. 1: Atlantic Canada Before Confederation and v. 2: Atlantic Canada After Confederation," edited by P.A. Bucknerand David Frank, "The Mysteries of Montreal: Memoirs of a Midwife," by Charlotte Fiihrer, edited by Peter Ward, "The Promoters' City: Building the Industrial Town of Maisonneuve, 1883-I9I8," by Paul-Andre Linteau, translated by Robert Chodos, "Government and Enterprise in Canada," edited by K.J. Rea and Nelson Wiseman, "Collective Bargaining in the Public Service: The Federal Experience in Canada," v. 1-2, edited by Jacob Finkelman and Shirley B. Goldenberg, "The Labor History Reader," edited by Daniel J. Leah, "C. Wright Mills: An American Utopian," by Irving Louis Horowitz, "Foundry Foreman, Foundry men," by Lloyd Zimpel, (San Pedro: Singlejack,1980); "Longshoring on the San Francisco Waterfront," by Reg Theriault, (San Pedro: Singlejack, 1978); and "Night Shift in a Pickle Factory," by Steve Turner (San Pedro: Singlejack, 1980), "The Fight Against Shutdowns: Youngstown's Steel Mill," by Staughton Lynd, "International Labour Reports" (a bimonthly magazine established 1983), "The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age," by Gertrude Himmelfarb, "A History of British Socialism," by Max Beer. with a new introduction by Ken Coates, "English Industrial Cities of the Nineteenth Century," by Richard Dennis, "Shop Floor Bargaining and the State: Historical and Comparative Perspectives," edited by Steven Tolliday and Jonathan Zeitlin, "Wigan Pier Revisited: Poverty and Politics in the 80s," by Beatrix Campbell, " Vision and Method in Historical Sociology," edited by Theda Skoepol, and "Making Sense of Marx," by Joe Elster / reviews by Bryan D. Palmer -- "Agriculture in America, 1622-1860," by Andrea J. Tucher / review by D.H.A. -- "Labor's Joke Book," edited by Paul Buhle / review by Gregory S. Kealey.

The article briefly reviews "A Differerent Kind of State? Popular Power and Democratic Administration," edited by Gregory Albo, David Langille. and Leo Panitch, "Belonging: The Meaning and Future of Canadian Citizenship," edited by William Kaplan, "Policing Canada's Century: A History of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police," by Greg Marquis, "Aberhart: Outpourings and Replies," edited by David R. Elliott, "The Voyages of Jacques Cartier," by Ramsay Cook, "Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth Century Montreal," by Louise Dechtne, "New England Planters in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, 1759-1800," compiled by Judith A. Norton, "Creed and Culture: The Place of English-Speaking Carholics in Canadian Society, 1750-1930," edited by Terrence Murphy and Gerald Stortz, "While the Women Only Wept: Loyalist Refugee Women in Eastern Ontario," by Janice Potter-MacKinnon, "Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas," edited by Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan, "Farm to Factory: Women 's Letters, 1830-1860," edited by Thomas Dublin, "Gender and American History Since 1890," edited by Barbara Melosh, "Industrial Democracy in America: The Ambiguous Legacy," edited by Nelson Lichtenstein and Howell John Harris, "Race in America: The Struggle for Equality" edited by Herbert Hill and Jamcs E. Jones, Jr., "The Land and the Loom: Peasants and Profit in Northern France, 1680-1800," by Liana Vardi, "Harold Laski: A Political Biography," by Michael Newman, "Socialist Parties and the Question of Europe in the 1950s," edited by Richard T. Griffiths, "Keeping Heads Above Water: Salvadorean Refugees in Costa Rica," by Tanya Basok, "The Althusserian Legacy," edited by E. Ann Kaplan and Michael Sprinker, "Capitalism Versus Anti-Capitalism: The Triumph of Ricardian over Marxist Political Economy," by Paul Fabra, and "Labor Demand," by Daniel S. Hamemesh / reviews by Bryan D. Palmer -- "Tramps, Workmates and Revolutionaries: Working-Class Stories of the 1920s," edited by H. Gustav Klaus / review by Gregory S. Kealey.

Bryan Palmer is succeeding Gregory Kealey, who is stepping down as editor after 21 years. Mark Leier is succeeding Palmer as the book review editor; Palmer had held the post for nearly 15 years. In turn, Andrew Parnaby and Richard Rennie are the new co-editors of the Notebook, succeeding Leier. Andrée Lévesque continues as the French book review editor. Various editorial board changes are noted. As incoming editor, Palmer offers a reflection on the journal and its path forward.

The article briefly reviews "The Formation of Labour Movements, 1870-1914: An International Perspective," edited by Marcel Van Der Linden,and Jurgen Rojahn, "Reluctant Icon: Gladstone, Bulgaria, and the Working Classes, 1856-1878," by Ann Pottinger Saab, "On the Move: Essays in Labour and Transport History Presented to Philip Bagwell," edited by Chris Wrigley and John Shepherd, "Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900-1933," by Morton Keller, "The Nature of Work: Sociological Perspectives," edited by Kai Erickson and Steven Peter Vallas, "Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Politics of Cultural Memory, 1910-1945," by Cary Nelson, "The Arbitration of Rights Disputes in the Public Sector," by Clarence R. Deitsch and David A. Dills, "Women, Employment and the Family in the International Division of Labour," edited by Sharon Stichter and Jane L. Parpart, "History from South Africa: Alternative Visions and Practices," edited by Joshua Brown et al., "Arbitration Discharge: Grievances in Ontario : Outcomes and Reinstatement Experiences," by Peter J. Barnacle, "Labour Arbitration Yearbook, 1991, Volume 1," edited by William Kaplan, Jeffrey Sack, and Morley Gunderson, "Class War: A Decade of Disorder," edited by Ian Bone, Alan Pullen and Tim Scargill, "Taylorism Transformed: Scientific Management Theory Since 1945," Stephen P. Waring, and "Women Workers and Global Restructuring," edited by Kathryn Ward / reviews by Bryan D. Palmer -- "Foreign Language Literature on the Nordic Labour Movements," edited by Marianne Bagge Hansen and Gerd Callesen / review by Gregory S. Kealey.

The article briefly reviews "Love A Solidarity: A Pictorial History of the NDP, by Cameron Smith, "Industrial Relations in Canadian Industry," edited by Richard P. Chaykowski and Anil Verma, "Reaction and Reform: The Politics of the Conservative Party under R. B. Bennett, 1927-1938," by Larry A. Glassford, "The Un-Canadians: True Stories of the Blacklist Era," by Len Scher, "History of Canadian Youth and Childhood: A Bibliography," by Neil Sutherland, Jean Barman and Linda L. Hale, "The Little Slaves of the Harp: Italian Child Street Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Paris, London, and New York," by John E. Zucchi, "In the Floating Army: F.C. Mills on Itinerant Life in California, 1914, by Gregory R. Woirol, "Visions of a New Industrial Order: Social Science and Labor Theory in America's Progressive Era," by Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr., "The Lost World of the Craft Printer," by Maggie Holtzberg-Call, "The Trucker's World: Risk, Safety, and Mobility," by J. Peter Rothe, "Avoiding the Cracks: A Guide to the Workers ' Compensation System," by Anne Tramposh, "Feminism and the Women's Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement Ideology and Activism," by Barbara Ryan, "Ethnic Minorities and Industrial Change in Europe and North America," edited by Malcolm Cross, "English and French Towns in Feudal Society: A Comparative Approach," by R.H. Hilton, "The Education of Desire: Marxists and the Writing of History," by Harvey J. Kaye, "White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and History," by Catherine Hall, "William Cobbett and Rural Popular Culture," by Ian Dyck, "European Labour Politics from 1900 to the Depression," by Dick Geary, "Women of the Praia: Work and Lives in a Portuguese Coastal Community," by Sally Cole, "New Trends in Employment Practices: An International Survey," by Walter Galenson, "Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life: A South African Autobiography," by Emma Mashinini, "Status Influences in Third World Labor Markets: Caste, Gender, and Custom," edited by James G. Scoville, ,"Labor and Economic Growth in Five Asian Countries," by Walter Galenson / reviews by Bryan D. Palmer -- "The Labor Process and Control of Labor: The Changing Nature of Work Relations in the Late Twentieth Century," edited by Berch Berberoglu, "Culture and the Labour Movement: Essays in New Zealand Labour History," edited by John E. Martin and Kerry Taylor / reviews by Gregory S. Kealey.

The article briefly reviews "The Structure of the Canadian Capitalist Class," by Robert J. Brym, "Democratic Socialism: The Challenge of the Eighties and Beyond," edited by Donna Wilson, "Old Passions, New Visions: Social Movements and Political Activism in Quebec," by Marc Raboy, "Frank H. Underhill; Intellectual Provocateur," by R. Douglas Francis, "Emerging Identities: Selected Problems and Interpretations in Canadian History," edited by Paul W. Bennett and Cornelius J. Jaenen, "Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, I680-1800," by Allan Kulikoff, "Will Herberg: A Bio-Bibliography," by Harry J. Ausmus, "Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America," by Carrol Smith-Rosenberg, "The Collected Essays of Asa Briggs, Volume 1: Words, Numbers, Places, People and Volume Two: Images, Problems, Standpoints, Forecasts," by Asa Briggs, "The Irish in the Victorian City," by Roger Swift and Sheridan Gilley, "British Economic Growth during the Industrial Revolution," by N.F.R. Crafts, "Language, Gentler and Childhood," edited by Carolyn Steedman, Cathy Urwin, and Valerie Walkerdine, "British Trade Unionism Against the Trades Union Congress," by Gerald A. Dorfman, "Artisans, Peasants, and Proletarians, 1760-1860: Essays Presented to Gwyn Williams," by Clive Emsley and James Walvin,"Labor Migration in the Atlantic Economies: The European and North American Working Classes During the Period of Industrialization," edited by Dirk Hoerder, "The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany," by David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, "The Development of Capitalism in Northern Nigeria," by Robert Shenton, "Capitalism and Social Democracy," by Adam Przeworski, "Outsiders: A Study in Life and Letters," by Hans Mayer / reviews by Bryan D. Palmer -- "Talkin' Union: Music Lore History," journal edited by Saul Schniderman, "Nature's Noblemen: The Fortunes of the independent Collier in Scotland and the American Midwest, 1855-1885," by John H.M. Laslett / reviews by Gregory S. Kealey.