UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF THE CARIBOO
Department of Philosophy, History and Politics
Winter 1999
HIST 499-3
The Working-Class and the Left
in Canadian History (2/1/0)
INSTRUCTOR: Dr.John Belshaw OFFICE: AE329
PHONE: 828-5171
E-mail: Belshaw@tru.ca
Course Objectives:
This course explores the historical experience of working people in Canada. Issues examined include the changing character of work over the last three centuries, the variety of organizational and political responses with which working people experimented, the phenomenon of trade unionism, working-class culture, the rise of left-wing movements across Canada, and the problem of gender and race within the ambit of class.
On completion students should have acquired a specialized understanding of industrial relations, working-class/popular culture, and Canadian political culture. They will also develop skills in research and writing. A focus on local organizations and labour issues will also enhance their awareness of community institutions and career opportunities.
ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING:
Essay ....................................................... 25%
Novel Review ........................................... 15%
Seminar Presentation ............................. 20%
Seminar Participation ............................ 15%
Final Examination .................................... 25%
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Laurel Sefton MacDowell & Ian Radforth (eds.), Canadian Working Class History: Selected Readings (Toronto:1992).
A Handbook for UCC History Students (Available in Bookstore)
Outline and Overview
Winter 2000
General Comments:
History 499 meets in a lecture format twice a week and in two separate tutorials. Students are expected to prepare themselves for lectures by keeping abreast of the readings. As well, the seminars are more than question-and-answer sessions: come prepared. You are expected to attend seminars (see the UCC Calendar for rules on attendance) and your contribution will be noted each week as a factor in your grades. An important part of your education in historical studies is developing discussion skills, some degree of dexterity in handling the concepts involved, and the ability to ferret out alternative views. Attendance must therefore be complemented by active participation.
Professional Behaviour:
In the event of an unavoidable absence due to personal illness, deaths in the family, or some other crisis, it would be prudent to contact your professors, inform them of the situation and, if necessary, provide documentation. If a personal problem is interfering with your ability to meet deadlines or to participate in academic life it is in your very best interest to consult your professor.
Technical Work:
Proper footnoting and bibliographic technique is mandatory in every assignment. Consult the UCC History Handbook. Essays which are technically below the standards outlined in the Handbook will be returned to their authors without a grade. All written assignments must be submitted on time by hand. Late assignments will not be accepted. Do not leave assignments in letterboxes unless instructed to do so. Do make a copy for your own safekeeping.
Major Research Paper:
You will be expected to produce essays on topics provided in the course outline. Alternative topics will be considered but take care to clear them with me before you begin your research. If you are confused as to the meaning or scope of your project please see me sooner rather than later. These are independent papers: collaboration to the point of co-authorship will not be accepted. These are research papers: expect to spend a goodly amount of time in the library, bent over books and journal articles. I've attached a list of helpful resources below to get you started. All the works cited are available in the UCC Library but more, of course, can be obtained through Inter-Library Loan. Sign-up sheets will be posted outside my office.
Novel Reviews:
I have ordered five copies of each of the following: Zola, Germinal; Upton Sinclair, The Jungle; Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion; Mordechai Richler, Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz; John Steinbeck, Cannery Row; John Marlyn, Under the Ribs of Death; Earle Birney, Down the Long Table; George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (okay, not really a novel, but it will do). Choose one to read and review in the context of representations of labour and working peoples' lives. We'll discuss this more in class.
Examinations:
There will be a Final Exam. It will be a 3-hour examination and will take place at a time and place determined by the Registrar.
Contacting the Professor:
My regular office hours this term are Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays 10-11; Tuesdays and Thursdays 9-10. If an appointment is necessary please feel free to call me at 828-5171, leave a message with the receptionist on the 2nd floor, send me an e-mail, or post a note on my door.
FAQ:
A: No. Never. To do so would violate your Right to Privacy. Don't ask again.
A: No. I routinely throw out papers I find on my office floor. Yours is next. Really.
A: Everyone else in the class scrambled to get their papers in on time. Some of them could have done with 15 minutes more in the computer lab but they put the emphasis on professional performance. Handing in a paper late --- even if it's just after class --- is like cheating, stealing a few extra points from your peers. I don't like it and you just lost a grade.
A: Are you familiar with the concept of the 'free rider'? Everyone else does the work and you reap the benefits. Please don't come to class without having done the reading.
Research Aids:
General Surveys of Labour History:
1) Canada
FORSEY, Eugene. Trade Unions in Canada, 1812-1902 (1982).
HERON, Craig. The Canadian Labour Movement: A Short History (1989).
LIPTON, Charles. The Trade Union Movement of Canada (1973).
LOGAN, Harold. Trade Unions in Canada (1948).
MORTON, Desmond. Working People, 3rd edition (1990).
PALMER, Bryan. Working-Class Experience, 2nd edition (1992).
2) United States
DULLES, Foster Rhea, and Melvyn Dubofsky. Labor in America: a history, 5th ed. (Arlington Heights, Ill.: 1993.)
DUBOFSKY, Melvyn. Industrialism and the American Worker (1985).
FONER, Philip History of the Labor Movement in the U.S., 8 vols. (1947-)
KESSLER-HARRIS, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (1982).
3) Britain
BENSON, John. The working class in Britain, 1850-1939 (London: Longman, 1989).
SAVAGE, Mike, and Andrew Miles. The remaking of the British working class, 1840-1940 (London: Routledge, 1994).
CLARK, Anna. The struggle for the breeches: gender and the making of the British working (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
POLLARD, Sidney. Labour history and the labour movement in Britain (Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, c1999)
FOX, Alan. History and Heritage: The Social Origins of the British Industrial Relations System (1985).
HOPKINS, Eric. Industrialisation and society : a social history, 1830-1951 (London: Routledge, 2000).
PELLING, Henry. A History of British Trade Unionism (1971).
PRICE, Richard. Labour in British Society (1986).
Major Journals in Labour and Working-Class History
History Workshop; New Left Review; Social History; Histoire Sociale/Social History; Labour\Le Travail; International Labor and Working Class History
Major Bibliographies in Labour and Working-Class History
HANN, R.G., et al., Primary Sources in Canadian Working-Class History (1973).
Labour\Le Travail, ongoing bibliography.
VAISEY, Douglas. The Labour Companion: a bibliography of Canadian labour history based on materials printed from 1950 to 1975(1980).
KNIGHT, Rolf. Traces of Magma: an annotated bibliography of left literature (1983).
Lectures, Readings and Tutorials
Abbreviations:
M&R: MacDowell & Radforth, Canadian Working Class History
WEEK 1: Introduction and Organization
WEEK 2: The Writing of Labour History: Old School, New School, Post-Structural School
Readings: E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (2nd edition, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), "Preface", pp. 9-15, and "Class Consciousness", pp. 781-915.
.Film: National Film Board. International background [videorecording]
WEEK 3: Labour and the Emergence of the Factory System
Discussion: Change or Continuity?
Readings: M&R: Section1
Bettina Bradbury, "Women and Wage Labour in a Period of Transition: Montreal 1861-1881", Histoire Sociale/Social History, 17 (May 1984): 115-131.
Daniel Drache, "The Formation and Fragmentation of the Canadian Working Class: 1820-1920", Studies in Political Economy, 15 (Fall 1984): 43-89.
Documents: Frederick Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, chs. entitled "The Great Towns" and "Results".
Michael S. Cross, ed. The Workingman in the Nineteenth Century (1974), 186-193.
WEEK 4: Gender & Industrialization
Discussion: What is "women's work"? How is work gendered and/or socially constructed?
Readings: M&R: Chapters 6, 9, 15, 18
Margaret Hobbs and Joan Sangster, editors. The Woman Worker, 1926-1929 (St. John's, Nfld.: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1999).
Joy Parr, The Gender of Breadwinners: Women, Men and Change in Two Industrial Towns 1880-1950 (Toronto: U of T Press, 1990).
Bettina Bradbury, "Pigs, Cows and Boarders: Non-wage Forms of Survival Among Montreal Families," Labour/Le Travail Vol.14 (Fall 1984).
Film: National Film Board of Canada. And we knew how to dance [videorecording] 1993. [Abstract: Twelve Canadian women recall their entry into what had formerly been the "man's world" of munitions factories and farm labour during the manpower shortages of World War I.]
WEEK 5: Unionization
Discussion: Nothing like unions existed before unions. What was their attraction in the 19th century? How did they come to be seen in the 20th?
Readings: M&R: Chapter 5, 24, 27, 30
Greg Kealey and Bryan Palmer, "The Bonds of Unity: The Knights of Labor in Ontario," in Bryan Palmer ed., The Character of Class Struggle (1986).
Greg Kealey, Toronto Workers Respond to Industrial Capitalism, 1867-1892 (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1980).
Mark Leier, Red Flags and Red Tape: The Making of a Labour Bureaucracy (Toronto: 1995)
Films: A sampling of Hollywood representations of unions and unionists, including (pending on availability): Norma Rae, Matewan, Rosie the Rivetter, Hoffa
WEEK 6: Unemployment and the Class Struggle
Discussion: Why was the state unprepared to deal with mass unemployment in the 1930s in a humane and effective way? Was public expectations of (or demand for) relief too progressive or a reactionary claim to the benefits of patriarchy?
Readings: M&R: Chapter 11
Peter Baskerville & Eric Sager, Unwilling Idlers: the urban unemployed and their families in late Victorian Canada (Toronto: 1999)
Lorne Brown, When freedom was lost: the unemployed, the agitator and the state (Montreal 1985).
Irene Baird, Waste Heritage (Toronto: 1973)
Victor Howard, "We were the salt of the earth!": a narrative of the On-to-Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riot (Regina 1985)
Michiel Horn, ed., The Depression in Canada: Responses to Economic Crisis (Mississauga: Copp Clark Pittman, 1988)
Film: National Film Board. Born of hard times [videorecording]
WEEK 7: Reading Week Break
WEEK 8: Industrial Relations
Discussion: In what ways did industrial relations and management strategies in Canada change in the 19th and early 20th centuries?
Readings: M&R: Chapters 14, 17, 21, 22
WEEK 9: Immigration, Ethnicity, Solidarity and the Split Labour Market
Discussion: Capitalism uproots people: what are the consequences?
Readings: M&R: Chapters 10, 12, 26
Donald Avery, "Dangerous foreigners": European immigrant workers and labour radicalism in Canada, 1896-1932 (Toronto : McClelland and Stewart, 1979)
Bruno Ramirez, On the Move: French Canadian and Italian Migrant Workers in the Atlantic Economy, 1860-1914 (Toronto 1993)
Ruth A. Frager, Sweatshop Strife: Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Jewish Labour Movement of Toronto, 1900-1939 (Toronto: 1992).
WEEK 10: The Revolutionary Moment?
Discussion: Canada's Civil War
Readings: David J. Bercuson & David Bright (eds.), Canadian Labour History: Selected Readings, Second Edition (Toronto, 1994) Section 3.
Norman Penner (ed.), Winnipeg, 1919 : the strikers' own history of the Winnipeg general strike (Toronto : James Lewis & Samuel 1973)
Greg Kealey, "1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt," in Bryan Palmer, ed., the Character of Class Struggle: Essays in Canadian Working-class History, 1850-1985 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986)
WEEK 11: Working-Class Culture
Discussion: Low-brow or vernacular?
Readings: M&R: Chapter 7, 8, 16, 20,
Peter de Lottinville, "Joe Beef of Montreal," Labour/Le Travail, Nos.8/9 (1981-1982), 9-40.
John K. Walton, Fish and chips and the British working class, 1870-1940 (Leicester: University Press, 1992)
George Orwell, The Decline of the English Murder.
WEEK 12: The Working Class in Politics
Discussion: Why have the Canadian labour movement and the Canadian Left been less successful in forging a common cause than is the case in Australia, Britain and France?
Readings: M&R: Chapters 11, 13, 19
Walter Young, Anatomy of A Party: The National CCF (Toronto: 1969).
Gad Horowitz, Canadian Labour in Politics (Toronto1968).
Wayne Roberts & John Bullen, "A Heritage of Hope and Struggle: Workers, Unions and Politics in Canada, 1930-1982", in David J. Bercuson & David Bright (eds.), Canadian Labour History: Selected Readings, Second Edition (Toronto, 1994): 377-405, or in M.Cross & G.S.Kealey (eds.), Modern Canada 1930-1980s (Toronto 1985): 105-140.
Joan Sangster, Dreams of Equality: Women on the Canadian Left, 1920-1950 (Toronto: 1989)
Film: National Film Board. Falling apart and getting together [videorecording]
WEEK 13: The State Steps In
Discussion: What has been the role of the Canadian state in (a) containing labour and (b) containing the Left?
Readings: M&R: Chapters 23, 28, 29
Documents: G.S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker (eds.) R.C.M.P. security bulletins: the depression years (St. John's, Nfld.: Canadian Committee on Labour History, c1993-c1997).
Film: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The Inheritance [videorecording] (1993).
WEEK 14: Review
Film: National Film Board. New party, old problems [videorecording]
Essay Topics
You may write on one of the topics listed below or on an alternative topic that is approved by me. Essays should be no more than 2500 words in length.
1) What was the extent of Knights of Labor strength in western Canada? Account for the breadth and limits of their popularity.
2) The respectability of honest labour (and labourers) is a familiar theme in British labour history. What is its position in the history of labour in Canada?
3) What was the impact of the 1930s Depression on the labour movement, over both the short and long terms?
4) Account for the intensely acrimonious relationship between the CCF and the Communists in Canada in the mid-20th century.
5) What was the impact of the Cold War on the Canadian Left?
6) What was the position of organized labour regarding the global conflict on the eve of and in the early days of World War I? In what ways did that position change?
7) Compare the position taken by labour towards the conflicts in 1914 and 1939? What had happened in between times?
8) William Lyon Mackenzie King is better known to young Canadian scholars for his prime ministerial and epiphenomenological record than for his contribution to labour law. Using the I.D.I.Act and the confrontation with the Cape Breton miners in the 1920s as your twin pillars, examine and critique the contribution of King to labour relations.
9) Operation Solidarity failed because it was betrayed by the biggest of the Big Unions. Examine the premises of this oft-heard allegation and provide a fulsome explanation for the collapse of the 1980s coalition.
10) Women and children were critical human inputs in the early stages of the industrial revolution. Despite efforts to "write them back into history", the fact remains that they were badly marginalized by the labour movement and within the economy from the 1880s on. Account for the loss of female and youth labour from the forefront of the working-class, and explore some of the consequences.