Rough Work : : Labourers on the Public Works of British North America and Canada, 1841–1882 / / Ruth Bleasdale.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press Complete eBook-Package 2018
• VerfasserIn: Bleasdale, Ruth,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2018]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Canadian Social History Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (416 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Maps, Illustrations, and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Contracting on Public Works, 1841 to 1882 -- 2. The Labour Force -- 3. The Work -- 4. The Living -- 5. The Boundaries of Belonging: Navvy Communities of the 1840s and 1850s -- 6. Degrees of Separation: Redefining the Boundaries of Belonging through the 1870s -- 7. Defining a Community of Interests: The 1840s and 1850s -- 8. Labour Unity and Militance on Public Works through the 1870s -- Conclusion -- Appendix: Location of Contracts (Sections) on the Intercolonial Railway and Third Welland Canal -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index