Research Catalog

Rough work : labourers on the Public Works of British North America and Canada, 1841-1882

Title
Rough work : labourers on the Public Works of British North America and Canada, 1841-1882 / Ruth E. Bleasdale.
Author
Bleasdale, Ruth E.
Publication
  • Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2018]
  • ©2018

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library HD8106 .B54 2018Off-site

Details

Description
xii, 400 pages : illustrations, maps; 23 cm.
Summary
"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."--
Series Statement
The Canadian social history series
Uniform Title
Canadian social history series
Subject
  • 1800-1899
  • Labor > Canada > History > 19th century
  • Public works > Canada > History > 19th century
  • Economic history
  • Labor
  • Public works
  • Social conditions
  • Arbeiter
  • Verkehrsinfrastruktur
  • Bauberufe
  • Sozialgeschichte
  • Kolonialismus
  • Kanada
  • Canada > Economic conditions > 19th century
  • Canada > Social conditions > 19th century
  • Canada
Genre/Form
History.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-391) and index.
Contents
Introduction -- Contracting on public works, 1841 to 1882 -- The labour force -- The work -- The living -- The boundaries of belonging: Navvy communities of the 1840s and 1850s -- Degrees of separation: redefining the boundaries of belonging through the 1870s -- Defining a community of interests: the 1840s and 1850s -- Labour unity and militance on public works through the 1870s -- Conclusion.
ISBN
  • 1487521995
  • 9781487521998
  • 1487502486
  • 9781487502485
LCCN
40028062671
OCLC
  • ocn980739735
  • 980739735
  • SCSB-9005496
Owning Institutions
Princeton University Library