Mining the connections: Class, ethnicity, and gender in Nanaimo, British Columbia, 1891

Histoire Sociale

Volumn 30, Issue 59, 1997, Pages 55-75

  Seager, Allen ^a   Perry, Adele ^a  

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References (90)

1. 1 See Robert Galois and Cole Harris, "Recalibrating Society: The Population Geography of British Columbia in 1891", The Canadian Geographer, vol. 38, no. 1 (1994), pp. 37-53.
2. 2 Province of British Columbia, Journals 1891, Select Committee on [the] Wellington Strike, 1890, "Evidence", pp. ccxli-ccxxxvii.
3. 3 Carlos Schwantes, Radical Heritage: Labor, Social, and Reform in Washington and British Columbia, 1885-1917 (Vancouver: Douglas and MeIntyre, 1979), p.73. Schwantes specifically mentions the link between the miners' strike of 1890-1891 and the attempted formation of a Provincial Federated Labour Congress under miners' leadership at that time.
4. 4 Select Committee, "Evidence", pp. ccxliv and passim.
5. 6 James Dunsmuir, quoted in "Strike at Wellington", Victoria Colonist, May 21, 1890.
6. 7 Select Committee, "Evidence", p. clxxxvi, regarding swearing in of Ar. Bertaux, francophone interpreter. Like several other Canadian coalfields, Vancouver Island had a small but significant community of francophone immigrants generally known as Franco-Belgians. In the area surveyed in this article, for example, the census enumerated 17 miners born in France and 29 born in Belgium, a bi-national country whose mining population was nonetheless predominantly French-speaking.
7. 8 Samuel Gompers, quoted in "A Grasping Corporation!! President Gompers' Opinion of the Wellington Lockout-out", Nanaimo Free Press, March 21, 1891; see also Jeremy Mouat, "The Politics of Coal: A Study of the Wellington Miners' Strike of 1890-91", BC Studies, vol. 77 (Spring 1988), pp. 3-29. The AFL was not formally involved but aided the strike by proclaiming an international boycott of Wellington coal in 1891. The term "people's strike" is not encountered in the local sources but is generally associated with the "Great Upheaval" after 1885. Building on the work of the late Herbert Gutman in the United States, Canadian historians have built a not unconvincing case for the peculiarly defensive as well as offensive character of that moment. Gregory S. Kealey and Bryan D. Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
8. 8 Samuel Gompers, quoted in "A Grasping Corporation!! President Gompers' Opinion of the Wellington Lockout-out", Nanaimo Free Press, March 21, 1891; see also Jeremy Mouat, "The Politics of Coal: A Study of the Wellington Miners' Strike of 1890-91", BC Studies, vol. 77 (Spring 1988), pp. 3-29. The AFL was not formally involved but aided the strike by proclaiming an international boycott of Wellington coal in 1891. The term "people's strike" is not encountered in the local sources but is generally associated with the "Great Upheaval" after 1885. Building on the work of the late Herbert Gutman in the United States, Canadian historians have built a not unconvincing case for the peculiarly defensive as well as offensive character of that moment. Gregory S. Kealey and Bryan D. Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
9. 8 Samuel Gompers, quoted in "A Grasping Corporation!! President Gompers' Opinion of the Wellington Lockout-out", Nanaimo Free Press, March 21, 1891; see also Jeremy Mouat, "The Politics of Coal: A Study of the Wellington Miners' Strike of 1890-91", BC Studies, vol. 77 (Spring 1988), pp. 3-29. The AFL was not formally involved but aided the strike by proclaiming an international boycott of Wellington coal in 1891. The term "people's strike" is not encountered in the local sources but is generally associated with the "Great Upheaval" after 1885. Building on the work of the late Herbert Gutman in the United States, Canadian historians have built a not unconvincing case for the peculiarly defensive as well as offensive character of that moment. Gregory S. Kealey and Bryan D. Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
10. 9 Lynne Bowen, Three Dollar Dreams (Lantzville, B.C.: Oolichan Books, 1987), p. 346.
11. 10 Ibid.; see also "Police Court", Nanaimo Free Press, March 21, 1891. One may presume, however, that Bagster's action was part of Dunsmuir's general strategy of harrying the strikers in the courts.
12. 10 Ibid.; see also "Police Court", Nanaimo Free Press, March 21, 1891. One may presume, however, that Bagster's action was part of Dunsmuir's general strategy of harrying the strikers in the courts.
13. 11 Palladium of Labor, May 8, 1886, cited in Magdalena Fahrni, "The Rhetoric of Order: Respectability, Deviance, and the Criminalizing of Class in Ontario, 1880-1914" (Master's thesis, Queen's University, 1993), p. 100.
14. 12 "For Sentence - The Six Union Miners", Nanaima Free Press, March 23, 1891. Sentencing in the case was clearly meant to be a lesson in justice tempered with mercy, their terms being only six weeks. For the Northfield syndicat,
15. see Bowen, Three Dollar Dreams, p. 341.
16. 13 See, for example, reports on the Victory Assembly of the KoL in relation to the MMLPA movement in the Nanaimo Free Press, January 24, 1891. John Belshaw's "The British Collier in British Columbia: Another Archetype Reconsidered", Labour/Le Travail, vol. 34 (Fall 1994), pp. 11-36, speculates that British coal miners found the KoL uncongenial, but it is equally likely that for tactical reasons it was simply decided to separate the organizing drive from the Order: the remnants of the KoL in the American coalfields formed part of the original coalition around the United Mine Workers at about the same time, and the main spokesman for the MMLPA, Tully Boyce, was actually Pennsylvania Irish, not British - as these parties understood the term. For a detailed narrative and bibliography of the otherwise seamless web of anti-Chinese, labour-reform, and union organizing in post-1885 Nanaimo, the reader is referred to Allen Seager, "Miners' Struggles in Western Canada, 1890-1930" in Deain Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, eds., Class, Community and Labour Movement (St. John's: The Society for Welsh Labour History and Canadian Committee for Labour History, 1989), pp. 164-167. Paul Phillips, "The Underground Economy" in David Coburn and Rennie Warburton, eds., Workers, Capital and the State in British Columbia: Selected Papers (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988), p. 44, understates ihe case when he writes that it is "difficult to document" the relationship between colliery safety and the employment of Chinese-speaking labour at this time. Rudimentary Cantonese-English manuals of mining, for example, are known to have been created in the coalfield but likely date from a later period.
17. 13 See, for example, reports on the Victory Assembly of the KoL in relation to the MMLPA movement in the Nanaimo Free Press, January 24, 1891. John Belshaw's "The British Collier in British Columbia: Another Archetype Reconsidered", Labour/Le Travail, vol. 34 (Fall 1994), pp. 11-36, speculates that British coal miners found the KoL uncongenial, but it is equally likely that for tactical reasons it was simply decided to separate the organizing drive from the Order: the remnants of the KoL in the American coalfields formed part of the original coalition around the United Mine Workers at about the same time, and the main spokesman for the MMLPA, Tully Boyce, was actually Pennsylvania Irish, not British - as these parties understood the term. For a detailed narrative and bibliography of the otherwise seamless web of anti-Chinese, labour-reform, and union organizing in post-1885 Nanaimo, the reader is referred to Allen Seager, "Miners' Struggles in Western Canada, 1890-1930" in Deain Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, eds., Class, Community and Labour Movement (St. John's: The Society for Welsh Labour History and Canadian Committee for Labour History, 1989), pp. 164-167. Paul Phillips, "The Underground Economy" in David Coburn and Rennie Warburton, eds., Workers, Capital and the State in British Columbia: Selected Papers (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988), p. 44, understates ihe case when he writes that it is "difficult to document" the relationship between colliery safety and the employment of Chinese-speaking labour at this time. Rudimentary Cantonese-English manuals of mining, for example, are known to have been created in the coalfield but likely date from a later period.
18. 13 See, for example, reports on the Victory Assembly of the KoL in relation to the MMLPA movement in the Nanaimo Free Press, January 24, 1891. John Belshaw's "The British Collier in British Columbia: Another Archetype Reconsidered", Labour/Le Travail, vol. 34 (Fall 1994), pp. 11-36, speculates that British coal miners found the KoL uncongenial, but it is equally likely that for tactical reasons it was simply decided to separate the organizing drive from the Order: the remnants of the KoL in the American coalfields formed part of the original coalition around the United Mine Workers at about the same time, and the main spokesman for the MMLPA, Tully Boyce, was actually Pennsylvania Irish, not British - as these parties understood the term. For a detailed narrative and bibliography of the otherwise seamless web of anti-Chinese, labour-reform, and union organizing in post-1885 Nanaimo, the reader is referred to Allen Seager, "Miners' Struggles in Western Canada, 1890-1930" in Deain Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, eds., Class, Community and Labour Movement (St. John's: The Society for Welsh Labour History and Canadian Committee for Labour History, 1989), pp. 164-167. Paul Phillips, "The Underground Economy" in David Coburn and Rennie Warburton, eds., Workers, Capital and the State in British Columbia: Selected Papers (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988), p. 44, understates ihe case when he writes that it is "difficult to document" the relationship between colliery safety and the employment of Chinese-speaking labour at this time. Rudimentary Cantonese-English manuals of mining, for example, are known to have been created in the coalfield but likely date from a later period.
19. 13 See, for example, reports on the Victory Assembly of the KoL in relation to the MMLPA movement in the Nanaimo Free Press, January 24, 1891. John Belshaw's "The British Collier in British Columbia: Another Archetype Reconsidered", Labour/Le Travail, vol. 34 (Fall 1994), pp. 11-36, speculates that British coal miners found the KoL uncongenial, but it is equally likely that for tactical reasons it was simply decided to separate the organizing drive from the Order: the remnants of the KoL in the American coalfields formed part of the original coalition around the United Mine Workers at about the same time, and the main spokesman for the MMLPA, Tully Boyce, was actually Pennsylvania Irish, not British - as these parties understood the term. For a detailed narrative and bibliography of the otherwise seamless web of anti-Chinese, labour-reform, and union organizing in post-1885 Nanaimo, the reader is referred to Allen Seager, "Miners' Struggles in Western Canada, 1890-1930" in Deain Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, eds., Class, Community and Labour Movement (St. John's: The Society for Welsh Labour History and Canadian Committee for Labour History, 1989), pp. 164-167. Paul Phillips, "The Underground Economy" in David Coburn and Rennie Warburton, eds., Workers, Capital and the State in British Columbia: Selected Papers (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988), p. 44, understates ihe case when he writes that it is "difficult to document" the relationship between colliery safety and the employment of Chinese-speaking labour at this time. Rudimentary Cantonese-English manuals of mining, for example, are known to have been created in the coalfield but likely date from a later period.
20. 14 The Vancouver Coal Company was officially dubbed the New Vancouver Island Coal Mining and Land Company. Thomas Keith quoted in "Legislative Assembly", Nanaimo Free Press, April 9, 1891. Relevant amendments to the Mines Act were in fact made, but successfully contested by the Dunsmuirs as ultra viris and never actually enforced.
21. 15 Daniel T. Gallacher, "Men, Money, and Machines: Studies Comparing Factors of Production in British Columbia's Coal Industry to 1891" (Ph.D. thesis, University of British Columbia, 1979).
22. 16 Gallacher and all other sources agree that the island coal industry was definitively export-based, and good data on coal production and sales were regularly published in the provincial Sessional Papers (Reports of the Minister of Mines) after 1877. For the eastern analogue, see Ian McKay, "The Crisis of Dependent Development: Class Conflict in the Nova Scotia Coalfields, 1872-1876" in Gregory S. Kealey, ed., Class, Gender, and Region: Essays in Canadian Historical Sociology (St. John's: Canadian Journal of Sociology and the Committee on Canadian Labour History, 1988), pp. 9-48. For details of regional coal production, see R. Louis Gentilcore, ed., Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. 2: The Land Transformed 1800-1891, Plate 46, "From Firewood to Coal: Fueling the Nation to 1891".
23. 16 Gallacher and all other sources agree that the island coal industry was definitively export-based, and good data on coal production and sales were regularly published in the provincial Sessional Papers (Reports of the Minister of Mines) after 1877. For the eastern analogue, see Ian McKay, "The Crisis of Dependent Development: Class Conflict in the Nova Scotia Coalfields, 1872-1876" in Gregory S. Kealey, ed., Class, Gender, and Region: Essays in Canadian Historical Sociology (St. John's: Canadian Journal of Sociology and the Committee on Canadian Labour History, 1988), pp. 9-48. For details of regional coal production, see R. Louis Gentilcore, ed., Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. 2: The Land Transformed 1800-1891, Plate 46, "From Firewood to Coal: Fueling the Nation to 1891".
24. 17 See "Wellington Coal", Coast Seaman's Journal (San Francisco), June 25, 1890 (reference courtesy of Douglas Cruikshank). Nineteenth-century coal unions are above all not to be confused with twentieth-century coal unions. Western Canadian coal miners in the late 1930s, for example, were practically all organized, despite poor market conditions that were particularly desperate on Vancouver Island.
25. 18 "A Wellington Magistrate", Nanaimo Free Press, May 29, 1891.
26. 19 "Mr. Robins Replies to Mr. Hunter", Nanaimo Free Press, April 14, 1891.
27. 20 Bowen, Three Dollar Dreams, p. 247.
28. 21 See Martin Robin, Rush for Spoils: The Company Province 1871-1933 (Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1973), chaps. 1-2.
29. 22 See George Parkin, The Great Dominion (London: MacMillan and Co., 1895), chap. 4, "Coal".
30. 23 Albion was effectively controlled by an alliance between the Dunsmuirs and a family of Victoria merchants, the Rithets. British Columbia Archives and Records Service (hereafter BCARS), Albion Iron Works papers. Director's Minutes, 1882-1902; G. R. Genn Collection, vol. 40 f, "Albion Iron Works" (liquidated September 8, 1908). See also the excellent study by John Lutz, focused on market issues with but slight attention to the entrepreneurial group: "Losing Steam: The Boiler and Engine Industry as an Index of British Columbia's Deindustrialization, 1880-1915", Canadian Historical Association Annual Papers (1988), pp. 168-208.
31. 23 Albion was effectively controlled by an alliance between the Dunsmuirs and a family of Victoria merchants, the Rithets. British Columbia Archives and Records Service (hereafter BCARS), Albion Iron Works papers. Director's Minutes, 1882-1902; G. R. Genn Collection, vol. 40 f, "Albion Iron Works" (liquidated September 8, 1908). See also the excellent study by John Lutz, focused on market issues with but slight attention to the entrepreneurial group: "Losing Steam: The Boiler and Engine Industry as an Index of British Columbia's Deindustrialization, 1880-1915", Canadian Historical Association Annual Papers (1988), pp. 168-208.
32. 23 Albion was effectively controlled by an alliance between the Dunsmuirs and a family of Victoria merchants, the Rithets. British Columbia Archives and Records Service (hereafter BCARS), Albion Iron Works papers. Director's Minutes, 1882-1902; G. R. Genn Collection, vol. 40 f, "Albion Iron Works" (liquidated September 8, 1908). See also the excellent study by John Lutz, focused on market issues with but slight attention to the entrepreneurial group: "Losing Steam: The Boiler and Engine Industry as an Index of British Columbia's Deindustrialization, 1880-1915", Canadian Historical Association Annual Papers (1988), pp. 168-208.
33. 23 Albion was effectively controlled by an alliance between the Dunsmuirs and a family of Victoria merchants, the Rithets. British Columbia Archives and Records Service (hereafter BCARS), Albion Iron Works papers. Director's Minutes, 1882-1902; G. R. Genn Collection, vol. 40 f, "Albion Iron Works" (liquidated September 8, 1908). See also the excellent study by John Lutz, focused on market issues with but slight attention to the entrepreneurial group: "Losing Steam: The Boiler and Engine Industry as an Index of British Columbia's Deindustrialization, 1880-1915", Canadian Historical Association Annual Papers (1988), pp. 168-208.
34. 24 For a fascinating study of origins of the Nanaimo firm, see A. W. Currie, "The Vancouver Coal Mining Company: A Source for Galsworthy's Strife", Queen's Quarterly, no. 70 (1963-1964), pp. 53-54 and passim. L. J. Williams, "The Coalowners" in David Smith, ed., A People and a Proletariat: Essays in the History of Wales (London: Pluto Press, 1980), pp. 94-113, is a rare example of serious reflection on the history of this class, generally neglected, Williams notes, "perhaps because of some consideration for the rightness of things".
35. 24 For a fascinating study of origins of the Nanaimo firm, see A. W. Currie, "The Vancouver Coal Mining Company: A Source for Galsworthy's Strife", Queen's Quarterly, no. 70 (1963-1964), pp. 53-54 and passim. L. J. Williams, "The Coalowners" in David Smith, ed., A People and a Proletariat: Essays in the History of Wales (London: Pluto Press, 1980), pp. 94-113, is a rare example of serious reflection on the history of this class, generally neglected, Williams notes, "perhaps because of some consideration for the rightness of things".
36. 25 "Cheerful" from C. F. J. Galloway, The Call of the West: Letters from British Columbia (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1916), pp. 89-90; "slavery" from Alfred George Preston manuscript, n.d., copy in the authors' possession. Preston here explains his own role in a typically supportive trade in Nanaimo, having been more or less auctioned off for room and board in a local dairy operation. To illustrate the connection he notes that pastoral work began not with the rooster's call, but with the shrill reminder of the colliery's "boss whistle" at 5:30 a.m. Given his non-mining background. Preston feared the collieries and successfully ran away to work for wages in a nearby lumber camp instead; one might add that no research has shown that either one of these staple occupations on the island was actually more life-threatening (or more or less lucrative) than the other.
37. 26 See Lynne Bowen, Boss Whistle: Vancouver Island Miners Remember (Lantzville: Oolichan Books, 1982), chap. 2, "The Put-Up and Pull-Down-Again Towns"; also John D. Belshaw, "Mining Technique and Social Division on Vancouver Island, 1848-1900", British Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (June 1986), pp. 45-65. Albeit late in the day, James Dunsmuir did materially embrace the rhetoric of order with his planned townsite of Ladysmith - obviously of South African War vintage. There is significant evidence of bottom-up resistance to what amounted to forced resettlement in Ladysmith circa 1903, but this cannot detain us here.
38. 26 See Lynne Bowen, Boss Whistle: Vancouver Island Miners Remember (Lantzville: Oolichan Books, 1982), chap. 2, "The Put-Up and Pull-Down-Again Towns"; also John D. Belshaw, "Mining Technique and Social Division on Vancouver Island, 1848-1900", British Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (June 1986), pp. 45-65. Albeit late in the day, James Dunsmuir did materially embrace the rhetoric of order with his planned townsite of Ladysmith - obviously of South African War vintage. There is significant evidence of bottom-up resistance to what amounted to forced resettlement in Ladysmith circa 1903, but this cannot detain us here.
39. 27 Debate reported in the Free Press, April 14, 1891. National Policy Conservativism easily carried the Nanaimo (Vancouver electoral) district among others in pro-Macdonald British Columbia. As a measure of underlying "labour" strength, the same district elected an MMLPA representative, Ralph Smith, in a three-way split in 1900. Bryan D. Palmer, "Class Formation and the History of Nineteenth Century Canada" (paper presented to the Australia-Canada Conference, Sydney, December 1993) draws attention to the largely unstudied problem of working-class conceptions of nationhood, but a formally utilitarian debate over commercial union is (perhaps typically) the only shred of relevant evidence we have been able to glean from local sources even in a key election year.
40. 28 "The Canadian Census", Nanaimo Free Press, April 8, 1891. Also see Instructions to Enumerators (Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1890).
41. 28 "The Canadian Census", Nanaimo Free Press, April 8, 1891. Also see Instructions to Enumerators (Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1890).
42. 29 Census of Canada 1890-1 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1893), vol. I, p. 8 and passim.
43. 30 This part of the paper is in large part the result of a collective research effort, and the authors would acknowledge the work of Susan Peters, Douglas Cruickshank, Duff Sutherland, and especially Marilyn Janzen. A President's Research Grant from Simon Fraser University aided in coding the data, as did various small grants from government under the Work-Study Programme in the late 1980s. The term "core mining population" refers to miners and their immediate dependants or cohabitants. It therefore accounts for all people whose lives and employment were dependent upon the coal trade.
44. 31 Data for 1881 from John D. Belshaw, "British Coalminers on Vancouver Island: A Social History" (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1987), p. 108 and passim. For another overview based on the 1881 census, see the excellent geographical survey by Ben Lawrence Moffat, "A Community of Working Men: The Residential Environment of Early Nanaimo, British Columbia" (M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, 1982).
45. 31 Data for 1881 from John D. Belshaw, "British Coalminers on Vancouver Island: A Social History" (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1987), p. 108 and passim. For another overview based on the 1881 census, see the excellent geographical survey by Ben Lawrence Moffat, "A Community of Working Men: The Residential Environment of Early Nanaimo, British Columbia" (M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, 1982).
46. 32 One significance of this finding is to give the lie to the racially opportunistic claim that members of the excluded minority formed the force of strikebreakers or even the backbone of this force in the Nanaimo/Wellington district. For a typical example of historical ambiguity on this point, see Phillips, "The Underground Economy", p. 44.
47. 33 While one contemporary noted the presence of "Nanaimo Indians" working in the mines in 1891, none were identified as such in the census rolls. BCARS, Cornelius Bryant Collection, add. ms. 2819, vol. 1, f. 2, Bryant to Bro. Watson, August, 18, 1891.
48. 34 Kay Anderson, Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991), especially chap. 2; Patricia Roy, A White Man's Province: British Columbia's Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858-1914 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1989).
49. 34 Kay Anderson, Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991), especially chap. 2; Patricia Roy, A White Man's Province: British Columbia's Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858-1914 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1989).
50. 35 Canada, Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration: Report and Evidence (Ottawa: Royal Commission, 1885), p. 1885.
51. 36 For Canadian work, see Jeremy Mouat, "Men and Women in Rossland: The Significance of Gender in a Mining Community, 1890-1919" (paper presented to BC Studies, November 1990, University of British Columbia); D. A. Muise, "The Industrial Context of Inequality: Female Participation in Nova Scotia's Paid Labour Force", Acadiensis, vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-31; Sylvia Van Kirk, "A Vital Presence: Women in the Cariboo Goldrush, 1862-1875" in Gillian Creese and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., British Columbia Reconsidered: Essays on Women (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1992); Steven Penfold, "'Have You No Manhood In You?': Gender and Class in the Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1920-1926", Acadiensis, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 21-44. For international literature, see, for instance, Elizabeth Jameson, "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek 1894-1904" in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex and the Woman Worker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977); Winnifred Mitchell, "Women in Mining Communities" in Elizabeth Windschuttle, ed., Women, Class, and History: Feminist Perspectives on Australia 1788-1978 (Melbourne: Fontana, 1980); Dot Jones, "Serfdom and Slavery: Women's Work in Wales, 1890-1930" in Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, Class, Community, and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada, 1850-1930 (Toronto: LLAFUR and CCLH, 1989).
52. 36 For Canadian work, see Jeremy Mouat, "Men and Women in Rossland: The Significance of Gender in a Mining Community, 1890-1919" (paper presented to BC Studies, November 1990, University of British Columbia); D. A. Muise, "The Industrial Context of Inequality: Female Participation in Nova Scotia's Paid Labour Force", Acadiensis, vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-31; Sylvia Van Kirk, "A Vital Presence: Women in the Cariboo Goldrush, 1862-1875" in Gillian Creese and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., British Columbia Reconsidered: Essays on Women (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1992); Steven Penfold, "'Have You No Manhood In You?': Gender and Class in the Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1920-1926", Acadiensis, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 21-44. For international literature, see, for instance, Elizabeth Jameson, "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek 1894-1904" in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex and the Woman Worker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977); Winnifred Mitchell, "Women in Mining Communities" in Elizabeth Windschuttle, ed., Women, Class, and History: Feminist Perspectives on Australia 1788-1978 (Melbourne: Fontana, 1980); Dot Jones, "Serfdom and Slavery: Women's Work in Wales, 1890-1930" in Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, Class, Community, and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada, 1850-1930 (Toronto: LLAFUR and CCLH, 1989).
53. 36 For Canadian work, see Jeremy Mouat, "Men and Women in Rossland: The Significance of Gender in a Mining Community, 1890-1919" (paper presented to BC Studies, November 1990, University of British Columbia); D. A. Muise, "The Industrial Context of Inequality: Female Participation in Nova Scotia's Paid Labour Force", Acadiensis, vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-31; Sylvia Van Kirk, "A Vital Presence: Women in the Cariboo Goldrush, 1862-1875" in Gillian Creese and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., British Columbia Reconsidered: Essays on Women (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1992); Steven Penfold, "'Have You No Manhood In You?': Gender and Class in the Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1920-1926", Acadiensis, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 21-44. For international literature, see, for instance, Elizabeth Jameson, "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek 1894-1904" in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex and the Woman Worker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977); Winnifred Mitchell, "Women in Mining Communities" in Elizabeth Windschuttle, ed., Women, Class, and History: Feminist Perspectives on Australia 1788-1978 (Melbourne: Fontana, 1980); Dot Jones, "Serfdom and Slavery: Women's Work in Wales, 1890-1930" in Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, Class, Community, and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada, 1850-1930 (Toronto: LLAFUR and CCLH, 1989).
54. 36 For Canadian work, see Jeremy Mouat, "Men and Women in Rossland: The Significance of Gender in a Mining Community, 1890-1919" (paper presented to BC Studies, November 1990, University of British Columbia); D. A. Muise, "The Industrial Context of Inequality: Female Participation in Nova Scotia's Paid Labour Force", Acadiensis, vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-31; Sylvia Van Kirk, "A Vital Presence: Women in the Cariboo Goldrush, 1862-1875" in Gillian Creese and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., British Columbia Reconsidered: Essays on Women (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1992); Steven Penfold, "'Have You No Manhood In You?': Gender and Class in the Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1920-1926", Acadiensis, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 21-44. For international literature, see, for instance, Elizabeth Jameson, "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek 1894-1904" in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex and the Woman Worker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977); Winnifred Mitchell, "Women in Mining Communities" in Elizabeth Windschuttle, ed., Women, Class, and History: Feminist Perspectives on Australia 1788-1978 (Melbourne: Fontana, 1980); Dot Jones, "Serfdom and Slavery: Women's Work in Wales, 1890-1930" in Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, Class, Community, and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada, 1850-1930 (Toronto: LLAFUR and CCLH, 1989).
55. 36 For Canadian work, see Jeremy Mouat, "Men and Women in Rossland: The Significance of Gender in a Mining Community, 1890-1919" (paper presented to BC Studies, November 1990, University of British Columbia); D. A. Muise, "The Industrial Context of Inequality: Female Participation in Nova Scotia's Paid Labour Force", Acadiensis, vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-31; Sylvia Van Kirk, "A Vital Presence: Women in the Cariboo Goldrush, 1862-1875" in Gillian Creese and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., British Columbia Reconsidered: Essays on Women (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1992); Steven Penfold, "'Have You No Manhood In You?': Gender and Class in the Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1920-1926", Acadiensis, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 21-44. For international literature, see, for instance, Elizabeth Jameson, "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek 1894-1904" in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex and the Woman Worker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977); Winnifred Mitchell, "Women in Mining Communities" in Elizabeth Windschuttle, ed., Women, Class, and History: Feminist Perspectives on Australia 1788-1978 (Melbourne: Fontana, 1980); Dot Jones, "Serfdom and Slavery: Women's Work in Wales, 1890-1930" in Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, Class, Community, and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada, 1850-1930 (Toronto: LLAFUR and CCLH, 1989).
56. 36 For Canadian work, see Jeremy Mouat, "Men and Women in Rossland: The Significance of Gender in a Mining Community, 1890-1919" (paper presented to BC Studies, November 1990, University of British Columbia); D. A. Muise, "The Industrial Context of Inequality: Female Participation in Nova Scotia's Paid Labour Force", Acadiensis, vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-31; Sylvia Van Kirk, "A Vital Presence: Women in the Cariboo Goldrush, 1862-1875" in Gillian Creese and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., British Columbia Reconsidered: Essays on Women (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1992); Steven Penfold, "'Have You No Manhood In You?': Gender and Class in the Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1920-1926", Acadiensis, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 21-44. For international literature, see, for instance, Elizabeth Jameson, "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek 1894-1904" in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex and the Woman Worker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977); Winnifred Mitchell, "Women in Mining Communities" in Elizabeth Windschuttle, ed., Women, Class, and History: Feminist Perspectives on Australia 1788-1978 (Melbourne: Fontana, 1980); Dot Jones, "Serfdom and Slavery: Women's Work in Wales, 1890-1930" in Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, Class, Community, and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada, 1850-1930 (Toronto: LLAFUR and CCLH, 1989).
57. 36 For Canadian work, see Jeremy Mouat, "Men and Women in Rossland: The Significance of Gender in a Mining Community, 1890-1919" (paper presented to BC Studies, November 1990, University of British Columbia); D. A. Muise, "The Industrial Context of Inequality: Female Participation in Nova Scotia's Paid Labour Force", Acadiensis, vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-31; Sylvia Van Kirk, "A Vital Presence: Women in the Cariboo Goldrush, 1862-1875" in Gillian Creese and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., British Columbia Reconsidered: Essays on Women (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1992); Steven Penfold, "'Have You No Manhood In You?': Gender and Class in the Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1920-1926", Acadiensis, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 21-44. For international literature, see, for instance, Elizabeth Jameson, "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek 1894-1904" in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex and the Woman Worker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977); Winnifred Mitchell, "Women in Mining Communities" in Elizabeth Windschuttle, ed., Women, Class, and History: Feminist Perspectives on Australia 1788-1978 (Melbourne: Fontana, 1980); Dot Jones, "Serfdom and Slavery: Women's Work in Wales, 1890-1930" in Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey, Class, Community, and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada, 1850-1930 (Toronto: LLAFUR and CCLH, 1989).
58. 37 On this, see Jean Barman, The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 89-90, 130, 369; Adele Perry, "'Oh I'm just sick of the faces of men': Gender-Imbalance, Race, Sexuality and Sociability in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia", forthcoming in BC Studies (1995); John Douglas Belshaw, "Cradle to Grave: An Examination of Demographic Behaviour on Two British Columbian Frontiers" (paper presented to the Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, Calgary, 1994).
59. 37 On this, see Jean Barman, The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 89-90, 130, 369; Adele Perry, "'Oh I'm just sick of the faces of men': Gender-Imbalance, Race, Sexuality and Sociability in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia", forthcoming in BC Studies (1995); John Douglas Belshaw, "Cradle to Grave: An Examination of Demographic Behaviour on Two British Columbian Frontiers" (paper presented to the Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, Calgary, 1994).
60. 37 On this, see Jean Barman, The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 89-90, 130, 369; Adele Perry, "'Oh I'm just sick of the faces of men': Gender-Imbalance, Race, Sexuality and Sociability in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia", forthcoming in BC Studies (1995); John Douglas Belshaw, "Cradle to Grave: An Examination of Demographic Behaviour on Two British Columbian Frontiers" (paper presented to the Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, Calgary, 1994).
61. 38 Aboriginal people are excluded from the aggregate census figures, and our sample includes no First Nations people. Yet Moffat's analysis of the manuscripts found at least 49 Aboriginal women living in Nanaimo in 1881. See Moffat, "A Community of Working Men", p. 63.
62. 39 See The Women's Book Committee, Chinese Canadian National Council, Gin Guo: Voices of Chinese Canadian Women (Toronto: Women's Press, 1992), pp. 17-24, for a discussion of the racist and sexist legislation and cultural pressures that discouraged or prohibited Asian women's immigration to Canada.
63. 40 For 1881 data, see Belshaw, "British Coalminers", p. 122.
64. 41 Only 22 per cent could be found in directories published in 1892 as well as 1895, indicating the arbitrary standards of such sources. Of miners netted by both directories, just over 50 per cent had moved to a different address between 1891-1892 and 1894-1895, suggesting a certain amount of geographical mobility even among the most established colliers.
65. 42 Nanaimo Free Press, April, 4, 1891.
66. 43 BCARS, Bryant Collection, vol. 4, f. 1, Bryant to Dr. Wood, September, 30, 1875.
67. 44 Karen Dubinsky, Improper Advances: Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880-1929 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), especially chap. 6.
68. 45 Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, p. 156. See Mariana Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885-1925 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991), pp. 86-87, for a discussion of social purity activists' use of images of Asian peoples.
69. 45 Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, p. 156. See Mariana Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885-1925 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991), pp. 86-87, for a discussion of social purity activists' use of images of Asian peoples.
70. 46 Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, p. 170.
71. 47 Bowen, Three Dollar Dreams, p. 69.
72. 48 See Belshaw, "British Coalminers", pp. 122-139, for the most detailed account of nuptuality and fertility in the Nanaimo coalfield, emphasizing that "where [employment] opportunities for boys survived ... the presence of a substantial family population would be assured."
73. 49 Michael R. Haines, "Fertility, Nuptuality, and Occupation: A Study of Coal Mining Populations and Regions in England and Wales in the Mid-Nineteenth Century", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 8, no. 2 (Autumn 1977), pp. 245-280.
74. 50 See Peter Baskerville, et al., eds., 1881 Canadian Census: Vancouver Island (Victoria: University of Victoria Public History Group, 1990), for the various occupations held by women in 1881.
75. 51 John Douglas Belshaw, "The Standard of Living of Vancouver Island Coal Miners, 1848-1900", BC Studies, no. 84 (Winter 1989-1990), pp. 37-64.
76. 52 See Angela V. John, By the Sweat of their Brow: Women Workers at Victorian Coal Mines (London: Groom Helm, 1980); Gill Burke, "The Decline of the Independent Bal Maiden: The Impact of Change in the Cornish Mining Industry" in Angela V. John, Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England: 1800-1918 (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988); Jane Humphries, "Protective Legislation, the Capitalist State, and Working Class Men: The Case of the 1842 Mines Regulation Act", Feminist Review, vol. 7 (Spring 1981), pp. 1-33; Jane Mark-Lawson and Anne Witz, "From 'Family Labour' to 'Family Wage'? The Case of Women's Labour in Nineteenth-Century Coalmining", Social History, vol. 13, no. 2 (May 1988), pp. 151-174.
77. 52 See Angela V. John, By the Sweat of their Brow: Women Workers at Victorian Coal Mines (London: Groom Helm, 1980); Gill Burke, "The Decline of the Independent Bal Maiden: The Impact of Change in the Cornish Mining Industry" in Angela V. John, Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England: 1800-1918 (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988); Jane Humphries, "Protective Legislation, the Capitalist State, and Working Class Men: The Case of the 1842 Mines Regulation Act", Feminist Review, vol. 7 (Spring 1981), pp. 1-33; Jane Mark-Lawson and Anne Witz, "From 'Family Labour' to 'Family Wage'? The Case of Women's Labour in Nineteenth-Century Coalmining", Social History, vol. 13, no. 2 (May 1988), pp. 151-174.
78. 52 See Angela V. John, By the Sweat of their Brow: Women Workers at Victorian Coal Mines (London: Groom Helm, 1980); Gill Burke, "The Decline of the Independent Bal Maiden: The Impact of Change in the Cornish Mining Industry" in Angela V. John, Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England: 1800-1918 (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988); Jane Humphries, "Protective Legislation, the Capitalist State, and Working Class Men: The Case of the 1842 Mines Regulation Act", Feminist Review, vol. 7 (Spring 1981), pp. 1-33; Jane Mark-Lawson and Anne Witz, "From 'Family Labour' to 'Family Wage'? The Case of Women's Labour in Nineteenth-Century Coalmining", Social History, vol. 13, no. 2 (May 1988), pp. 151-174.
79. 52 See Angela V. John, By the Sweat of their Brow: Women Workers at Victorian Coal Mines (London: Groom Helm, 1980); Gill Burke, "The Decline of the Independent Bal Maiden: The Impact of Change in the Cornish Mining Industry" in Angela V. John, Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England: 1800-1918 (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988); Jane Humphries, "Protective Legislation, the Capitalist State, and Working Class Men: The Case of the 1842 Mines Regulation Act", Feminist Review, vol. 7 (Spring 1981), pp. 1-33; Jane Mark-Lawson and Anne Witz, "From 'Family Labour' to 'Family Wage'? The Case of Women's Labour in Nineteenth-Century Coalmining", Social History, vol. 13, no. 2 (May 1988), pp. 151-174.
80. 53 Robert G. McIntosh, "'Grotesque Figures and Faces': Boy Labour in Canadian Coalfields, 1820-1930" (Ph.D. thesis, Carleton University, 1990), p. 92.
81. 54 "Andrew Charles Elliot", Canadian Dictionary of Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1982), vol. 11.
82. 55 Daily British Colonist (Victoria), quoted in McIntosh, "Grotesque Figures and Faces", p. 98.
83. 56 "An Act to make Regulations with respect to Coal Mines", B.C. Statutes, 1877, 40 Victoria, C.15. It was not until the surprisingly late date of 1951, however, that a similar clause was integrated into Nova Scotia's mining regulations. Constance Backhouse, Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and the Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada (Toronto: Osgoode Society, 1991), p. 290 and f. 77.
84. 56 "An Act to make Regulations with respect to Coal Mines", B.C. Statutes, 1877, 40 Victoria, C.15. It was not until the surprisingly late date of 1951, however, that a similar clause was integrated into Nova Scotia's mining regulations. Constance Backhouse, Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and the Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada (Toronto: Osgoode Society, 1991), p. 290 and f. 77.
85. 57 John, By the Sweat of their Brow, pp. 12 and 244.
86. 58 "A Female Striker?", Nanaimo Free Press, August 4, 1877.
87. 59 On women and the informal economy, see Bettina Bradbury, Working Families: Age, Gender and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993).
88. 60 BCARS, Bryant Collection, vol. 1, f. 2, Bryant to Bro. Watson, August 18, 1891.
89. 61 Frances Macnab, British Columbia for Settlers: Its Mines, Trade, and Agriculture (London: Chapel and Hall, 1898), p. 200.
90. 62 Select Committee, "Evidence", p. ccvlix. Here, in the course of an exchange between Tully Boyce and Dunsmuir's agent, Mr. Bodwell, the employer's representative indignantly denied any such discrimination (over the allocation of "places", not jobs, within the colliery), and the employees' representative could supply no proof of contentions made by others.