Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

History Post-confederation (1867-)

Working in Steel

The Early Years in Canada, 1883-1935

by (author) Craig Heron

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 1988
Category
Post-Confederation (1867-), Labor & Industrial Relations
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780771040863
    Publish Date
    Mar 1988
    List Price
    $26.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781442609846
    Publish Date
    Nov 2008
    List Price
    $40.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442658493
    Publish Date
    Dec 1988
    List Price
    $31.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

In this indispensable study of Canadian industrialization, Craig Heron examines the huge steel plants that were built at the turn of the twentieth century in Sydney and New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and Trenton, Hamilton, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Presenting a stimulating analysis of the Canadian working class in the early twentieth century, Working in Steel emphasizes the importance of changes in the work world for the larger patterns of working-class life.

Heron's examination of the impact of new technology in Canada's Second Industrial Revolution challenges the popular notion that mass-production workers lost all skill, power, and pride in the work process. He shifts the explanation of managerial control in these plants from machines to the blunt authoritarianism and shrewd paternalism of corporate management. His discussion of Canada's first steelworkers illuminates the uneven, unpredictable, and conflict-ridden process of technological change in industrial capitalist society. As engaging today as when first published in 1988, Working in Steel remains an essential work in Canadian history.

About the author

CRAIG HERON is a professor of History at York University in Toronto and the author of several works in Canadian social history, including Working in Steel: The Early Years in Canada, 1883-1935, The Workers? Revolt in Canada, 1917-1925, Booze: A Distilled History, and The Workers? Festival: A History of Labour Day in Canada. He lives in Toronto.

Craig Heron's profile page