Agitator, educator, organizer, J.B. McLachlan led the coal miners of Nova Scotia in their struggles for union recognition, united them around ideas of industrial democracy and social reconstruction, and defended their cause in the labour wars of the 1920s. This authoritative biography tells the story of legendary labour leader James Bryson McLachlan, champion of the Cape Breton Coal Miners in the early decades of the twentieth century. Charged with sedition in 1923, McLachlan's case was one of the most notorious political trials ever held in Nova Scotia. By the 1920s and 1930s, McLachlan was known across the country as a spokesman for the radical left in Canada. He helped change the balance of power in industrial society and advanced the struggle for social and economic justice. J.B. McLachlan: A Biography is a rich portrait of a brilliant early twentieth-century Canadian rebel who helped change the balance of power in industrial society and advance the struggle for social and economic justice.
Agitator, educator, organizer. J.B. McLachlan is legendary in Cape Breton as the pre-eminent labour leader of the early twentieth century. Long considered a classic in the field of Canadian social history, this authoritative biography by award-winning scholar David Frank tells the story of McLachlan, champion of Cape Breton's coal miners and political rabble-rouser who fought tooth-and-nail for social justice across the country. He led the coal miners of Nova Scotia in their struggles for union recognition, defending their cause in the labour wars of the 1920s and uniting them around ideas of industrial democracy and social reconstruction. The battles between mine owners and the miners were epic. Mine owners and their friends in government used violence and intimidation in their efforts to defeat workers. McLachlan, whose police file called him "an agitator of the worst type," was no stranger to the coercive forces of his day. He was charged with sedition in 1923, and his political trial in Nova Scotia stands as a notorious use of the courts to punish and silence the labour movement and its leaders. By the 1920s and 30s, he was recognized across Canada as a leading spokesman for the radical Left. McLachlan helped change the balance of power in industrial society, advancing the struggle for social and economic justice. Readers today, fighting for better wages, better benefits, better lives, can learn much from McLachlan's exploits. His experience is part, parcel, and parallel to some of the eras most famous faces, both friend and foe. From battles with anti-labour prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, to famed American miner's union leader John L. Lewis, or liaisons with preacher of the social gospel of Canadian labour J.S. Woodsworth - the first leader of the party that would become the New Democratic Party, McLachlan was front-and-centre in the social conflicts of his time. J.B. McLachlan: A Biography is a rich portrait of a brilliant early twentieth-century Canadian rebel. It has been widely recognized as an outstanding work of biography and a compelling account a Canadian labour hero. It received multiple prizes for non-fiction and historical writing, including the John W. Dafoe Book Prize, awarded to the best book on, set in, or otherwise about Canada published that year. It also received the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award (Non-Fiction), the Robert S. Kenny Prize for Labour/Left Studies, and the Canadian Historical Association's Clio Award for regional history. This monumental text offers an unparalleled history of Canadian labour history in the twentieth century, rousing the legacy of one of Canada's most important radicals for all readers who yearn for social and economic justice today.
J. B. McLachlan was a fiery, idealistic Scot who came to Canada with a vision of a better world. He settled in Cape Breton, and there he worked in the coalmines beside hundreds of men and boys from all parts of the world. In the first decades of the twentieth century mine owners cared little for safety or working conditions: miners and their families were virtual serfs of the company. As their wages were squeezed lower, mine workers fought back through their union--with J. B. McLachlan at its head. The response of the authorities was fierce. The miners faced soldiers, machine guns, prison sentences, starvation, homelessness. They were betrayed by American union leaders. Throughout, J. B. McLachlan stood firm for his principles and ideals. The Company Store is the story of a remarkable Canadian, and of a little-known part of our industrial past.
"This book examines the intersection of state policy, cultural development, and commemoration during Canada's 1967 centennial celebrations. It explores four initiatives that were undertaken in Nova Scotia to mark this anniversary, and demonstrates one province's response to Lamontagne's appeal to stem Canada's cultural poverty. These initiaties also reflected those larger social, cultural, economic, and political transformations that took place in postwar Nova Scotia. Further they help us understand the province's experience within the broader context of the development of modern Canadian cultural and social history."--
A major new work of history, told through the stories of a teeming cast of characters. The history of coal is the story of the last two centuries of the industrialized world. Coal has powered that world, and controlled the destinies of millions. And nowhere has that influence run more deeply than in Nova Scotia, where the industry’s rise and decline has transformed society twice. Coal Black Heart is a global history that centres unapologetically on one province, and the generations of people whose lives there have been shaped by this dominating industry. There are the miners. There are the moonshiners and brooding social reformers and charismatic preachers who gave the mining towns their particular feel and flair. And there are the profiteers whose greed led to disaster. This is history as great storytelling - enthralling, involving, deeply moving, and it is a very personal narrative. A brilliant reporter, journalist, and author who has spent most of his career examining Nova Scotia’s weave of land, people, and history - and who grew up listening to its stories - John DeMont was born to write this book.
The two volumes of Marxism and Historical Practice bring together a wide range of essays written by one of the major Marxist historians of the last fifty years. Collected in Volume II, Interventions and Appreciations, are articles and reviews capturing the breadth of Palmer’s interests as a radical historian. Cultural forms and representational productions are analysed; political readings of historiography and pioneering historical practice provided. Themes as diverse as the analytic and political contributions of Eric Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson, the conflicted legacies of American Trotskyism, and the representation of class politics in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York are covered.
Biff and whiff, baker’s fog and lu’sknikn, pie social and milling frolic – these are just a few examples of the distinctive language of Cape Breton Island, where a puck is a forceful blow and a Cape Breton pork pie is filled with dates, not pork. The first regional dictionary devoted to the island’s linguistic and cultural history, the Dictionary of Cape Breton English is a fascinating record of the island’s rich vocabulary. Dictionary entries include supporting quotations culled from the editors’ extensive interviews with Cape Bretoners and considerable study of regional variation, as well as definitions, selected pronunciations, parts of speech, variant forms, related words, sources, and notes, giving the reader in-depth information on every aspect of Cape Breton culture. A substantial and long-awaited work of linguistic research that captures Cape Breton’s social, economic, and cultural life through the island’s language, the Dictionary of Cape Breton English can be read with interest by Backlanders, Bay byes, and those from away alike.
*** PROSE Award Winner (2018) in the Textbook/Humanities Category *** A Practical Guide to Studying History is the perfect guide for students embarking on degree-level study. The book: - introduces students to the concepts of historical objectivity, frameworks and debate - explains the differences in aims, methods and audiences for different types of history - explores the relationship between the skills developed during a history undergraduate degree and the practice of professional history - helps students develop the practical skills required to read historical writing critically, write good essays, and participate in historical debates - includes study questions, further reading lists, text boxes, maps and illustrations The book incorporates case studies taken from a range of regions and periods, reflecting the varied nature of historical study at university, and helps students to understand history, and to practice it successfully: it is an indispensable guide to studying history.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the policies of the early years of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, Making an American Workforce explores John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s welfare capitalist programs and their effects on the company's diverse workforce. Focusing on the workers themselves—men, women, and children representative of a variety of immigrant and ethnic groups—contributors trace the emergence of the Employee Representation Plan, the work of the company's Sociology Department, and CF&I's interactions with the YMCA in the early twentieth century. They examine CF&I's early commitment to Americanize its immigrant employees and shape worker behavior, the development of policies that constructed the workforce it envisioned while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the strike that eventually led to the Ludlow Massacre, and the impact of the massacre on the employees, the company, and beyond. Making an American Workforce provides greater insight into the repercussions of the Industrial Representation Plan and the Ludlow Massacre, revealing the long-term consequences of Colorado Fuel and Iron Company policies on the American worker, the state of Colorado, and the creation of corporate culture. Making an American Workforce will be of interest to Western, labor, and business historians.
