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Max Swerdlow's life as labour organizer and educator began in Depression-era Winnipeg and carried him to national and international prominence in the Trades and Labour Congress, the Canadian Labour Congress, and the International Labour Organization. In this lively memoir, Swerdlow recaptures the persons and events of his life in the Labour movement. --Publisher's description

For Ontario workers during the industrial revolution the workplace was often an environment of terrible danger. Injuries and illness from unsafe working conditions were commonplace. Over time these conditions spurred efforts for reform from activists, legislators, and the courts. But change was slow in coming. To understand the impact of industrial revolution on the health and safety of workers generally, and on women and children in particular, tucker uses their testimony before various commissions, newspapers, and reported court cases. Initial efforts to effect change were made through the courts; they were largely unsuccessful. When the judiciary refused to regulate the risk-creating conduct of employers, through either the civil or the criminal law, workers and Victorian reformers found common ground in successfully promoting factory legislation. By prescribing and enforcing minimum standards, a measure of regulatory responsibility for the health of workers generally and women and children in particular was shifted from the market to the state. Class interest and gender ideology played a substantial role in this process. But the legislation's implementation belied its promise. The government was unwilling to provide adequate enforcement resources and inspectors accepted the conventional wisdom that workers had to adjust to the 'normal' hazards of industry, which were reasonable and, therefore, legal. Even when the accident rate began to soar as a result of the 'second industrial revolution, ' the authorities remained complacent. Tucker says that in industrial capitalist social formation, the nature and degree of hazards to which workers are exposed are determined largely by the employer-worker balance of power. Their respective power resources both shape and are shaped by the ideological, legal, political, and administrative environment in which they are deployed. Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century and up to the First World War, state regulation of occupational health and safety was substantially subordinated to market-driven forces; it still is today

The National Action Committee on the Status of Women marked the twentieth anniversary of its founding in 1992. Today, it is the umbrella organization for roughly six hundred women’s groups in Canada. The authors of this study argue that, if women’s movements are to achieve their equality goals, they must develop enduring institutions that allow women’s efforts to be organized over the course of several generations. The authors examine the process of institutionalization through an in-depth study of the National Action Committee. In the belief that women’s movements in Canada have become more or less permanent features of the political system, operating parallel to its official structures, the author argue the need for a feminist political science that can accommodate the study of both women’s politics in their autonomous movements and women’s conventional activities in official politics. Indeed, this book undertakes political analysis ‘as if women mattered’: it focuses on women’s interests and draws on feminist theory while remaining connected to the broad framework of political science. The book documents NAC’s evolution as a ‘parliament of women.’ It shows how the organization moved from a fairly narrow status-of-women focus in its policies to a broadly conceived policy framework that linked such apparently sex-neutral issues as free trade, federalism, and taxation to feminism. Although the more comprehensive feminist approach to public policy proved dangerous for NAC in a conservative era, it also solidified its role and reputation as a major play in equality-seeking politics in Canada. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction : NAC and women's politics in Quebec ; NAC and women's politics in the first nations ; NAC and the politics of the 'new force' ; NAC as the coordinating institution of the English-Canadian women's movement ; Highlights of NAC's development -- The intellectual and political context for the development of NAC : An overview of women's movements and the National Action Committee ; Canadian political culture and Canadian women's movements ; Radical influences on feminist political culture ; NAC's political-opportunity structure: the Canadian political system -- NAC in the shadow of the royal commission: the founding era, 1972-1978 : 'Social' movements and the political process ; The founding of NAC -- The struggle for NAC: the transitional era, 1979-1982 : The issues in conflict: grafting on a radical grass roots ; Two coalitions competing for the future of NAC -- A new Parliament of women: institutionalizing NAC, 1982-1988 : Getting NAC 'back on track' ; The great leap forward: the expansion examined ; Opposition on the right ; Organizational review -- Agency, leadership, representation, and democracy in NAC : A revolution of rising expectations: NAC member groups ; Leadership and accountability: is anyone here in charge? ; Representation: the heart of the matter ; Process and democracy in NAC -- The policy process: structures for a new Parliament of women : Changing conceptions of the policy process in NAC ; Evolving policy structures in NAC ; NAC's ability to deal with short-term policy issues ; NAC's approach to long-term policy issues -- Feminist ideology and policy making in NAC : In search of a framework: understanding the ideological trends in NAC ; The development of a feminist ideological spectrum in NAC: some benchmark issues ; From a status-of-women approach to a feminist politics -- Conclusion : What is success? ; Can NAC's role as a Parliament of women continue? ; Is radical liberalism outmoded as a cultural basis for NAC politics? ; Will NAC survive? -- Appendixes : A. Ideological forces among Anglophone NAC delegates, 984 AGM ; B. Groups affiliated with NAC by type, circa 1987-1988.

In Mail & Female, Julie White chronicles and analyzes changes at the Post Office during the thirty years prior to the merger between the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the Letter Carriers Union of Canada in January 1989. She focuses on CUPW activities and changes during a period which saw both inside workers and postal managers move from thinking of Post Office jobs as men's work to jobs no longer characterized in gender-specific terms. Mail & Female: Women and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers is an original contribution to women's and labour studies in Canada. CUPW changed from refusing women membership in the union in the late 1950s to its present position where its collective agreement is regarded as one of the most progressive for women. This book documents and analyzes these changes. --Publisher's description

Originally published in 1975, this important book is now back in print in a revised and updated edition. Since its first publication it has become a classic of revisionist history. Bringing a Native viewpoint to the settlement of the West, Howard Adam's book shook its readers. What Native people had to say for themselves was quite different from the convenient picture of history that even the most sympathetic books by white authors had presented. Until Adams's book, the cultural, historical, and psychological aspects of colonialism for Native people had not been explored in depth. In Prison of Grass Adams objects to the popular historical notion that Natives were warring savages, without government, seeking to be civilized. He contrasts the official history found in the federal government's documents with the unpublished history of the Indian and Métis people. In this new edition Howard Adams brings the latest statistics to bear on his arguments and provides a new Preface. --Publisher's description. Contents: The basis of racism -- The communal Indian society -- Fur traders trespass -- Colonization and missionaries -- Ossification of Native society -- The Halfbreed Nation and the civil war -- Subjugation of the Indians and Metis -- Causes of the 1885 struggle -- Ottawa invades the Northwest -- Courtroom : the mask of conquest -- The underdevelopment of Native communities -- Schooling the Redman -- The white ideal and the colonized personality -- The failure of Native leadership -- Decolonization and nationalism -- The struggle for liberation -- Appendix A. Casualties of Indians and Metis in 1885 Battles.

The origins of the modern system of industrial relations in Canada as seen in the key struggles and compromises with the power of employers and governments in the province of Nova Scotia. Focusing on changes in coal-mining, fishing and the public sector, this collection offers a challenging case study in Canadian labour history. --Publisher's description

During the author's travels, he meets Menalcas, a caricature of Oscar Wilde, who relates his fantastic life story. But for all his brilliance, Menalcas is only Gide's yesterday self, a discarded wraith who leaves Gide free to stop exalting the ego and embrace bodily and spiritual joy. Later Fruits of the Earth, written in 1935 during Gide's short-lived spell of communism, reaffirms the doctrine of the earlier book. But now he sees happiness not as freedom, but a submission to heroism. In a series of 'Encounters', Gide describes a Negro tramp, a drowned child, a lunatic and other casualties of life. These reconcile him to suffering, death and religion, causing him to insist that 'today's Utopia' be 'tomorrow's reality'. --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 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.

The Pacific salmon fishery and the canning industry it supports have recently lost their status as the one of the most valuable fisheries in the world. In this study of early modern business, Dianne Newell discusses the beginning of the North American salmon canning industry, working from archives left by one of the leaders in the field, Henry Doyle. Doyle (1874-1961) was founder and first general manager of a major consolidation of packing companies, British Columbia Packers Association (established in 1902), which became British Columbia Packers Ltd., one of the few pioneer fish-packing companies that remains viable today. He was recognised by friends and enemies alike as the unofficial industry historian not only for British Columbia but also for Alaska and the Pacific US coastal states. Doyle was a vora-cious collector of "intelligence," whose extensive papers, now stored in the archives of the University of British Columbia, constitute the only comprehensive insider's history of the rise of the industry. Newell has culled this collection of documents for revealing highlights, important trends, and events within this profitable industry. These documents are reproduced in the text and are supported by editorial essays, annotations, a statistical appendix, and a lengthy glossary of historical terms. The result is an intriguing combination of both the personal and the scholarly view of this industry through its most exciting and critical years. --Publisher's description

One of the most important books to come out of Quebec, Thirty Acres (Trente arpents) traces the course of one man’s life as he enters into the age-old rhythms of the land and of the seasons. At the same time, it is a novel on a grand social scale, spanning and documenting the tumultuous half-century in which a new, industrial urban society crowded out Quebec’s traditional rural one. Winner of the Governor General’s Award and numerous other national and international literary prizes, Thirty Acres is a universal story of birth and death, renewal and reversal, ascent and decline, and a masterpiece of irony and realism. --Publisher's description

Basé sur une documentation en partie inédite, voici l'histoire du syndicalisme québécois depuis le début du XIXe siècle jusqu'en 1985, histoire qui évolue sensiblement au même rythme que celle des autres mouvements syndicaux en Amérique du Nord. --Publisher's description

The Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy’s first novel, is a classic of Canadian fiction. Imbued with Roy’s unique brand of compassion and compelling understanding, this moving story focuses on a family in the Saint-Henri slums of Montreal, its struggles to overcome poverty and ignorance, and its search for love. An affecting story of familial tenderness, sacrifice, and survival during the Second World War, The Tin Flute won both the Governor General’s Award and the Prix Fémina of France. The novel was made into a critically acclaimed motion picture in 1983. --Publisher's description

"We are not strong enough to assimilate races so alien from us in their habits … We are afraid they will swamp our civilization as such." – Nanaimo Free Press, 1914. This book examines how British Columbians changed their attitudes towards Asian immigrants from one of toleration in colonial times to vigorous hostility by the turn of the century and describes how politicians responded to popular cries to halt Asian immigration and restrict Asian activities in the province. White workingmen objected to Asian sojourning habits, to their low living standards and wages, and to their competition for jobs in specific industries. Because employers and politicians initially supported Asian immigrants, early manifestations of antipathy often appeared just as another dispute between capital and labour. But as their number increased, complaints about Asians became widespread, and racial characteristics became the nucleus of such terms as a “white man’s province” – a “catch phrase” which, as Roy notes, “covered a wide variety of fears and transcended particular economic interests.” The Chinese were the chief targets of hostility in the nineteenth century; by the twentieth, the Japanese, more economically ambitious and backed by a powerful mother country, appeared more threatening. After Asian disenfranchisement in the 1870s, provincial politicians, freed from worry about the Asian vote, fueled and exploited public prejudices. The Asian question also became a rallying cry for provincial rights when Ottawa disallowed anti-Asian legislation. Although federal leaders such as John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier shared a desire to keep Canada a “white man's country,” they followed a policy of restraint in view of imperial concerns. The belief that whites should be superior, as Roy points out, was then common throughout the Western world. Many of the arguments used in British Columbia were influenced by anti-Asian sentiments and legislation emanating from California, and from Australia and other British colonies. Drawing on almost every newspaper and magazine report published in the province before 1914, and on government records and private manuscripts, Roy has produced a revealing historical account of the complex basis of racism in British Columbia and of the contribution made to the province in these early years by its Chinese and Japanese residents. --Publisher's description

Canadian women on the political left in the first half of the twentieth century fought with varying degrees of commitment for women's rights. Women's dreams of equality were in part a vision of economic and class equality, though they also represented profound desires for equality with men - both within their own parties and in the larger society. In both the Communist Party of Canada and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a male-dominated leadership seldom embraced women's causes wholeheartedly or as a doctrinal priority. So-called women's issues, whether birth control, consumer issues, or equal pay, usually took second place to an emphasis on the general needs of workers or farmers. Nonetheless, many women continued to promote their feminist causes through the socialist movement, in the hope that, eventually, the socialist New Jerusalem would see their dreams of equality fulfilled. In this book, Joan Sangster chronicles in fascinating detail the first tentative stages of a politically aware women's movement in Canada, from the time of women's suffrage to the 1950's when the CPC went into decline and the CCF began to experience the changes that would evolve into the New Democratic Party a decade later. In Dreams of Equality, Joan Sangster chronicles in fascinating detail the first tentative stages of a politically aware women's movement in Canada, from the time of women's suffrage to the 1950's when the CPC went into decline and the CCF began to experience the changes that would evolve into the New Democratic Party a decade later.

Canadian women on the political left in the first half of the twentieth century fought with varying degrees of commitment for women's rights. Women's dreams of equality were in part a vision of economic and class equality, though they also represented profound desires for equality with men - both within their own parties and in the larger society. In both the Communist Party of Canada and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a male-dominated leadership seldom embraced women's causes wholeheartedly or as a doctrinal priority. So-called women's issues, whether birth control, consumer issues, or equal pay, usually took second place to an emphasis on the general needs of workers or farmers. Nonetheless, many women continued to promote their feminist causes through the socialist movement, in the hope that, eventually, the socialist New Jerusalem would see their dreams of equality fulfilled. In Dreams of Equality, Joan Sangster chronicles in fascinating detail the first tentative stages of a politically aware women's movement in Canada, from the time of women's suffrage to the 1950's when the CPC went into decline and the CCF began to experience the changes that would evolve into the New Democratic Party a decade later. --Publisher's description. Originally published: Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989. Contents: Preface --Theory and practice: early Canadian socialists explore the woman question -- The Communist Party of Canada confronts the woman question -- Red revolutionaries and pink tea pacifists: communist and socialist women in the early 1930's -- Militant mothering: women in the early CCF -- More militant mothering: communist women during the popular front -- From working for war to prices and peace: communist women during the 1940's -- The CCF confronts the woman question -- Conclusion: women and the party question.

This collection of essays focuses on the experiences of women as poliutical activists in twentieth-century Canada, both in the mainstream of party politics and in groups outside the mainstream. The latter include women in the socialist and labour movements, the farm and peace movements, and women active in variouss ethnic communities. Expanding the notion of politics, the authors highlight the widespread naturee of women's activism - particularly at the local level - and challenge the easy formulation that women were primarily interest in the vote and lost interest in politics when they acquired it. Some of the essays suggest that even the suffrage campaign has been misrepresented as solely a middle-class movement. Women evolved their own styles of political pparticipation shaped by local contexts, class, culture, family, and life cycle. Women often organized at the community level, and worked both in combination with men and in women-only settings. Contributors to the volume explore women's involvement in organizations from the political left to right, and women's efforts to shape Canada's political priorities and activities. Politically minded women often found that their best outless for commitment and service was through women's organizations, which addressed their needs and provided a base for effective action. --Publisher's description

In this study Marjorie Griffin Cohen argues that in research into Ontario’s economic history the emphasis on market activity has obscured the most prevalent type of productive relations in the staple-exporting economy – the patriarchal relations of production within the family economy. Cohen focuses on the productive relations in the family and the significance of women’s labour to the process of capital accumulation in both the capitalist sphere and independent commodity production. --Publisher's description

The changing roles of native women, devices for assimilation, the re-birth of the Metis: these are among the issues examined in this collection of provocative essays which explore the link between aboriginal culture and economic patterns. --Publisher's description. Contents: The Iroquois wars and native arms / Brian J. Given -- Epidemics / Susan Johnston -- Ktaqamkuk Ilnui Saqimawoutie : aboriginal rights and the myth of the micmac mercenaries in Newfoundland / Dennis Bartels -- Families of mixed descent in the Western Great Lakes Region / Harriet Gorham -- The significance of hunting territories today / Adrian Tanner -- Waswanipi Cree management of land and wildlife: Cree ethno-ecology revisited / Harvey A. Feit -- The Innu bands of Labrador / Eleanor Leacock -- The home guard Cree and the Hudson's Bay Company / J.E. Foster -- The Métis Nation: buffalo hunting versus agricullture in the Red River Settlement, 1810-1870 / Herman Sprenger -- The Métis: genesis and rebirth / Jennifer S.H. Brown -- Indian reserves in Western Canada: Indian homelands or devices for assimilation? / J.L. Tobias -- Slave raiding on the North Pacific Coast / Leland Donald -- Women traders in the maritime fur trade / Loraine Littlefield -- Fishing is women’s business: changing economic roles of carrier women and men / Jo-Anne Fiske -- The marginalization of the Tsimshian cultural ecology: the seasonal cycle / James Andrew MacDonald -- Changing perceptions of the industrial development of the North / Bruce Alden Cox -- Capital and economic development: a critical appraisal of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Commission / Michael J. Asch -- Survival and adaptation of the Innu ethnic identity: the importance of the Inuktituk / Jean-Philippe Chartrand -- Prospects for the northern Canadian native economy / Bruce Alden Cox -- Recent publications in Canadian native studies / John A. Price.