Why was Winnipeg the scene of the longest and most complete general strike in North American history? Bercuson answers this question by examining the development of union labour and the impact of depression and war in the two decades preceding the strike.
A clear, concise portrait of one of the most dramatic moments in the history of working-class life and class relations generally in Canada - the upsurge of working-class protest at the end of the First World War.
The Manitoba Law Journal is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 1961. The MLJ's current mission is to provide lively, independent and high caliber commentary on legal events in Manitoba or events of special interest to our community.
Canada’s largest and most famous example of class conflict, the Winnipeg General Strike, redefined local, national, and international conversations around class, politics, region, ethnicity, and gender. The Strike’s centenary occasioned a re-examination of this critical moment in working-class history, when 300 social justice activists, organizers, scholars, trade unionists, artists, and labour rights advocates gathered in Winnipeg in 2019. Probing the meaning of the General Strike in new and innovative ways, For a Better World includes a selection of contributions from the conference as well as others’ explorations of the character of class confrontation in the aftermath of the First World War. Editors Naylor, Hinther, and Mochoruk depict key events of 1919, detailing the dynamic and complex historiography of the Strike and the larger Workers’ Revolt that reverberated around the world and shaped the century following the war. The chapters delve into intersections of race, class, and gender. Settler colonialism’s impact on the conflict is also examined. Placing the struggle in Winnipeg within a broader national and international context, several contributors explore parallel strikes in Edmonton, Crowsnest Pass, Montreal, Kansas City, and Seattle. For a Better World interrogates types of commemoration and remembrance, current legacies of the Strike, and its ongoing influence. Together, the essays in this collection demonstrate that the Winnipeg General Strike continues to mobilize—revealing our radical past and helping us to think imaginatively about collective action in the future.
In a few short decades before the First World War, Calgary was transformed from a frontier outpost into a complex industrial metropolis. With industrialization there emerged a diverse and equally complex working class. David Bright explores the various levels of class formation and class identity in the city to argue that Calgary's reputation as a prewar centre of labour conservatism is in need of revision.
In Reasoning Otherwise, author Ian McKay returns to the concepts and methods of “reconnaissance” first outlined in Rebels, Reds, Radicals to examine the people and events that led to the rise of the left in Canada from 1890 to 1920. Reasoning Otherwise highlights how a new way of looking at the world based on theories of evolution transformed struggles around class, religion, gender, and race, and culminates in a new interpretation of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. As McKay demonstrated in Rebels, Reds, Radicals, the Canadian left is alive and flourishing, and has shaped the Canadian experience in subtle and powerful ways. Reasoning Otherwise continues this tradition of offering important new insight into the deep roots of leftism in Canada.
The prairies are a focal point for momentous events in Canadian history, a place where two visions of Canada have often clashed: Louis Riel, the Manitoba School Question, French language rights, the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, and the dramatic collapse of the Meech Lake Accord when MLA Elijah Harper voted “No.”Gerald Friesen believes that it is the responsibility of the historian to “tell local stories in terms and concepts that make plain their intrinsic value and worth, that explain the relationship between the past and the present.” For local experiences to have any relevant meaning, they must be put into the context of the wider world.These essays were written for the general reader and the academic historian. They include previously published works (many of them revised and updated) from a wide variety of sources, and new pieces written specifically for River Road, examining aspects of prairie and Manitoba history from many different perspectives. They offer portraits of representatives from different sides of the prairie experience, such as Bob Russell, radical socialist and leader of the 1919 General Strike, and J.H. Riddell, conservative Methodist minister who represented “sane and safe” stewardship in the 1920s and 1930s. They explore the changing relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the “dominant” society, from the prosperous Metis community that flourished along the Red River in the 19th century (and produced Manitoba’s first Metis premier) to the events that led to the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in the 1980s.Other essays consider new viewpoints of the prairie past, using the perspectives of ethnic and cultural history, women’s history, regional history, and labour history to raise questions of interpretation and context. The time frame considered is equally wide-ranging, from the Aboriginal and Red River society to the political arena of current constitutional debates.
In this volume, Nelson Wiseman skilfully describes the history of the New Democratic Party in Manitoba, tracing the roots of the social democratic movement to the years of mass immigration and social unrest that preceded the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919.Drawing extensively on personal interviews, on the private papers and correspondence of party leaders and activists, and on archival materials, Wiseman portrays clearly the party's philosophy and leadership, its organization and inner workings, its electoral support, and its relations with other parties, with labour, and with farmers.
After the Second World War, progressives and traditionalists waged a quieter battle over schools. In Between Education and Catastrophe, George Buri connects the educational debates of the 1950s to the broader Canadian postwar political conversation about the social welfare state and Keynesian versus laissez-faire models of liberalism. Working skilfully with primary sources, contemporary publications, and a rich array of secondary sources, Buri examines debates over curricula, the purpose of high school, teacher training, rural schools, and standardized testing in Manitoba. The progressives who advocated for a "new liberalism" - characterized by government intervention and the social welfare state - sought to create a system of public schooling that would both equip students to succeed and enlarge their political vision by encouraging compromise and democratic decision making. They promoted more practical subjects, child-centred classrooms, and the use of psychological expertise to promote "life adjustment." Meanwhile, self-styled traditionalists such as Hilda Neatby thought progressive education undermined the individual competition and achievement at the root of a laissez-faire economy, calling for a return to the basics, an elimination of "frill" subjects, and a more academic focus for the public education system. A frank consideration of conflict, power, and influence within school systems, Between Education and Catastrophe brings to light compelling social, cultural, and philosophical themes within the history of education in Manitoba.