The Dark of Heartlessness: Canadian Identity and Hypocrisy in Ralph Connor's The Foriegner (original) (raw)
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Although the history of Canada’s oldest adult literacy organization, Frontier College, is of great relevance to labour studies, it has been more or less ignored by this field, largely because of its links to the early 20th-century social gospel movement and because of the difficulty of studying workers’ responses to the association. This article examines the first half-decade of Frontier College (known until 1919 as the Canadian Reading Camp Association) using a variety of methodologies––labour history, cultural and literary history, the history of education, and the history of reading––to understand how culture was used in the service of liberal government in the context of northern Ontario’s lumber camps at the turn of the century.
Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études …, 2006
Between 1928 and 1931, a series of 16 Folk music and handicraft festivals were staged across Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The principal architect of the festivals, John Murray Gibbon, would later popularize the now-ubiquitous and immeasurably influential phrase "Canadian Mosaic" to explain his vision of a united Canada comprised of distinct identities. This article establishes the foundational role played by the category "Folk" in Gibbon's construction of the mosaic metaphor for Canadian cultural identity. It examines the construction of three major festivals and interrogates the very category "Folk" around which they were designed. It establishes connections between the structures of the festivals and the race, class, and gender-based cultural assumptions and ideologies that informed their organizers and participants. Finally, it explores the relationship between Gibbon's emphasis on antimodern Folk identities and an increasingly intricate Canadian cultural matrix under the conditions of modernity. Entre 1928 et 1931, une série de seize festivals de musique folklorique et d'artisanat ont été organisés à l'échelle du Canada sous l'égide du Canadien Pacifique. Le principal architecte de ces festivals, John Murray Gibbon, rendra plus tard populaire l'expression très connue et de grande influence « mosaïque canadienne » pour expliquer sa vision d'un Canada uni qui comprend plusieurs identités distinctes. Le présent article explique le rôle fondamental qu'a joué la catégorie « folklorique » dans la formulation de la métaphore sur la mosaïque de M. Gibbon pour décrire l'identité culturelle canadienne. L'article examine la mise sur pied de trois festivals importants et analyse la catégorie « folklorique » qui est le fondement de ces festivals. L'article établit des liens entre la structure des festivals et les hypothèses culturelles ainsi que les idéologies fondées sur la race, la classe et le sexe qui ont influencé les organisateurs et les participants. Enfin, l'article examine les liens entre l'accent que M. Gibbon place sur les identités folkloriques antimodernes et une matrice culturelle canadienne de plus en plus compliquée visée par le modernisme.
The foundations of agrarian socialism: Cooperative economic action in Saskatchewan / Prairie Forum
This study investigates the rise of agrarian co-operation—and the historical bloc it helped structure—in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan from 1905 to 1960. A brief discussion of Territorial cooperation sets the demographic, economic and political context. Following Fairbairn's (2005) periodization, provincial movement history is then discussed in terms of three waves: the settlement period, dominated by producer cooperation (from 1905 to about 1930); the diversification period ushered in by the Great Depression, in which the movement broadened-out but remained farmer-led (from about 1930 to 1940); and the postwar expansion (from about 1940 to 1960), characterized by rapid growth and coexistence with North America's first socialist state. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, agriculture consolidated into fewer, larger farms. A technocratic managerialism dominated the provincial state and cooperative sector. Ironically, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation—largely built on cooperative movement foundations—increas-ingly turned toward state and investor-led development strategies. These economic and political developments eroded farmer-led collective action on the Prairies. By the turn of the twenty-first century, these trends would drive privatizations in grains, dairy and poultry and spell the end of co-operation's agrarian era—and agrarian socialism—in Saskatchewan. Sommaire Cet article étudie la montée de la coopération agraire – ainsi que le bloc histo-rique qui en découla – en Saskatchewan de 1905 à 1960. Une brève discussion de la coopération territoriale situe le contexte démographique, économique et politique. Puis on décrit l'histoire du mouvement provincial en s'aidant
Connor J. Thompson - Cultivating the Prairie Myth: Symbol, Ritual, and Place in the Prairie History
Strata, 2019
Arguing for the continued utility of regional analysis, this paper illustrates the beginnings of a theoretical framework in which to situate post-World War II Prairie cultural history, which has often been neglected by historians of the region. An overview of heritage preservation efforts and ritualized celebrations of the region's settlement era situate an analysis of how a sense of place is conceived of by its citizens. This article considers how the consumer culture that has grown to predominate on the Prairies, and influence its social beliefs and practices, has shaped ritualized and symbolic behaviour that reinforces a Prairie regional distinctiveness. The "weight of history" on the consciousness of the present is demonstrated by a variety of behaviours that continue to create a sense of distinct Prairie identity.
"The Same as Bein’ Canadian": John Marlyn’s Eye among the Blind
This paper investigates the role a child protagonist placed in a setting of suffering and injustice can play in the construction and performance of cultural citizenship in Canada, with particular attention to the ways that confirming or resisting the values of the status quo becomes linked with a young protagonist’s coming of age. In John Marlyn’s /Under the Ribs of Death/ (1957), Sandor Hunyadi defines himself not within his own Hungarian community but /in relation to/ “the English,” a term used interchangeably to signify a language, a class, an ethnicity, a nation, and an identity. But because the novel calls into question his desire to assimilate to such a narrow view of Canadian citizenship, he becomes an ironic “eye among the blind” in the citizenship debates that have persisted across the history of the nation.
Despite what the title suggests, Saskatchewan had a booming sex trade in its early years. The area attracted hundreds of women sex workers before Saskatchewan had even become a province in 1905. They were drawn to the area by the demands of bachelors who dominated Canada's prairie west. According to Saskatchewan's moral reformers, however, the sex trade was a hindrance to the province's Christian potential. They called for its abolishment and headed white slavery campaigns that characterized prostitution as a form of slavery. Their approach stood in contrast with law enforcement's stance on the trade. The police took a tolerant approach, allowing its operation as long as sex workers and their clients remained circumspect. Law enforcement's approach reflected their own propensity to use the services of sex workers as well as community attitudes toward the trade. Some communities were more welcoming of sex workers, while others demanded that police suppress the trade. Saskatchewan's newspapers also reflected differing attitudes toward the trade. While Regina's Leader purveyed a no tolerance view of the sex trade, Saskatoon's Phoenix and Star held more tolerant views. Saskatchewan's newspapers reveal that as the province's population increased and notions of moral reform gained popularity, police were challenged to take a less tolerant approach. However, reformers' efforts to end the sex trade dwindled with the onset of the First World War and attitudes toward sex workers shifted drastically as responsibility for venereal disease was placed largely on women who sold sex. Using government and police records, moral reform and public health documents, and media sources such as newspapers, as well as intersectional analysis of gender, race, class, and ethnicity, this examination of Saskatchewan’s sex trade investigates the histories and social responses to the buying and selling of sex, revealing the complex and, at times, contradictory place of sex workers and the sex trade in Saskatchewan’s early history.
The Heavy Hand of History: Interpreting Saskatchewan's Past
2005
The centennial of Saskatchewan’s birth as a province is a natural opportunity to reflect deeply on the province’s history. Long-time observers of the province, the authors in this short book all address the question of what 100 years of history means in terms of Saskatchewan’s present and future. The heavy hand of history is a metaphor for the weight exerted by past events, decisions, institutions and attitudes on the present. To prepare for 2005, the authors in this volume were asked to write essays on their interpretation of the long-run historical factors that significantly influence Saskatchewan today and will continue to shape its future.
Written sources of Canadian English: phonetic reconstruction and the low-back vowel merger
The study of Canadian English has, for the most part, relied on synchronic data and description. Via the apparent-time method and earlier linguistic studies, evidence is available for the most part of the twentieth century. This paper provides possible pathways towards examining pre-twentieth century evidence for Canadian English. Using principles of sociohistorical research, the paper offers an outline of how to make the best use of existing data by combining evidence from both literary and authentic written sources. As a test case, central focus is given to the reconstruction of a pivotal Canadian feature, the low-back vowel merger. Texts are used, in conjunction with secondary materials, such as Canadian informants in linguistic atlas data, accounts of settlement history and anecdotal evidence, to show the possibilities and limitations of written evidence in historical phonetics and phonology. As a test case, the approach, which is complemented by a rudimentary sketch of sources across the country, is intended to be easily transferrable to other linguistic levels.
Reading Camps and Travelling Libraries in New Ontario, 1900-1905
Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation, 2014
In 1900, the Ontario Department of Education and Alfred Fitzpatrick, who was inspired by Social Gospel ideas, engaged in an experiment to supply books to reading camps for lumber, mining, and railway workers in Northern Ontario. The center-periphery interplay between education officials and Fitzpatrick gave birth to two important adult education agencies: Frontier College and Ontario's travelling library system. Although the Department partially accepted Fitzpatrick's original plan for library extension, he garnered enough public support and employer endorsements to leverage government action on key issues related to a systematic book supply, the reduction of illiteracy, and non-formal adult learning techniques. This paper uses primary sources to examine the differing objectives held by Fitzpatrick and the Department during their initial joint venture prior to the Ontario election of 1905. The study highlights why travelling libraries eventually became a provincial responsibility; as well, it shows Fitzpatrick reshaped his original plans by practical interactions with resource workers that led to new approaches for adult learning at the outset of the 20th century.