Rough Work: Labourers on the Public Work of British North America and Canada, 1841-1882 (Canadian Social History Series): Labourers on the Public Works of British North America and Canada, 1841-1882 - Softcover

Ruth Bleasdale

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1487521995 ISBN 13: 9781487521998

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2018

Synopsis

The labourers at the heart of this study built the canals and railways undertaken as public works by the colonial governments of British North America and the federal government of Canada between 1841 and 1882.

Ruth Bleasdale's fascinating journey into the little-known lives of these labourers and their families reveals how capital, labour and the state came together to build the transportation infrastructure that linked colonies and united an emerging nation. Combining census and community records, government documents, and newspaper archives Bleasdale elucidates the ways in which successive governments and branches of the state intervened between labour and capital and in labourers' lives. Case studies capture the remarkable diversity across regions and time in a labour force drawn from local and international labour markets. The stories here illuminate the ways in which men and women experienced the emergence of industrial capitalism and the complex ties which bound them to local and transnational communities. Rough Work is an accessibly written yet rigorous study of the galvanization of a major segment of Canada's labour force over four decades of social and economic transformation.

About this title

About the Author:

Ruth Bleasdale is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Dalhousie University.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1487521995
• ISBN 13: 9781487521998
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464