The working class of earlier eras has remained largely anonymous because its individual members were too occupied by their jobs to have time to leave a written record of their activities. When their living conditions and experiences were described, it was often by outsiders. To re-create the life of a typical prairie worker in the years before the First World War is therefore as difficult a task as it would be to generalize about the lives of present-day workers.
Many important books, such as J.S. Woodsworth's Strangers Within Our Gates, were written by those concerned with improving the working man's lot. Even recently collected oral reminiscences such as Barry Broadfoot's The Pioneer Years seldom bear much resemblance to the actual past as time tends to soften the harsher edges of reality. With both primary and secondary materials, readers must remain aware of the nature of the sources they are reading. If the writer appears to be articulate, concerned and active, one must remember that the largest proportion of the working class were none of these continually. These limitations notwithstanding, much has been written about the prairie region and its workers which will enable the student to gain some insight into working-class life there during these formative years.
Abella, Irving. The Canadian Labour Movement, 1902-1960. CHA Booklet No. 28, Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1975.
Anderson, Allan. Remembering the Farm: Memories of Farming, Ranching, and Rural Life in Canada Past and Present. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1977.
Artibise, Alan. Prairie Urban Development, 1870-1930. CHA Booklet No. 34, Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1981.
Artibise, Alan, ed. Town and City: Aspects of Western Canadian Urban Development. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre, University of Regina, 1981.
Artibise, Alan. Winnipeg: An Illustrated History. Toronto: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada and James Lorimer & Co., 1977.
Avery, Donald. "Dangerous Foreigners": European Immigrant Workers and Labour Radicalism in Canada, 1896-1932. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1979.
Babcock, Robert H. Gompers in Canada: A Study in American Continentalism Before the First World War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.
Bercuson, David J., ed. Alberta's Coal Industry 1919. Calgary: Historical Society of Alberta, 1978.
Bercuson, David J. Confrontation at Winnipeg: Labour Industrial Relations, and the General Strike. MontrΘal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1974.
Bercuson, David J. Fools and Wise Men: The Rise and Fall of One Big Union. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1978.
Bercuson, David and Howard Palmer. Settling the Canadian West. Focus on Canadian History Series. Toronto: Grolier, 1984.
Bercuson, David J. and Kenneth McNaught. The Winnipeg Strike: 1919. Don Mills, Ontario: Longman, 1974.
Bickersteth, J.B. The Land of Open Doors: Being Letters from Western Canada, 1911-1913. 1914 Reprint. Social History of Canada, vol. 29. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976.
Bradwin, Edmund. The Bunkhouse Man: A Study of Work and Pay in the Camps of Canada, 1903- 1914. Reprint. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972.
Brennan, J. William. Regina Before Yesterday: A Visual History, 1882-1945. Regina: Regina Historical Committee, 1978.
Broadfoot, Barry. The Pioneer Years, 1895-1914: Memories of Settlers Who Opened the West. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1976.
Bruce, Jean. The Last Best West. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1976.
Caragata, Warren. Alberta Labour: A Heritage Untold. Toronto: James Lorimer, 1979.
Cashman, Tony. An Illustrated History of Western Canada. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1971.
Cherwinski, W.J.C. "The Incredible Harvest Excursion of 1908", Labour/Le Travailleur, vol. V, (Spring 1980), pp. 57-80.
Cherwinski, W.J.C. "Wooden Horses and Rubber Cows: Training British Farm Workers for the Canadian Prairies, 1890-1930", Historical Papers, Canadian Historical Review, 1980, pp. 133-54.
Conway, J . F. The West: The History of a Region in Confederation. Toronto: James Lorimer, 1983.
Cross, Michael S. The Workingman in the Nineteenth Century. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Dunae, Patrick A. Gentlemen Emigrants: From the British Public Schools to the Canadian Frontier. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1981.
de Gelder, Willem. A Dutch Homesteader on the Prairies: The Letters of Willem de Gelder 1910-13. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973.
Forsey, Eugene A. The Canadian Labour Movement, 1812-1902. CHA Booklet No. 27, Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1975.
Forsey, Eugene A. History of Canadian Labour 1812-1902. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982.
Foster, John E., ed. The Developing West: Essays on Canadian History in Honor of Lewis H. Thomas. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1983.
Friesen, Gerald. Prairie West: The History of a Canadian Region, 1640-1980. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.
Gray, James H. Boom time: Peopling the Canadian Prairies. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1979.
Gray, James H. The Boy From Winnipeg. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1970.
Jamieson, Stuart. Times of Trouble: Labour Unrest and Industrial Conflict in Canada, 1900-1966. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1976.
Lower, Arthur J. Western Canada: An Outline History. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1983.
Masters, D.C. The Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950.
McCormack, A. Ross. Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899-1919. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.
Morton, Desmond and Terry Copp. Working People: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Labour Movement. Ottawa: Deneau Publishers, 1980.
Palmer, Howard. Patterns of Prejudice: A History of Nativism in Alberta. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982.
Penner, Norman, ed. Winnipeg 1919: The Strikes Own History of the Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 1973.
Rich, E.E. The Fur Trade and the Northwest to 1857. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967.
Piniuta, Harry. Land of Pain, Land of Promise: First Person Accounts by Ukrainian Pioneers, 1891- 1914. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1978.
Robin, Martin. Radical Politics and Canadian Labour, 1880-1930. Kingston: Industrial Relations Centre, Research Series, No. 7,1968.
Robertson, Heather. Salt of the Earth. Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 1974.
Thomas, Lewis H. "British Visitors' Perceptions of the West, 1885-1914," in A.W. Rasporich and H.C. Klassen, eds. Prairie Perspectives 2. Toronto and MontrΘal: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.
Thomas, Lewis G., ed. The Prairie West to 1905: A Canadian Sourcebook. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1975.
Thompson, John Herd. "Bringing in the Sheaves: The Harvest Excursionists, 1890-1929", Canadian Historical Review, Vol. LIX, No. 4 (Dec. 1978), pp. 467-89.
Thompson, John Herd. The Harvests of War: The Prairie West, 1914-1918. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978.
Woodsworth, J.S. Strangers Within Our Gates; or, Coming Canadians. 1909 Reprint. The Social History of Canada, Vol. 7. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972.
Zaslow, Morris. The Opening of the Canadian North, 1870-1914. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1971.
Several volumes of Canada's Visual History may be profitably used in conjunction with this volume. They are:
1. Winnipeg: The Growth of a City, 1874-1914
2. Immigration to Western Canada, 1896-1914
13. The Blanketstiffs: Itinerant Railway Construction Workers, 1896-1914
16. The Ranching Frontier in the Canadian West, 1874-1905
19. French-Speaking Settlers on the Prairies, 1870-1920
42. Calgary: Police Post to Oil Capital
60. The Prairie Grain Economy
61. Immigrants in the City: Winnipeg's North End
The National Film Board of Canada distributes the following films on related subjects:
Drylanders (106B 0164 044, 69 min., b&w)
The Magnificent Gift (106C 0176 228, 57 min., colour)
The Other Side of the Ledger: An Indian View of the Hudson's
Bay Company (106C 0172 067, 42 min., colour)
Paper Wheat (106C 0179 002, 58 min., colour)
Paul Tomkowitz: Street-railway Switchman (106B 0154 021, 9 min., colour)
The Promised Land (106C 0176 043, 55 min., colour)
Settlement of the Western Plains (106B 0165 120, 14 min., b&w)
1993 Update
EARLY WORKING-CLASS LIFE ON THE PRAIRIES
Joe Cherwinski
No major synthesis of working-class life on the Prairies is available, but the following useful works enhance our understanding of pre-World War I Prairie society.
Bercuson, David J., ed. Canadian Labour History: Selected Readings. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1987.
Berton, Pierre. The Promised Land: Settling the West, 1896-1914. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1984.
Carter, Sarah. Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy. MontrΘal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990.
den Otter, A.A. Civilizing the West: The Galts and the Development of Western Canada. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1982.
Dick, Lyle. Farmers "Making Good": The Development of Abernethy District, Saskatchewan, 1880-1920. Ottawa, 1989.
Eagle, John. The Canadian Pacific Railway and the Development of Western Canada. Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1989.
Francis, Douglas, and Howard Palmer, eds. The Prairie West: Historical Readings. 2d ed. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1992.
Goodman Salverson, Laura. Confessions of an Immigrant's Daughter. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.
Jackel, Susan. A Flannel Shirt and Liberty: British Emigrant Gentlewomen in the Canadian West, 1880-1914. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1982.
Jones, David, and Ian MacPherson, eds. Building Beyond the Homestead. Calgary: The University of Calgary Press, 1985.
Laycock, David. Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910 to 1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
Makahonuk, Glen. "Labour in a Prairie City." In The Politics of Work in the West, edited by H.D. Dickinson and R. Russell. Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan, 1985.
Ray, Arthur J. The Canadian Fur Trade in the Industrial Age. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
Rees, Ronald. A New and Naked Land: Making the Prairies Home. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1988.
Regehr, T.D. The Canadian Northern Railway: Pioneer Road of the Northern Prairies, 1895-1918. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1976.
Smillie, Christine. "The Invisible Workforce: Women Workers in Saskatchewan From 1905 to World War II." Saskatchewan History 39, no. 2 (Spring 1986): 62-78.
Smith, David. "Workers Control and Saskatoon Workers, 1906-1913." Saskatchewan History 40 no. 3 (Autumn 1987): 109-13.
Smith, Doug. Let Us Rise! An Illustrated History of the Manitoba Labour Movement. Vancouver: New Star Books Ltd., 1985.
Voisey, Paul. Vulcan: The Making of a Prairie Community. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.
The following articles from Horizon Canada may also prove useful.
Beahen, William. "Busy Bawdies." Vol. 5, pp. 1406-11.
Bradbury, Bettina. "Hard Times." Vol. 10, pp. 2678-83.
Cherwinski, Joe. "Prairie Fling." Vol. 3, pp. 584-89.
den Otter, A.A. "South Alberta Coal." Vol. 7, pp. 1982-87.
Foran, Max. "Calgary or Bust." Vol. 2, pp. 440-45.
Jones, David C. "The Fun of the Fair." Vol. 4, pp. 926-31.
McCormack, A. Ross. "Wobbly Wars." Vol. 8, pp. 2246-51.
Parr, Joy. "Robbing the Cradle." Vol. 4, pp. 974-79.
Richeson, David. "Farming Moves into High Gear." Vol. 10, pp. 2828-32.
Sealey, D. Bruce. "Metis, Orphans of the Trade." Vol. 2, pp. 368-72.
