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Contents: 1881-1914: The Age of the Craftsman -- 1914-1919: "No More Defeats" -- 1920-1930: Dress Rehearsal for a Depression -- 1930-1940: Reaching the Breaking Point -- 1940-1960: A System on Trial -- 1960-1984: New Strengths, New Challenges.

Chronicles Mine Mill's US origins in the Western Federation of Miners, the WFM organization in Western Canada, and the union's arrival in Northeastern Canada, including Kirkland Lake and Sudbury Local 598.

[This book] is the last of a 5-volume series of readers designed to present an overview of Canada's social history, encompassing such topics as economic development, social structure, protest and violence, social control, work and workers, and the changing role of women. In this volume the editors have commissioned a collection of original essays designed to provide a scholarly response to the vital questions: "Who are we as a people? How did we become what we are?" The extent and influence of foreign ownership in the post-war world is examined by Paul Phillips and Stephen Watson. David Wolfe chronicles the emergence of the welfare state after the war and its recent decline. Michael Behiels explores the ideological tensions among federalist, nationalist, and socialist intellectuals in Quebec and Canada. Ruther Pierson and Marjorie Cohen discuss sexual bias in federal manpower policies in depression, war, and reconstruction. The struggles of labour, management, and government are examined in articles by Wayne Robert and John Bullen, and by Wallace Clement. And the education system as a instrument of social control is the subject of Paul Axelrod's essay. --Publisher's description

Contains six papers originally presented at the 1981 annual meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory. These papers cover various aspects of Native economic and social adaptations in the context of the Canadian fur trade in the period ranging from the 17th century up to and including the 20th century. --Publisher's description. Contents: Periodic shortages, native welfare, and the Hudson's Bay Company, 1670-1930 / Arthur J. Ray -- The first century / Charles A. Bishop -- Economic and social accommodations of the James Bay Islanders to the fur trade / Toby Morantz -- Sakie, Esquawenoe, and the foundation of a dual-native tradition at Moose Factory / Carol M. Judd -- The trade of the Slavey and Dogrib at Fort Simpson in the early nineteenth century / Shepard Krech III -- The microeconomics of Southern Chipewyan fur-trade history / Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach.

Contents: Part 1. A Contrasting Regional Perspective: Conrad, Margaret; 'Sundays always make me think of home': time and place in Canadian women's history. Part 2: Native Women: 1. Mitchell, Marjorie and Anna Franklin; When you don't know the language, listen to the silence: An historical overview of Native Indian women in B.C. [First Nations women] -- 2. Ravicz, Marilyn and Diane Battung and Laura Buker; Rainbow women of the Fraser Valley: lifesongs through the generations. Part 3. Asian Women: 1. Adilman, Tamara; A preliminary sketch of Chinese women and work in British Columbia, 1858-1950 -- 2. van Dieren, Karen; The response of the WMS to the immigration of Asian women 1888-1942 -- 3. Doman, Mahinder Kaur; A note on Asian Indian women in British Columbia, 1900-1935. Part 4. Gentlewomen: 1. Gresko, Jascqueline; 'Roughing it in the Bush' in British Columbia: Mary Moody's pioneer life in New Westminister, 1859-1863 -- 2. Pazdro, Roberta; From pastels to chisel: the changing role of BC women artists -- 3. Barber, Marilyn; The gentlewomen of Queen Mary's Coronation Hostel. Part 5. Education: 1. Riley, Barbara; Six saucepans to one: domestic science vs. the home in British Columbia, 1900-1930 -- 2. Stewart, Lee; Women on campus in British Columbia: strategies for survival, years of war and peace, 1906-1920 -- 3. Small, Marion; Postscript: women in whose honour BC schools have been named. Part 6. Unpaid Workers. 1. Weiss, Gillian; The brightest women of our land: Vancouver clubwomen 1919-1928 -- 2. Dennison, Carol; They also served: the British Columbia Women's Institutes in two world wars -- 3. MacQuuen, Bonnie; Domesticity and discipline: the Girl Guides in British Columbia, 1910-1943 -- 4. Ogg, Kathryn; 'Especially when no one agrees': an interview with May Campbell. Part 7. Social Legislation: 1. Davies, Megan; 'Services rendered, rearing children for the state': Mothers' pensions in British Columbia, 1919-1931 -- 2. Matters, Indiana; Sinners or sinned against? historical aspects of female juvenile delinquency in British Columbia. Part 8. Labour and Auxiliaries: 1. Bernanrd, Elaine; Last back: folklore and the telephone operators in the 1919 Vancouver general strike -- 2. Diamond, Sara; A union man's wife: the Ladies Auxiliary Movement in the IWA, the Lake Cowichan experience.[1930s] -- 3. Bannerman, Josie and Kathy Chopik and Ann Zurbrigg; Cheap at half the price: the history of the fight for equal pay in BC. Part 9. Health: 1. Whittaker, Jo Ann; The search for legitimacy: nurses' registration in British Columbia , 1913-1935 -- 2. Bishop, Mary F.; Vivian Dowding: birth control activist 1892 [contraceptive use in British Columbia] -- 3. Lewis, Norah L.; Reducing maternal mortality in British Columbia: an educational process. Part 10. Politicians: 1. Norcross, Elizabeth; Mary Ellen Smith: the right women in the right place at the right time [1863-1933; first woman in any provincial legislature in Canada, first female cabinet minister in the British Empire in 1921 'minister without portfolio' -- 2. Walsh, Susan; The peacock and the guinea hen: political profiles of Dorothy Gretchen and Grace MacInnis. [Dorothy Gretchen Steeves, 1891-1970 and Grace MacInnis 1905-1991; BC's first female member of parliament] -- 3. Proom, Juliette; Tilly Jean Rolston: she knew how to throw a party. [1887-1953, first woman cabinet minster with portfolio in Canada, Education minister in W.A.C. Bennett's first cabinet] -- 4. Carter, Connie and Eileen Daust; From home to house: women in the BC legislature. Part 11. World War Two: 1. Wade, Susan; Joan Kennedy and the British Columbia Women's Service Corps -- 2. Turnbull, Elsie G.; Women at Cominco during the Second World War.

[This book] chronicles one of the most bitter crises in French-English relations in Canada: the bilingual air traffic control conflict which arose in the mid-1970s when francophone controllers and pilots attempted to use French, as well as English, in Quebec aviation. [Summary: Worldcat record]

In 1980...[the author] was approached by Nanaimo's Coal Tyee Society to write a book based on 105 interviews of Vancouver Island coal miners and their families. Nanaimo coal mines had closed 30 years before and the city had been home to some of the most important coal mines in the world, along with the one of largest explosions in history, the 1887 Nanaimo mine explosion. The miners wanted their oral histories preserved. Bowen compiled those oral histories in her first book, Boss Whistle, and later book, Three Dollar Dreams. --From Wikipedia biography of Lynne Bowen

In the fall of 1939, more than 600 fishermen and fish handlers in the tiny town of Lockeport, Nova Scotia (pop. 1,400) walked the picket line in front of the town's only employers, Swim Brothers and the Lockeport Company. Both fishplants had locked their doors rather than recognize the Canadian Fishermen's Union as the official bargaining agent. The Fishermen's Union was an affiliate of the Canadian Seamen's Union, which had begun organizing along the shore. For eight weeks, as autumn turned to winter, the men, with their wives and families, held firm. It was a bread-and-butter struggle that made national headlines - one of the first attempts by Nova Scotia fishermen and fish handlers to win union recognition. It was one of the first major tests of N.S. Trade Union Act passed in 1937. This is the story of the Lockeport lockout of 1939. --Introduction

...As an introduction to the birth and growth of society in New France, the scholarly articles contained in the volume draw from the translated writings of Marcel Trudel and Fernand Ouellet, two of French Canada's leading historians. As well, contributions from Bruce Trigger and Calvin Martin look at the impact of European society on the culture of Native peoples. Together with articles on land use and labour, this informative volume offers a discerning view of the earliest of French Canada - the life of the habitant, the raucous beginning of the first craft brotherhoods, the movement toward a new social order which early European inhabitants took to with a "missionary zeal." By exploring the social roots of modern day Quebec [the book] sheds new light on our understanding of French Canada. --Publisher's description

[This book] is the fourth of a five-volume series of readers designed to present an overview of Canada's social history, encompassing such topics as economic development, social structure, politics, religion, work and workers, and the changing role of women. In this volume the editors have assembled a series of scholarly essays examining such historic developments as government support of big business and the concentration of capital, the decline of craft unionism in Hamilton factories, the business impetus behind municipal reform, and the circumstances for working women in the 1920s. Articles such as Donald Avery's account of labour exploitation in the hiring of "foreign" navvies to build railroads in Western Canada and Don Macgillivray's analysis of state intervention and the use of troops in strikes among Cape Breton miners and steel workers in the 1920s highlight the issues and controversies which makes this one of the most telling chapters of Canada's social history. --Publisher's description

In this innovative study the authors investigate the effects of the fur trade on the social patterns of the Algonquian peoples living in the Eastern James Bay region from 1600 to 1870. Of central concern are the problem areas of winter hunting arrangements, land tenure system, and patterns of leadership; but historical setting, ecological factors, and the relations of the Algonquians to other groups are also discussed. The patterns and course of contact between traders from Europe and the Indian populations are described and both English and French sources are used to reveal the competition between the two groups of traders and its impact on the native people. As the Hudson's Bay Company was the one permanent European presence during the period, this ethnohistorical study makes extensive use of unpublished HBC papers. The authors also examine such issues as the rise of a homeguard population at the trading posts, the trading captain system, the development of hamily hunting territories, and the issue of dependence and interdependence. Partners in Furs provides new insight and makes a significant contribution to current scholarly inquiry into the impact of the fur trade on the native populations. --Publisher's description

This book is a collection of experiences written by workers, or based on interviews with them, about what they do and feel daily and what they think needs to be done to change their condition and that of other workers. --Publisher's description

An annotated bibliography of left wing novels about the lives of working people during the 20th century. Includes some collections of poetry, drama and short stories as well as a smattering of non-fictional material such as oral and life histories. Includes over 3,000 titles originally in some 50 languages by circa 1,500 authors from over 90 countries. --Publisher's description

On 18 November 1941, the gold miners of Kirkland lake struck for union recognition. The Kirkland Lake strike was a bitter struggle between the mine operators and their employees and became a national confrontation between the federal government and the labour movement over the issue of collective bargaining. Locally, the dispute was affected by the company-town environment and by the mine operators' paternalistic view of labour relations. Through the difficult winter womenths, the community -- polarized by the events -- tried to deal with both the 'political' and social impact of the conflict. The author's father, Larry Sefton, emerged as one of the local leaders of the strike, which itself was a training ground for many future trade unionists. The strike was waged in the special circumstances of the war economy, and was a microcosm of wartime developments, which produced unprecedented union growth, serious industrial unrest, hostile management response, and generally antagonistic labour/government relations. Professor MacDowell shows that, even though the strike was lost, its eventual effect on labour policy gave the dispute its particular significance. To win the strike, government intervention and the introduction of collective bargaining were necessary, yet the only intervention was by the Ontario Provincial Police, who were ordered to assist the mining companies to operate with strike-breakers. The federal government refused to intervene, in spire of virtually unanimous support for the strike by the Canadian labour movement. MacDowell confludes that the strike succeeded in unifying organized labour behind the demand for collective-bargaining legislation. It highlighted the inadequacy of the government's wartime labour poilcy, and ultimately forced the government to authorize collective bargaining, first for Crown companies and then for all industrial workers. Thus, the Kirkland Lake strike was not only an important wartime dispute affecting policy development, but it also established a special legacy for trade unionists as part of the history of their movement. --Publisher's description

By the time of Confederation Ontario's economic lead over Quebec had been well established. John McCallum shows that the origins of this lead had little to do with the conservatism of the habitants and the church in Quebec, little to do with any anti-industrial bias of the Montreal merchants, and nothing to do with Confederation. Rather the origins lay in the wealth provided by Ontario's superior agricultural land.During much of the first part of the nineteenth century Ontario farmers were more specialized in wheat-growing than the twentieth-century farmers of Saskatchewan, and when the market conditions changed in the 1860s the province was able to use the capital derived from wheat to shift to other lines of production. The Quebec farmers, lacking both the virgin land of Ontario and the growing markets of the northeastern United States, were unable to find profitable substitutes for wheat. As a result, the cash income of the average Ontario farmer was at least triple that of his Quebec counterparts in the years before Confederation, and this enormous difference had profound effects on economic development in other sectors of the economy.In Ontario the growth of towns, transportation facilities, and industry was inextricably linked to the province's strong agricultural base. In Quebec little development occurred outside Montreal and Quebec City. Montreal industrialists did have several advantages; yet Quebec industry could not possibly absorb the province's surplus farm population. Ontario's wheat boom provided the capital which permitted Ontario industry to evolve in the classic fashion; indeed, Ontario wheat may be a rare instance of a staple whose surplus was retained in the producing area.John McCallum's analytical and historical account of economic patterns that persist today makes a solid and original contribution to Canadian economic history. --Publisher's description. Contents: Preface -- Introduction -- The rise and fall of the Ontario wheat staple -- The agricultural crisis in Quebec -- Agricultural transformation in Quebec and Ontario, 1850-70 -- Urban and commercial development until 1850 -- Transportation -- Industrial development, 1850-70 -- A modified staple approach -- Merchants and habitants -- Statistical appendix -- Subject index -- Index of authors cited.

The devastating story of the Cape Breton miners and the strikes they launched against the companies that owned their homes, their possessions, and their churches. Never before has the human drama of North America's last existing feudal system been written down for the general reader. Canadians - and the rest of the world - will shocked by the stories of police brutality and murder, mass demonstrations, rebellions, scandalouos politicking, and most of all, desperate poverty and hunger. The miners had always been paid starvation wages by companies that held total monopolies of such towns as Glace Bay. The first time they launched a strike in 1905, soldiers were brought in and machine guns and barbed wire were set up around the mining communities. Credit was cut off from company stores (the only stores). Miners were evicted from company-owned houses (the only houses) in the middle of winter. The death toll was enormous. Strikes over the next fifteen years simply led to continued harassment and eviction. At one time, the company was permitted, by government order, to employ hundreds of special police, mounted on horseback and supplied with guns and heavy sticks, to batter miners into submission. James Bryson McLachlan was the hero of the Cape Bretoners when he took up their cause and organized the strikers and entered into negotiations with the companies. This book is also his story - and the story of the beginning of the labour movement for all of Canada. --Publisher's description

Working Class Experience is a sweeping and sympathetic study of the development of the Canadian working class since 1800. Beginning with a substantial and provocative introduction that discusses the historiography of the Canadian working class, the book goes on to establish a general framework for analysis of what ultimately is a social history of Canada. Dividing the years into seven periods in the evolution of class struggle, it beings each chapter with an assessment of that period's prevailing economic and social context, followed by an examination of the many factors affecting the working class during that period. Written in a colourful and sometimes irreverent style, Working Class Experience focuses on the processes by which working people moved, and were moved, off the land and into the factories and other workplaces during the Industrial and post-Industrial Revolutions in Canada. Drawing on much recent work on contemporary capitalism, Working Class Experience offers a significant explanation of the malaise in current labour and management relations and speculates on its significance for progressive change in Canadian Life. --Description at Goodreads

Why are women still second class citizens at work? Recent years have seen demands by the women's movement for equality in the workplace, and "affirmative action" programs have been set up to achieve this goal. Yet little has really changed. Women still earn less than men, are underrepresented in unions, have less protection in pension plans, and are usually stuck in jobs with little chance of advancement. To understand women's inequality at work, Paul and Erin Phillips trace women's involvement in the paid labour market, and in labour unions, throughout Canadian history. They document the disadvantages that women face today and examine the explanations for the existence of these problems. --Publisher's description

With essays by Donald Macgillivary and Allan Sekula and editing by Benjamin Buchloh and Robert Wilkie, this volume published a major selection from the photographic archives of Leslie Shedden, a local photographer active from the 1940s to the 1960s in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. Besides his daily and common functions as a community photographer (portraits, advertising, work and school events, architecture), Leslie Shedden continuously worked on documentation of the working conditions in the coal and iron mines of Cape Breton. The photographic documentation was commissioned by the local coal mining corporation, which gave him access to the underground mines as well as to all other work areas. All major aspects of the mining activities, the conditions of manual labour, and the gradual transformation to mechanized mining are recorded in systematic and detailed photographs. An equally detailed systematic body of photographs recording the family and community life of the miners complements the body of photographic images documenting the labour conditions in one of the oldest North American coal mining districts.