A Square Deal For All And No Railroading Historical Essays on Labour in Brandon

The author’s careful analysis of labour and working-class organizations in Brandon is aimed at reconstructing and disclosing aspects of the history of class and class relations. While other western Canadian cities, Winnipeg, for example, have received much deserved attention by historians, studies of other cities, such as Brandon, in the early 20th century help to provide a more well-rounded understanding of working-class life in Canada during this period. In the tradition of the new labour history Black and Mitchell pay close attention to the unique development of class relations in the community of Brandon, while placing that community in a broader, national context. This work includes a careful consideration of the working class in Brandon, the particular obstacles and challenges workers there faced, and makes an important contribution to our understanding of class relations in Canada.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Part I. Labour and Politics
   1. 1. Labour in Brandon Civic Politics: A Long View
      Errol Black and Tom Black
   2. 2. “A Square Deal for All and No Railroading”: Labour and Politics in Brandon 1900-1920
      Tom Mitchell
   3. 3. From the Social Gospel to “the Plain Bread of Leninism”: A.E. Smith’s Journey to the Left in the Epoch of Reaction After World War I
      Tom Mitchell
   4. 4. Brandon’s “Revolutionary Forkins”
      Errol Black
3. Part II. Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations
   1. 5. 1919: Labour and Industrial Relations in the Wheat City in the Year of the General Strike
      Tom Mitchell
   2. 6. “We Must Stand Fast for the Sake of Our Profession”: Teachers, Collective bargaining, and the Brandon Schools Controversy of 1922
      Tom Mitchell
   3. 7. 25 Cents an Hour; 48 Hours a Week; More Toilets; Less Cats — The Labour Struggles of the “Girls” at the A.E. Mckenzie Company in Brandon
      Errol Black
4. Part III. Shaping a Working-Class Culture
   1. 8. “To Rouse the Workers from Apathy and Indifferance”: The Educational Dimension of Unionist and Political Practices in Brandon 1900-1920
      Tom Mitchell and Rosa del C. Bruno-Jofré
   2. 9. The Making of the East End Community Club
      Errol Black and Tom Black
5. Bibliography

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.