Full bibliography

Taken together, the fiction and non-fiction writing of these two nineteenth-century Canadian intellectuals [Agnes Maule Machar (1837-1927) and Albert Richardson Carman (1865-1939)] suggests both the vitality of the public debate about labour reform, and the broad social interest and significance attributed to the labour question as one of the issues that would define the moral character of the period. Both Machar and Carman approach the labour question as Christian intellectuals, and their sense of the middleclass’s social responsibility is clearly articulated in both their novels and their essays. These writers suggest that what is needed is not an increase in charity but a rejuvenation of each citizen’s sense of moral responsibility. The idea of “brotherhood,” emphasized in the writing of both Carman and Machar, connects the church’s rhetoric of spiritual brotherhood to the labour reform movement’s emphasis on the practical brotherhood that unites workers and which is manifested in their drive toward combination and unionization. Machar and Carman’s own efforts as brainworkers who speak out about the urgent necessity for reform are echoed in their fictional heroes’ quest to create a more egalitarian society. --Author's conclusion

Number: 191