Rough Work
Labourers on the Public Works of British North America and Canada, 1841-1882
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Mar 2018
- Category
- General, North America, General, History & Theory
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781487502485
- Publish Date
- Feb 2018
- List Price
- $85.00
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781487521998
- Publish Date
- Feb 2018
- List Price
- $49.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781487515430
- Publish Date
- Mar 2018
- List Price
- $49.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
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 the author
Ruth Bleasdale is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Dalhousie University.
Awards
- Short-listed, 2018 Wilson Book Prize awarded by the Wilson Institute for Canadian History
Editorial Reviews
"Rough Work is an exhaustive social history of public works projects, the men who labored on them, and the men who tried to keep these laborer’s in line. Bleasdale has made a vital contribution by diligently documenting this time and place."
<em>University of Toronto Quarterly: Letters in Canada 2018</em>