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Labour/Le Travailleur

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Volume 39, 1997

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Éditeur(s) Canadian Committee on Labour History

ISSN 0700-3862 (imprimé) 1911-4842 (numérique)

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Citer cet article (1997). Reviews / Comptes Rendus. Labour/Le Travailleur, 39, 285–354.

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James Douglas Thwaites et Andrt Lcblanc. LC Monde du tr-1 au Qdbec. BiblwgraphieJI7u World of Labour in Quebec. Bibliography by Joanne Burgess I 285 mbeth Jane Enington. Wives and Mothers, Schoolmist~~sscsand Scullery Maidr: Working Women in Upper Canada, 1790-1840 by Judith F111gani I 286 Colin D. Howell, Northern Sandlots: A Social History of Maritime BasebaU by Stacy L. Lorc~lz1287 Piem Dubois, Les vrais mitres de la forat qdbkcoise by Jean-Roch Cyr 1290 Jacques-Paul Couturier et Phyllis E. LeBlanc, dir. kconomie et sociktk en Acadie, 1850-1950 et Nicolas Landry, Les Hches duns la pkninsule acadienne, 1850- 1950 par LCon Robichaud I 291 John C. Kennedy, People of the Bays and Headlands: Anthropological History and the Fate of Communities in the UhwnLabrador by Patricia A. Thornton I 295 Odtttc Vincent (s.d.), Maurice Asselin, Benoit-Beaudry Gourd, CMment Mercier, Roland Viau. Marc CM,Jean-Piem Marquis, Marc Riopel, Ctcile Sabourin, Histoire de I'Abitibi-Tkmiscamingue par Denis Goulet, Christine Hudon et Piem Lanthier I 297 Jeremy Mouat, Roaring Days: Rossland's Mines and the History of British Colurn- bia by David M. Emmons 1299 Jod Igartua, Arvida au Saguenay. Naissance d'une ville industrielle par Marc Valli8rts I300 Mercedes Steedman, Peter Suschnigg, and Dieter K. Buse, eds., Hard Lessons: The Mine Mill Union in the Canadian Labour Movement by Thomas Dunk I 302 Suzanne Morton, Ideal Surroundings: Domestic Life in a Working-ClassSuburb in the 1920s by Robert A.J. McDonald I 304 Donald H. Avery. Reluctant Host: Canada's Response to Immigrant Workers, 1896-1994 by Carmela Patrias I 306 Reg Whitakcr and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945-1957 by Donald Howard Avery 1308 Sam Gindin. The Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Tranrformation of a Union by Kevin Boyle I 3 10 Susan Crean, Grace Hartman: A Womanfor Her Time by Terry Crowley I 3 12 David Brundage, The Making of Western Labor Radicals: Denver's Organized Workers 1878-1905 by David Bright / 3 13 Leon FaIn Search of the Working Chs:Essays in American Labor History and Political Culncre by Andy Pamaby I 3 15 J. Robert Constantine. ed., Gentle Rebel: Letten of Eugene K Debs by W.M. Dick 1317 Colin Gordoo, New Drals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920-1935 by David E. Hamilton 1 3 19 Stephen Amberg. 77w Union Inspiration in American Politics: The Autoworkers and the Making of a Liberal Industrial Or&r by Elizabeth Fones-Wolf I 32 1 Robert Asher and Ronald Edsforth (with the assistance of Stephen Merlino), eds., Autowork by Robert H. Zieger I 323 Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Labor and Community: Mexican Citrus Worker Villages in a Southern California County, 1900-1950 by Peter Seixas I 324 Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Entelprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-1960 by Stephen Scheinberg I 326 Dorothy Ray Healey and Maurice Isserman, California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party by Joan Sangster I 327 Harvey Klehr, John E Haynes and Fridrikh I. Firsov, The Secret World ofAmerican Communism by Michael Jabara Carley I 329 Bryan D. Palmer, E.P. Thompson: Objections and Oppositions by Neville Kirk I 333 Cormac O'Grada, Ireland Before and After the Famine: Explorations in Economic History, 1800-1925 by Gary Owens 1335 Jean-Louis Robert, Les Ouvriers, la Patrie et la Rbolution by Christine Piette I 337 Lee Palmer Wandel, VoraciousIdols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reforma- tion Zurich, Strasbourg and Basel by James M. Stayer / 338 Hans-Jurgen Arendt, Sabine Hering, and Leonie Wagner, eds., Nationalsozialis- tische Frauenpolitik vor 1933: Dokwnentation by Rosemarie Schade / 340 Eduardo Silva, Prince of the People: The Life and Times of a Brazilian Free Man of Colour by Roderick J. Barman I 341 Christine HUnefeldt, Paying the Price of Freedom: Family and Labor among Lima's Slaves, 1800-1854 by Sonya Lipsett-Rivera 1342 Kevin A. Yelvington, Producing Powec Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in a Carib- bean Workplace by 0.Nigel Bolland / 344 Zachary Loclunan, ed., Workers and Working Classes in the Middle East: Strug- gles, Histories, Historiographies by Hasan Kayali I 345 Martin J. Murray, The Revolution Deferred: The Painful Birth of Post-Apartheid South Africa by William Frcund I 347 Laurie Graham, On the Line at Subaru-Isuzu: The Japanese Model and the American Worker by James Rinehart I 349 Lydia Moms, Dangerous Classes: The Underclass and Social Citizenship; Jonathan Simon, Poor Discipline: Parole and the Social Control of the Underclass, 1890-1990,and, Christopher Jencks, The Homeless by Mark J. Stern 1351 REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS

James Douglas Thwaites et André Le­ et les critères de sélection sont identifiés blanc, Le Monde du travail au Québec. dès l'entrée en matière, leur application Bibliographie/The World of Labour in suscite toutefois des réserves. Aucune Quebec. Bibliography (Québec: Presses distinction n'est établie entre sources et de l'Université du Québec 1995). études (contrairement à la première édi­ tion), ni entre les articles publiées dans les EN 1973, LA parution d'une bibliographie revues savantes et ceux d'une ou deux consacrée au monde du travail québécois pages tirées de la presse ou des revues à inaugurait la Collection Histoire des tra­ grand tirage. Tout est confondu. Les vailleurs québécois et annonçait une péri­ critères de sélection laissent souvent per­ ode de grande vitalité pour l'histoire plexe: pourquoi avoir retenu certaines ouvrière au Québec. Aujourd'hui, les au­ études consacrées à la démographie histo­ teurs, James Thwaites et André Leblanc, rique et en avoir écarté tant d'autres; nous livrent une nouvelle version, bilin­ pourquoi avoir exclu certaines titres de gue, qui rend compte de la production Bruno Ramirez sur les Italiens de Mon­ considérable des vingt dernières années. tréal, notamment, l'article sur les ouvriers Tout comme la première édition, celle-ci italiens du Canadien Pacifique; comment conçoit l'histoire ouvrière comme un expliquer l'absence de la belle étude de vaste champ qui embrasse à la fois l'his­ Lucia Ferretti sur Saint-Pierre-Apôtre; toire sociale des travailleurs et l'histoire pourquoi retenir les mémoires de maîtrise du mouvement ouvrier. Le lecteur y trou­ de Peter Bischoff et Jacques Ferland mais vera donc des études du travail et de la exclure leurs PhD, etc. ... En feuilletant condition ouvrière, de même que des les pages du volume, les surprises et les analyses du syndicalisme et de l'action interrogations s'accumulent. Et une con­ politique ouvrière, en passant par les re­ clusion se profile, s'il est possible de lations industrielles et les politiques so­ repérer tant d'omissions dans les do­ ciales. Une même ouverture caractérise la maines de recherche que l'on connaît bibliographie aux plans de la couverture bien, qu'en est-il des autres champs? chronologique (de la Nouvelle-France à Cette bibliographie souffre d'une l'époque contemporaine) et de la prove­ autre lacune qui limite singulièrement son nance disciplinaire des contributions re­ utilité pour les chercheurs. En effet, les tenues (histoire, sciences humaines et auteurs ont choisi de produire un ouvrage sociales). dont les perspectives analytiques sont ex­ A l'intérieur de ces paramètres, les trêmement réduites. La grille de classe­ auteurs et les membres de leur équipe ont ment ne retient que la nature du document procédé à une cueillette qui visait l'ex- — articles, ouvrages, thèses, journaux et haustivité. Si certains principes directeurs périodes, documents sonores et audio­ visuels. Elle ne tente aucune analyse du contenu des oeuvres et ne propose aucun Table of Contents for Reviews is on pp. regroupement par thème ou par sujet; elle S and 6. n'établit aucune distinction chronolo- 286 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

gique. Pour repérer la production histori­ half page epilogue, for example — but the que sur un sujet, il faut donc se fier soit a significance of what appear to be purely l'index des auteurs, soit à l'index ana­ political dates is never explained. Al­ lytique, lequel «est composé à partir des though the focus is allegedly on work — mots-clé du titre .... de même que des domestic (productive and reproductive), éléments du contenu.» (5) Cependant, paid and voluntary — the perspective l'examen de cet index suggère que, sauf captured most persuasively is not that of de rares exceptions, le classement s'est the routine woman. Rather, the author ex­ effectué uniquement à partir des mots-clé plores the experiences of the literate, and du titre. Ainsi, celui que s'intéresse à un usually mature and privileged household individu ne le trouvera que si son nom manager of the genteel variety. The sto­ apparaît dans le titre d'une monographie ries of a handful of "good" women with ou d'un article. Celle qui s'intéresse à un such well known names as Cartwright, sujet spécifique devra consulter une série Harris, Jameson, Jarvis, Lang ton, Macau- de rubriques, tâche compliquée par leur lay, Moodie, O'Brien, Powell, Russell, classement alphabétique et les multiples Simcoe, and Traill, living either in pio­ renvois. Inversement, le recours aux seuls neering rural settlements or provincial ur­ mots-clé produit parfois une telle quantité ban communities, provide the narrative de références — environ 80 références voice. The discussion also ranges over pour «grève, gréviste,» plus de cent pour such diverse topics as marriage break­ «enseignant(e), instituteurVinstitutrice, down (which does not happen to any of professeur(e)» et au-delà de 175 pour the principals), infanticide (ditto, though Montréal — que seul les plus courageux perhaps to children of their maids), poor oseront poursuivre leur enquête. relief (ditto), and hotel-keeping (ditto). Enfin, tout en travail d'uniformisa­ Since the title might lead the reader to tion, de vérification et de correction aurait expect a more inclusive approach, it is pu être mené avec plus de minutie. On uncertain whether the elitist emphasis retrouve donc des variations dans les was dictated by inclination or by sources. noms et prénoms d'auteurs (#350, #486, Some omissions were clearly out of #1215, #6210), des titres incomplets choice. At the outset, the author denies all (#352), des références incorrectes responsibility for black and native (#1406), des exemples du mauvais classe­ women (xvi-xvii), though, interestingly, ment (#5313, #5322) et des erreurs dans the occasional black woman emerges in l'index analytique. (563) the text to defy her exclusivism and cry out for historical integration. (109, 142) Joanne Burgess Like most qualitatively inclined histori­ Université de Québec à Montréal ans of society, Errington is heavily de­ pendent on the press, which provides the bulk of her information on non-elites. Her Elizabeth Jane Errington, Wives and major supplement to the newspapers are Mothers, Schoolmistresses and Scullery travel accounts and immigrant guides Maids: Working Women in Upper Can­ and, for the most intimate details of fam­ ada, 1790-1840 (Montréal and Kingston: ily life, private papers, especially Mary McGill-Queen's University Press 1995). O'Brien's journal. It is strange that such vital sources are not complemented with THIS IS A BOOK which deals with the the kind of public and semi-public docu­ routine experiences of some women in ments which historians of the turn of the Upper Canada between 1790 and 1840. 19th century are accustomed to use such Errington attaches great importance to the as petitions to government, court and pro­ temporal dimensions of the study — it is bate records, business ledgers and day­ stressed seven times in the seven and one- books, and British missionary society pa- REVIEWS 287

pen. The gaps produced by a narrow and Canada's working women in one or two often serendipitous range of research ma­ cogently written and well edited articles. terials are serious. By ignoring ecclesias­ tical archives, for example, on the ground Judith Fingard that "This volume does not explore the Dalhousie University impact that differing ethnicity and relig­ ious beliefs had on women and their Colin D. Howell, Northern Sandlots: A work" (250) Errington misses the experi­ Social History of Maritime Baseball ences of educational workers in the char­ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press ity schools and the debate on appropriate 1995). education for the daughters of the poor. Instead teaching and education are inter­ AS MORE SCHOLARS begin to look seri­ preted as the preserve of "Ladies' Acade­ ously at sport, books like Northern Sand- mies" and "Seminaries of Respect­ lots: A Social History of Maritime ability." In terms of coverage, the author Baseball are finally being written. This avoids historical demography and un­ means that social historians like Colin abashedly claims to be ignorant of demo­ Howell — and no longer only historians graphic trends. working in physical education depart­ The evidence is sometimes at odds ments — are seeking to understand with the interpretation. The central char­ sport's development and significance. It acters are supposed to be joined to their also means, to borrow Howell's words, husbands in companionate marriages, but that scholars are how producing a grow­ the descriptions of the marriages imply at ing "number of useful studies that rescue best a senior-junior partnership and at sport history from the celebratory im­ worst a master-servant relationship. Most pulses of sports enthusiasts." (3) Howell of the women, overwhelmed with running has put together an interesting and in­ the household and bearing and raising the sightful analysis of Maritime baseball. children, depended on the assistance of Most importantly, he effectively links the other women — close relatives in times game's development in the region to of crisis, neighbours in emergencies, and wider changes in society and social rela­ the domestic help or servant for coping tions. As a result, Howell accomplishes with the daily grind. Errington's discus­ what all of the best recent work in the sion of the rural help and urban servant field of sport history aims to do: he casts follows closely the findings of the Ameri­ new light on not only the history of sport can literature on the subject but the per­ in Canadian society, but also the history spective is always that of the mistress or of Canadian society itself. other agent of authority. A member of the Department of His­ While the topics in the discussion are tory at Saint Mary's University, Howell attractively ordered — the colonial set­ has written previously on a number of ting, marriage and motherhood, pioneer­ topics in Maritime history, including ing and rural housekeeping, urban and health, the professionalization of medi­ elitist housekeeping and benevolence, cine, and social reform. Here, he explores paid work in the marketplace and the the different social purposes served by school — the amount of repetition is irri­ baseball in Atlantic Canada from the mid- tating. Admittedly this makes it an excel­ 19th century to about 1960. In particular, lent book for students — each significant he is "interested in the way that baseball fact and interpretation is repeated at least was implicated in broader discourses in­ the three obligatory times preferred by volving respectable behaviour, masculin­ pedagogues. Other readers, however, ity and femininity, regionalism and na­ might have preferred to read about Upper tionalism, and class, ethnicity, and race." (ix) Northern Sandlots is Howell's at- 288 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

tempt at unravelling these discourses, and ety. As a result, a century-old tradition of clarifying their connection to wider cul­ competitive, community-level baseball in tural changes and social processes. In the Maritimes disappeared by about 1960. terms of method and methodology, How­ In Northern Sandlots, Howell makes ell has drawn extensively from other re­ important historiographical contributions cent research in sport and leisure history. on three levels: social history, regional In particular, he is indebted to those his­ history, and sport history. For those ac­ torians and socialists who see sport and quainted with developments in the "new" recreation as contested terrain — a site of social history over the past two decades, class, gender, ethnic, racial, and commu­ the central concerns of Northern Sandlots nity rivalries which, in turn, are linked to — class and gender, work and play, com­ inequities inherent in modern industrial munity and region, race and ethnicity — capitalism. Howell therefore views the are familiar ones. Those unfamiliar with development as primarily a series of recent scholarly work in sport history struggles, conflicts, and compromises however, may be surprised by Howell's among different social groups. effective application of this kind of analy­ Howell's analysis focuses on base­ sis to Maritime baseball. This study also ball's connection to larger issues, and on contributes to research in working-class the most important meanings and identi­ history by exploring the social and cul­ ties that were attached to the game in tural dimensions of working-class experi­ various time periods. He sees the negotia­ ence. Similarly, Howell's analysis of re­ tion and redefinition of class and gender gional baseball in the context of commu­ relations as keys to understanding base­ nity life adds to a growing body of ball's evolution during most of the 19th research into Maritime identity and culture. century. As large numbers of working- One of the book's main contributions class men — and some women —became to the field of sport history is also con­ involved in the sport, baseball was envel­ nected to this regional emphasis. Howell oped in debates over respectability, man­ provides a much-needed regional study of liness, femininity, and moral improve­ sport in the hinterland, away from the ment. In the progressive era, baseball be­ main centres or organized sport that have came part of a wide-ranging discussion preoccupied most historians. Similarly, about health, social regeneration, and ra­ he offers some essential balance to much tional recreation. Moreover, as the game traditional work on baseball by concen­ developed into a marketable commodity, trating on the small-town, community- the interests of promoters, entrepreneurs, oriented, amateur and semi-professional and spectators often clashed with those of game, rather than major league baseball. bourgeois reformers who viewed sport as Above all, though, this study's main an instrument of social reform. After value lies in its contributions to Canadian World War I, however, the discourse sur­ sport historiography; Howell is one of rounding Maritime baseball changed sig­ only a handful of historians to have ap­ nificantly. In the 1920s and 1930s, com­ plied the tools of good social history — munity-level, amateur baseball was at its and some of the most useful approaches peak in Atlantic Canada. As a result, to sport and leisure history — skilfully Howell places community identity and and successfully in a Canadian context. regional integrity at the core of baseball's This book also takes a much more analyti­ meaning to Maritime Canadians in the cal approach to sport history than almost interwar period. In the 1950s, however, all previous Canadian studies. As a result, local baseball was swamped by a variety perhaps Northern Sandlots can best be of new entertainment choices, including a characterized as a small step for social continent-wide sporting market associ­ history and sport history in general, but a ated with post-industrial consumer soci­ REVIEWS 289

much larger step for the field of Canadian ples. A more serious problem is that al­ sport history. though Howell makes frequent reference Despite the book's narrow title, then, to gender relations, he relies far too heav­ Northern Sandlots is much more than ily on the secondary literature, and on "just" a history of Maritime baseball. American examples, to make his points. Howell addresses many broader issues in In the end the experiences of Maritime this volume. However, in providing the women — and Atlantic Canadian reac­ reader with a larger context for his re­ tions to their involvement in baseball — gional research, Howell sometimes fo­ are almost completely absent from this cuses too much on the general picture, study. Another weakness of the book is without giving adequate attention to local that Howell never really examines the examples. For example, in discussing language of community pride and re­ baseball's role in the social construction gional identity that allegedly dominated of masculinity, the medial and religious the discourse surrounding Maritime base­ discourses connected to the sport's devel­ ball after World War I. Unfortunately, opment, and the "reform" of professional while Howell demonstrates the growing baseball in the progressive era, Howell prominence of provincial and regional does not provide enough evidence and amateur baseball championships in the illustrations from the Maritimes to give 1920s and 1930s, he fails to convey a the reader an adequate sense of the local clear sense of the discourse of civic ac­ flavour of these debates. In other areas, complishment, and show what baseball however, Howell does an excellent job of actually meant to Maritime communities. examining the Maritime context. For in­ The book's argument about the col­ stance, he discusses many useful exam­ lapse of local baseball in the 1950s is also ples of the ethnic, occupational, and inter- suggestive, but not completely convinc­ town rivalries that fuelled the game's ing. While some parts of Howell's analy­ early growth, and he provides a solid as­ sis are certainly valid, his explanation of sessment of the meaning of baseball for the role of mass consumerism, television, the region's black communities and na­ the automobile, and regional economic tive peoples. Howell's treatment of the decline in this process is not fully devel­ introduction of professional baseball to oped. In addition, Howell exaggerates the Atlantic Canada in the 1880s and changes extent to which the mass consumer cul­ in Maritime baseball in the two decades ture that swallowed up small-town base­ prior to World War I are also solidly ball was a post-World War II phenome­ grounded in local evidence. Finally, non. People in the Maritimes were being Howell's examination of semi-pro base­ drawn into a broader mass culture of ball in the 1940s and 1950s is probably sports, entertainment, advertising, and the strongest piece of regional research in consumer products several decades be­ the book — especially his analysis of fore the 1940s and 1950s. Fans in Atlantic baseball's weakening attachment to com­ Canada avidly followed major league munity life as local athletes were replaced baseball, for instance, much earlier than by American imports, and Maritime Howell seems to indicate. His argument leagues came to be judged solely by their about the demise of local baseball there­ ability to produce major-league pros­ fore needs to be reformulated to take into pects. account the wider cultural identities that already existed alongside a strong re­ There are also a number of ways in gional Maritime Identity in the interwar which the book could be improved. First, period. Howell needs to explain baseball's con­ tributions to working-class identity and Despite these weaknesses. Northern solidarity in the 19th century more pre­ Sandlots is probably the best Canadian cisely, using specific evidence and exam­ study available of both a single sport, and 290 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

sport in a particular region. Quite simply, dent entre l'opulence de l'industrie fores­ it is one of the best pieces of Canadian tière et l'appauvrissement des commu­ sport history that I have read. Howell's nautés forestières dans une industrie qui analysis is incisive, his research is exten­ est le pilier de l'économie régionale au sive, and he has carefully located Mari­ Québec. Malgré des profits incroyables, time baseball in a broad social, economic, les grands conglomérats industriels qui and cultural context. Even though some contrôlent les papetières canadiennes of Howell's arguments need to be bol­ réussissent, au moindre indice d'une stered with additional evidence. Northern crise, à obtenir avantages, concessions et Sandlots is a fine synthesis of social his­ compromis de leurs partenaires sociaux. tory, regional history, and sport history. Ceux qui gagnent leur vie dans la forêt font la plupart du temps les frais de ce Stacy L. Lorenz comportement pour le moins irre­ Augustana University College sponsable. En fait, dans le monde du tra­ vail au Québec, il existe peu d'emplois Pierre Dubois, Les vrais maîtres de la aussi difficiles, dangereux, mal payés et forêt québécoise, préface de Richard Des­ dépourvus de conditions décentes que le jardins (Montréal: Les Éditions Écoso- métier de bûcheron, que ce soit chez ceux ciété 1995). qui manient la scie à chaîne ou chez les opérateurs de débusqueuse. AVEC LA PUBLICATION de Les vrais Devant les abus des entreprises fores­ maîtres de la forêt québécoise, les défen­ tières et leur manque d'implication dans seurs de la saine gestion de la ressource le développement régional, le gouverne­ forestière, du développement durable et ment fait preuve de mollesse à l'égard des de la relance des communautés rurales compagnies quand vient le temps de faire québécoises disposent d'un outil de tra­ respecter la législation et la réglementa­ vail utile. Rédacteur en chef du magazine tion forestières. Selon Dubois, la Loi sur Forêt et conservation et membre fon­ les forêts de 1986 procure des avantages dateur du Collectif Forêt-intervention, certains aux entreprises au détriment des l'ingénieur forestier et journaliste Pierre travailleurs forestiers. Par exemple, en Dubois présente un ouvrage de sensibili­ permettant la désyndicalisation du travail sation et d'information sur la surexploita­ forestier, la loi a contribué à détériorer les tion de la forêt boréale québécoise. conditions de travail en forêt. Pendant ce Réalisé avec l'appui financier de plu­ temps, les gouvernements, en particulier sieurs groupes écologiques et syndicaux le gouvernement fédéral, s'efforcent de ce court ouvrage très dense vise à faire défendre l'image de l'industrie forestière comprendre au grand public et aux auto­ canadienne sur les marchés interna­ rités l'extrême gravité de la situation fo­ tionaux. Selon Dubois, l'élaboration de la restière au Québec. Stretégie nationale sur les forêts canadi­ D'entrée de jeu, l'auteur souligne ennes (1991-1992), que le Québec n'a pas l'influence subtile de l'industrie fores­ signée et dont il fut absent des délibéra­ tière sur le milieu universitaire et son ac­ tions, «fut une vaste entreprise de rela­ cès privilégié aux responsables de l'ad­ tions publiques où le développement du­ ministration des forêts. Selon lui, la sou­ rable devint, non pas le vrai visage de la mission des élites forestières et politiques forêt canadienne, mais un simple maquil­ aux intérêts de la grande industrie est la lage.» (89) cause majeure des problèmes forestiers au Face aux menaces qui pèsent sur la Québec. La manière d'effectuer les ressource forestière et aux problèmes des coupes (la coupe à blanc en particulier) a localités rurales, Dubois ne voit de solu­ des répercussions indéniables sur les éco­ tion que dans une action collective pour systèmes. Il existe aussi un paradoxe évi­ «remettre l'industrie à sa place.» (93) REVIEWS 291

Pour assurer l'avenir de la forêt, il faut, six thèses récentes qui représentent la di­ entre autres, bannir les coupes à blanc, versité des champs d'études. On y limiter les superficies des coupes et inter­ retrouve à la fois des sujets déjà traités dire les pesticides chimiques et autres dans l'historiographie — la formation des pratiques destructives. L'État doit obliger élites, les rapports avec l'État, la coloni­ l'industrie a respecter les sous-traitants et sation — et des sujets plutôt négligés — leur main-d'oeuvre. Afin d'équilibrer le les pêches, la migration vers la ville et marché du bois et de le retirer du joug de l'industrie des pâtes et papiers. Couturier l'industrie, l'État doit aussi accorder la ajoute des textes de présentation et de priorité à la forêt privée pour approvision­ conclusion en soulignant d'une part le ner les usines de sciage et de pâtes et caractère novateur des mémoires et des papiers et maintenir le role de la Régie des thèses qui transforment actuellement marchés agricoles dans la fixation du prix l'historiographie de l'Acadie et d'autre du bois. Enfin, il faudrait songer à adopter part leur faible diffusion dans la commu­ le modèle technologique suédois et une nauté historique. Une bibliographie de organisation du travail forestier sem­ ces études peu connues, préparée par blable i ce qui se fait en Suède, où la Mélanie Méthot, offre un outil pratique majorité des travailleurs forestiers sont aux chercheurs. Chacun des articles com­ syndiqués. prend de plus de nombreuses notes de bas L'ouvrage contient en annexe le de page. Des résumés des articles et des manifeste du Collectif Forêt-interven­ notices biographiques des auteurs com­ tion, un groupe d'une douzaine de fo­ plètent l'ouvrage. restiers et forestières qui propose de rem­ Le premier article porte sur une des placer la façon dont les ressources fores­ composantes principales de la montée du tières sont utilisées actuellement par un nationalisme acadien au XIXe siècle, soit système visant l'établissement d'un la formation d'une élite locale. Les re­ régime forestier démocratique et juste, en cherches de Sheila Andrew remettent en tenant compte d'abord du bien-être de la question le modèle d'une élite homogène population qui dépend de la ressource et dominant pour son profit l'ensemble de la de ce que la forêt peut raisonnablement population. Son analyse de l'origine et du produire. profil des membres de l'élite démontre facilement que ce groupe n'est pas issu Jean-Roch Cyr des couches les plus aisées dans société Université du Nouveau-Brunswick où la richesse est d'ailleurs plutôt rare. Le (Fredericton) statut socio-économique de cette élite de­ meure en fait assez précaire, même dans Jacques-Paul Couturier et Phyllis E. Le- les professions. Andrew observe qu'il n'y Blanc, dir. Économie et société en Acadie, a pas d'unité idéologique parmi l'élite 1850-1950 (Moncton, Éditions d'Acadie acadienne et que celle-ci ne parvient pas 1996). à dominer la population du point de vue Nicolas Landry, Les pêches dans la pé­ politique. Le lecteur a parfois l'impres­ ninsule acadienne, 1850-1950 (Moncton, sion d'observer deux groupes aux com­ Éditions d* Acadie 1994). portements différents: des gens plus près de la base qui représentent leurs conci­ L'HISTORIOGRAPHIE acadienne connaît toyens et un groupe plus restreint qui depuis quelques années un renouveau im­ prétend représenter et diriger l'opinion de portant. La publication d'Économie et so­ la «nation.» Malgré les divisions sur des ciété en Acadie, 1850-1950 vise à mieux sujets d'ordre pratiques, le discours de diffuser cette nouvelle histoire. Dirigé par l'élite restreinte (si on peut la nommer ainsi) obtient un important soutien dans la Jacques-Paul Couturier et Phyllis E. Le- population comme le démontre l'en- Blanc, l'ouvrage rassemble l'essentiel de 292 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

thousiasme entourant la Convention na­ et à réévaluer les fondements de leur mar­ tionale acadienne de 1881. L'auteure con­ ginalité politique. state néanmoins que cet enthousiasme C'est du côté des pèches que nous n'implique pas l'unanimité et qu'il est amène Nicolas Landry, en grande partie plus marqué dans les régions relativement afin de remédier à l'absence d'étude glo­ prospères où le discours axé sur l'agricul­ bale des pêcheries acadiennes. Un ou­ ture trouve des adhérents naturels. Les vrage distinct, commenté plus loin, offre recherches d'Andrew ne permettent pas une description plus approfondie de cette de définir un nouveau modèle mais elles industrie alors que sa participation au col­ démontrent que tout n'a pas encore été dit lectif vise surtout à mettre en relief l'im­ sur la montée de l'élite nationaliste acadi­ portance des pêches dans l'économie de enne. Caraquet a la fin du XIXe siècle. L'article L'article principal de Jacques-Paul conserve certains éléments de synthèse Couturier s'attaque à l'image courante par un survol des facteurs de production voulant que la population acadienne vive et de l'évolution des prises. Landry en marge des institutions judiciaires soulève aussi, sans toutefois les explorer jusqu'à la fin du XIXe siècle. L'auteur en détail, les problématiques de la plu- situe très bien le lecteur en présentant riactivité économique, du système de d'abord la perception de ces institutions, crédit des marchands jersiais, et du déclin la composition du personnel — presque des compagnies jersiaises à la fin du XIXe exclusivement anglophone — des cours siècle. Du côté du système de crédit, Lan­ de justice et le fonctionnement de l'ap­ dry décrit le phénomène d'endettement pareil judiciaire. Puis, à partir d'une ana­ permanent des pêcheurs mais juge que la lyse exhaustive des causes civiles. Coutu­ survie de la compagnie dépend de ce rier conclut que la faible participation des système. (89) En fait, c'est l'héritage Acadiens au système judiciaire tient plus global de la présence jersiaise dans la baie de leur situation économique que d'une des Chaleurs qui est ici en cause. Landry quelconque appréhension envers les insti­ préfère toutefois attendre les résultats tutions anglophones. Il note de plus qu'il d'enquêtes plus substantielles avant de se n'y a pas nécessairement de biais anti­ prononcer sur ce sujet. (95) Malgré la francophone dans le système. Les défen­ retenue de l'auteur par rapport à l'inter­ deurs dans les poursuites pour créances prétation des données, l'article offre un subissent généralement le même sort point de départ qui nous permet de com­ défavorable sans égard à l'origine eth­ parer les pêcheries acadiennes à celles de nique. L'analyse des causes non- Terre-Neuve ou de la Gaspésie. pécuniaires, notamment celles reliées à la Jean-Roch Cyr nous transporte en­ propriété foncière mène à des conclusions suite dans l'arrière-pays du nord du Nou- encore plus frappantes. Couturier note veau-Brunswick que l'on tente de colo­ que les Acadiens sont sur-représentés niser pendant la Dépression des années dans ce genre de causes et qu'ils 1930. Il nous apprend d'abord qu'il s'agit n'hésitent pas i poursuivre d'autres d'un phénomène social très important qui Acadiens. Les comportements varient touche directement 2,4 pour cent de la selon les localités, mais ces données population néo-brunswickoise alors que démontrent que les Acadiens utilisent bel la colonisation au Québec déplace 1,7 et bien les cours de justice pour régler des pour cent de la population. L'impact sur différents entre eux. L'auteur n'exclut la population acadienne est encore plus pas l'existence de mécanismes d'arbi­ important car ce sont les Acadiens qui trages extra-judiciaires, mais il nous font le plus grand nombre de requêtes oblige certainement à revoir l'ensemble pour de nouvelles terres. Cyr cherche des rapports entre les Acadiens et l'État d'abord à présenter les grandes lignes de ce phénomène. Il décrit et analyse les REVIEWS 293 objectifs et les actions des diverses par­ par Eaton. Les données démontrent en ties impliquées dans le processus: le gou­ effet qu'au cours de la période étudiée, la vernement fédéral, le gouvernement pro­ proportion de francophones chez les prin­ vincial, les municipalités, le clergé, les cipaux employeurs de la ville est en déclin compagnies forestières, sans négliger les constant (33 pour cent en 1911, 17 pour colons. L'article laisse aussi une place cent en 1938) alors que les francophones importante aux divers programmes, aux augmentent leur poids démographique règlements et à leur application. Même si pour former le tiers de la population en les projets n'ont pas atteints tous leurs 1941. LeBlanc note que «le statut socio­ objectifs, l'auteur estime que tous les par­ professionnel des travailleurs varie selon ticipants ont su tirer profit de la colonisa­ l'appartenance linguistique» (144) et que tion car celle-ci permettaient de résoudre, «les francophones sont presque totale­ du moins temporairement, certains ment absents» des catégories supérieures problèmes criants de l'époque. Néan­ d'emploi chez l'Intercolonial et chez Ea­ moins, à l'instar de J.I. Little, Cyr conclut ton. (147) Certains francophones réussis­ que le contrôle du territoire par les com­ sent à gravir les plus hauts échelons de la pagnies forestières, allié à l'idéologie du hiérarchie socio-professionnelle, mais le retour à la terre, n'a pas permis d'instituer tableau VII (145) démontre clairement un mode de vie économiquement viable que plus de la moitié des anglophones pour les colons. occupent des postes dans les trois Pêcheurs, cultivateurs et bûcherons, catégories les plus élevées alors que la les Acadiens sont aussi présents à la ville, majorité des francophones se situent dans notamment à Moncton. Dans son article, les trois catégories inférieures. Alors que Phyllis E. LeBlanc s'oppose principale­ de nombreuses différences entre les grou­ ment au discours nationaliste, repris par pes ethniques ressortent de ces données, de nombreux historiens, qui présente la l'auteure tente parfois de mettre en évi­ ville comme un lieu de prolétarisation dence une participation acadienne à part contrôlé par les anglophones. À partir entière dans l'économie et dans la société d'une analyse quantitative, l'auteure urbaine. La conclusion de l'article, qui tente d'établir si les transformations réfère à d'autres parties de la thèse, met économiques ont eu un impact différent notamment l'accent sur la formation selon l'appartenance linguistique. Elle d'une bourgeoisie acadienne et sur la nous offre d'abord une brève histoire mise en place d'institutions nationales. économique de Moncton de 1870 à 1940 Problème occasionné par la réduction et une description de sa méthodologie. Le d'une importante thèse en vingt-deux coeur de l'article est formé de l'analyse pages, le lecteur a l'impression qu'une de la composition socio-professionnelle grande partie de l'argumentation de l'au­ et ethnique de la main d'oeuvre chez les teure ne s'est pas retrouvée dans cet article. principaux employeurs de la ville. En La contribution de Nicole Lang porte sélectionnant cet échantillon, LeBlanc a sur la compagnie Fraser, une entreprise de voulu suivre la composition de la main pâtes et papiers qui domine Edmundston, d'oeuvre dans ces entreprises et faire res­ petite ville du nord-ouest du Nouveau- sortir l'impact des transformations dans Brunswick. Lang veut d'abord décrire les principaux secteurs d'activité. L'au­ comment cette entreprise familiale est de­ teure constate que la transformation de venue une corporation impersonnelle, l'économie locale vers les services com­ puis analyser l'impact de cette évolution merciaux aurait pu être défavorable aux sur les employés. La première partie de francophones non seulement à cause des l'article décrit l'évolution de la compag­ salaires moins élevés de ce secteur par nie vers une intégration verticale. Elle rapport aux manufactures, mais aussi à comprend une analyse des liens entre les cause du peu de francophones embauchés stratégies économiques, les structures ad- 294 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL ministratives et de l'apparition de nou­ meure une des rares contributions i l'his­ veaux gestionnaires. Pour réaliser la se­ toire des femmes acadiennes depuis la conde portion de l'étude, consacrée au Déportation. Signalons au passage que les travailleurs, l'auteure a eu recours à une lecteurs qui sont peu familiers avec la série d'entrevues d'anciens employés de géographie du Nouveau-Brunswick cher­ l'usine, ce qui lui a permis de composer cheront en vain dans Économie et société avec la rareté des sources syndicales. une carte qui leur permettrait de situer les Fraser étant le seul employeur industriel, régions et les lieux cités dans les textes. les employés, peu mobiles, se sont adap­ Néanmoins, l'historiographie acadienne tés au passage du style de gestion pater­ connaît un nouveau départ et l'expérience naliste et autoritaire des fondateurs acadienne pourra dorénavant s'intégrer (Fraser, Matheson et Brebner) à celui plus aux débats qui entourent les transforma­ impersonnel des gestionnaires et tions économiques et sociales de la péri­ ingénieurs qui prennent l'entreprise en ode 1850-1950. main à partir de 1932. L'obtention, après Dans Les pêches dans la péninsule 20 ans d'efforts, d'une première conven­ acadienne, 1850-1900, Nicolas Landry tion collective en 1938 permet aux em­ décrit en plus de détail le fonctionnement ployés d'améliorer graduellement leurs de cette industrie dont il a fourni une conditions de travail et leurs salaires. Le esquisse dans l'ouvrage précédent. Tout déclin du paternalisme et la syndicalisa- comme dans l'article commenté plus tion facilitent en fait le dialogue car les haut, l'auteur opte pour une approche des­ fondateurs n'acceptaient pas que leurs criptive plutôt qu'analytique. Dès le employés critiquent leur gestion. Très départ, une carte situe la péninsule acadi­ modéré puisque l'économie locale enne dans l'ensemble du Nouveau-Bruns­ dépend largement de son employeur prin­ wick et indique la localisation des princi­ cipal, le syndicat évite le recours à la paux établissements de la région. L'ou­ grève. Côté linguistique, Lang note sim­ vrage ne comporte pas de bibliographie plement que la gestion de l'entreprise est mais de nombreuses notes accompagnent entre les mains d'anglophones alors que chacun des chapitres. Le premier chapitre la main d'oeuvre est en grande majorité offre une bonne description du contexte francophone. Habile mélange de l'his­ géographique et économique dans lequel toire de l'entreprise et de l'histoire des vivent les Acadiens alors que le chapitre travailleurs, la contribution de Lang offre deux décrit les circonstances générales un excellent point de comparaison de des pêches. Les chapitres subséquents re­ l'expérience acadienne dans le secteur couvrent les différentes composantes de forestier par rapport à celle du Québec, de l'industrie: les équipements et les tech­ l'Ontario ou de la Colombie-Britannique. niques, les marchés et les prix, la main Couturier et LeBlanc ont réussi à of­ d'oeuvre, la ressource, et les différentes frir aux chercheurs et aux étudiants un formes d'interventions gouvernemen­ accès plus facile à ces études qui tales. Chaque thème est ensuite subdivisé bouleversent la manière de faire l'histoire selon le type de pêche: la morue, le de l'Acadie. Notons toutefois que les re­ homard, le maquereau et le hareng. cherches sur l'Acadie d'après la Déporta­ tion portent essentiellement sur le Nou- Les chercheurs, autant ceux qui s'in­ veau-Brunswick, foyer principal de la téressent aux pêches que ceux qui s'in­ population acadienne des Maritimes téressent à l'histoire économique acadi­ depuis le début du XIXe siècle. Cette his­ enne, trouveront dans cet ouvrage plu­ toire est aussi largement masculine. Le sieurs éléments intéressants. L'attention mémoire de Ginette Lafleur, dont un ex­ portée aux ressources autres que la morue trait fut publié dans Moncton 1871-1929 offre enfin une meilleure perspective de (Moncton, Éditions d'Acadie, 1990), de­ l'ensemble de l'industrie. L'importance attachée au rôle des gouvernements, sur- REVIEWS 295 tout du gouvernement fédéral, (quatre many historiographical debates: such as chapitres sur dix) permet de mieux com­ marginality, seasonality, economic plu­ prendre une industrie dont la gestion, ralism, merchant-settler relations, and comme on le sait maintenant, dépasse la leakage in merchant credit and control. simple récolte de la ressource. L'ouvrage Third, it provides wonderful empirical laisse enfin une bonne place à la main evidence on such major topics of New­ d'oeuvre, tant celle qui fait la récolte que foundland history as "Resettlement** and celle qui travaille à l'apprêtage. the Orenfell Mission. In 1992 the people Si l'ouvrage demeure largement de­ of southeastern Labrador numbered less scriptif, Landry définit plusieurs than three thousand, living in eleven com­ problématiques sur lesquels ses suc­ munities but still dispersing to 47 summer cesseurs devront se pencher. Citons à titre stations to fish for salmon and cod: a form d'exemple le fait que «les changements of transhumance once widespread in touchant les pêches se produisent tou­ Newfoundland. jours un peu plus vite dans le sud des Ostensibly the book is set within the Maritimes que dans la Péninsule.» (132) context of economic and community Landry présente les divers facteurs en changes that are threatening much of rural cause dont l'isolement géographique, le Eastern Canada on the one hand, and the rôle du gouvernement fédérale, l'attitude more specific crisis posed by the 1992 des pêcheurs et le conservatisme des com­ moratorium on cod fishing on the other. pagnies jersiaises. Le poids relatif de It seeks indirectly to ask what is the future chacun de ces facteurs reste à déterminer. of such people and communities? Ken­ Enfin, il n'est pas surprenant de constater nedy's answer ultimately is depressingly que la pluriactivité économique est très pessimistic. The decentralized "Settler" importante chez les Acadiens de la pénin­ lifestyle is incompatible with the ever in­ sule, une autre problématique qui devra creasing economic and institutional ten­ être analysée en plus de détail. dencies to centralize services that pres­ En général, parallèlement à d'autres sure people to move to one or two rural études consacrées aux pêches et à la forêt, centres where lack of employment and cet ouvrage pourra servir de base à subsistence opportunities result in grow­ l'élaboration d'une véritable histoire ing economic dependency. From a theo­ économique de l'Acadie au XIXe siècle, retical standpoint he argues that through­ histoire à laquelle il faudra un jour ajouter out their history the people and commu­ la composante agricole. nities of southeastern Labrador are powerless victims of larger economic Léon Robichaud structures and forces. I am not entirely Centre Canadien d'Architecture convinced by Kennedy's arguments here. Indeed he offers many examples of resis­ John C. Kennedy, People of the Bays and tance and agency, but ultimately believes Headlands: Anthropological History and that the very things that are central to the the Fate of Communities in the Unknown way of life — decentralization, self-suffi­ Labrador (Toronto: University of ciency and individualism —undermined Toronto Press 1995). Labradorians' ability to be effective. Per­ haps if Kennedy had focused on values, beliefs, motivations and behavioural THIS IS AN IMPORTANT BOOK for sev­ strategies rather than on structural rela­ eral reasons. First, it fills a major void in tionships, or if he had analyzed rather the history of Labrador: describing the than merely described the ways people origins, apogée and demise of the two adapted to, manipulated or adjusted to hundred year-old way of life of European external forces, he might have reached a "settlers" living in the most isolated part different conclusion. of the region. Second, it contributes to 296 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

This said the book has really very seals, salmon and cod for sale). These little to do with these larger questions and latter coastal activities often took place theories. It is instead a thoroughly re­ alongside visitors from Newfoundland. searched, descriptive, baseline study of Finally, the impact of the Grenfell Mis­ the origins, rise and decline of the people sion, the Labrador Development Com­ and communities of this remote and ob­ pany lumbering operation, and more re­ scure region. This, to my mind, is its great cently the construction of military bases strength. Kennedy has skilfully welded on these communities and the settler way field and archival methods. One gets a of life has nowhere else been so clearly real sense of "a way of life" and the peo­ documented. In essence he argues, de­ ple and places where this was played out. spite strong tendencies towards centrali­ The first four chapters describe the evo­ zation that these developments set in mo­ lution of European settlement, the central tion, the people and communities could chapter outlines the essential "Settler" adapt so long as their ability to exploit the way of life, while the remaining four summer fishery and carry out crucial win­ chapters chart the impact of various eco­ ter subsistence activities such as collect­ nomic changes on this experience. Some ing firewood were not jeopardized. of the changes he believes are compatible, Comparing the chronology and proc­ but most he judges incompatible. The piv­ ess of initial settlement in southeastern otal central chapter on the Settler adapta­ Labrador to that of the Strait of Belle Isle, tion is unfortunately far too short and I am struck not by the differences, but by lacks any formal analysis. How exactly the similarities. While I have no doubt did the various parts fit together: what that the existence of Inuit enclaves of­ was the structure and role of the informal fered a potential source of spouses for economy? The last chapter is the least would-be settlers, I find it hard to believe successful. It does not quite seem to fit; that this would have been an option for all describing the plethora of institutions that potential planters. We are given no sense have arisen in the last two decades to of the proportion of indigenous spouses oversee government development among this first generation. Moreover, schemes, we feel far removed from the the timing of initial settlement (1830- people and communities they are de­ 1870) coincides exactly with that to the signed to serve. south and with the beginnings of New­ Much of this history is not new, but foundland stationer fishery which annu­ its strength lies in its meticulous detail ally brought many families to the coast. and how extremely well it is brought to­ The role and importance of the American gether, and brought to life in the context Labrador Whale and Cod Fishery has of larger debates. There are no new archi­ been largely ignored and this book goes a val sources used here (except possibly the long way in rectifying this lacuna. The Newfoundland Ranger Reports) and no evidence Kennedy puts forward that trade original analysis of the data. Neverthe­ with American visitors "allowed many less, there are some new contributions: planters and former servants to gain some the role of Inuit women and illicit trade measure of independence and security," with the Americans in fostering perma­ however, contradicts his claim that the nent settlement — the former providing relationship between merchants and ser­ spouses, the latter supplies; and the de­ vants — and later settlers — was one of scription of a durable "Settler" way of life "dominance" rather than "inde­ that involved seasonal transhumance be­ pendence." tween isolated winter homes in the inner For those readers not primarily con­ bays (for trapping, firewood, subsistence cerned with the place itself this book still activities and protection) and larger outer has a lot to offer. The impact of the State island and headland communities (for on such communities and way of life is REVIEWS 297 painstakingly detailed — especially re­ Odette Vincent (s.d.), Maurice Asselin, garding schools, medical services, poor Benott-Beaudry Gourd, Clément Mer­ relief, mail and wireless and finally the cier, Roland Viau, Marc Côté, Jean-Pierre Newfoundland Rangers. The similarities Marquis, Marc Riopel, Cécile Sabourin, between the impact here and in the North Histoire de I'Abitibi-Timiscamingue as highlighted by people like Peter Usher (Québec: Institut québécois de recherche is striking. Even richer is his description sur la culture 1995). of how several non-State exogenous de­ velopments have been responsible for a CE SEPTIÈME ouvrage de la collection reorientation away from mobile services, Les régions du Québec s'inscrit dans la usually at summer locations, to central­ lignée des précédents: volumineuse syn­ ized services on a few fixed winter settle­ thèse d'histoire régionale, il aborde son ments. Chief among these have been the sujet par les aspects physiques (géologie, centralizing tendencies of the array of in­ climat, etc.) pour ensuite traiter, de manière stitutions associated with the Grenfell chronologique, des grandes périodes his­ Mission (especially orphanages and toriques (les Amérindiens, la colonisation boarding schools), the establishment of a et l'agriculture, l'industrialisation et l'ur­ "modern" lumber town at Port Hope banisation, la période actuelle). Il s'agit Simpson, and the establishment of several d'une véritable somme, bien documentée military bases. Many of these develop­ et bien illustrée, destinée, quelques ments are similar to what has been hap­ chapitres mis à part, au grand public. pening to communities in the Canadian II ne fait aucun doute que ce livre est North. Greater attention to the sorts of une réussite. Reposant sur des recherches issues and forms of analysis used here souvent inédites ainsi que sur d'abondan­ might have given this book wider appeal. tes statistiques, et rehaussé par des cartes The dust cover would have us believe d'une exceptionnelle qualité, il a en outre that this is a book about what will become le mérite de proposer une intéressante of the people and communities long de­ réflexion sur la notion de région. L'Abi- pendent on fishing now that the cod tibi-Témiscamingue, en effet, est une stocks have virtually disappeared. The ligne de partage non seulement entre deux book should be read for what it is: an eaux (comme l'indique le mot algonquin excellent, thorough and well-contextual- «abitibi»), mais aussi entre des cultures et ized baseline description of the people des langues. Il en ressort une région aux and communities of southeastern Labra­ contours fluctuants, à la population aussi dor. This former issue is really only dis­ composite que mouvante. L'équipe cussed briefly in the introduction and the dirigée par Odette Vincent a bien rendu conclusion. Judging it on these grounds cet aspect des choses, dans la mesure où can only do disservice to what is other­ elle a campé la région dans le milieu plus wise a fascinating and very vivid and vaste du nord québécois et ontarien. Cette well-told story. diversité n'a cependant pas interdit aux auteurs de recourir à un thème unitaire. Le Patricia A. Thornton Nord-Ouest québécois, en effet, n'est pas McGill University seulement l'oeuvre de quelques grands politiciens, hommes d'affaires ou autre «développeurs.» Son histoire se place également sous le signe du peuple. La citation de Michelet qui ouvre l'ouvrage donne d'ailleurs le ton. Depuis les Amérindiens jusqu'aux contemporains de Richard Desjardins, il ne fait nul doute que la personnalité profonde de la région 298 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

relève plus des milieux populaires que tions sont encadrées dès le départ par des des classes dominantes. L'ouvrage ap­ institutions religieuses, ce qui a pour effet puie fortement sur ce trait. d'accroître les solidarités ethniques (de Et pourtant, tout dans la nature de ces même que les tensions interethniques, no­ lieux décourage un peuplement continu: tamment à partir des années 1930). l'isolement, le froid en hiver, les insectes Jusqu'en 1950, les entreprises minières et en été, un réseau hydrographique tourné forestières et les institutions religieuses vers le Nord. Il est vrai que la région a peu ont prospéré en Abitibi-Témiscamingue. accueilli d'habitants. En 1991, l'Abitibi- Mais à partir de cette année, le dévelop­ Témiscamingue ne comptait tout au plus pement régional se met i ralentir. Le Nord que 160,000 habitants. Mais à défaut du minier ne génère plus une croissance as­ nombre d'individus, la diversité des com­ surant celle de la population. Certes, les munautés est des plus remarquables. investissements étrangers s'accroissent, D'abord les Amérindiens, auxquels le mais ils ne parviennent pas à enrayer la présent ouvrage accorde près d'une cen­ progression du chômage, car ils visent taine de pages (sans compter maints pas­ avant tout la modernisation de l'outillage sages dans les chapitres consacrés aux et non pas l'extension des activités. Et si populations d'origine européenne). Dans de nouveaux sites d'exploitation sont ou­ une langue parfois trop technique, il est verts, plus au nord, en revanche d'autres longuement question des premières traces sont fermés au sud. La présence de l'État, de leur présence, de leurs modes de vie, en particulier dans le tertiaire, s'accentue de leurs déplacements et de leurs guerres. dans les années 1970, pour cependant pla­ Puis la colonisation par les Européens, fonner la décennie suivante. Et encore, dont les véritables débuts ont lieu à partir elle ne suffit pas pour freiner l'exode vers du dernier tiers du XIXe siècle, avec no­ le Sud et l'Ontario. Quant aux tentatives tamment l'aide de religieux tels que les locales de reprendre en main l'économie, Oblats. C'est le Témiscamingue qui s'ou­ elles n'ont pas la capacité voulue face à vre en tout premier, dès les années 1860, l'effort demandé. La dépendance à l'en­ grâce au système d'exploitation agrofo­ droit de l'extérieur s'alourdit. La situ­ restier. Toutefois, cette colonisation ne ation actuelle n'est donc guère floris­ favorise pas tant la multiplication de pe­ sante, mais la volonté de survivre n'en est tits villages que la formation précoce de pas moins forte. localités densément peuplées. Cela s'ex­ En effet, l'Abitibi-Témiscamingue plique sans doute par le fait que le proces­ refuse le déclin. Dès les années 1930, sus est en bonne partie le fruit à la fois de apparaissent des chantiers forestiers décisions politiques (plans Gordon, Vau­ coopératifs, auxquels feront écho l'ex­ trin, etc.) et d'investissements industriels, périence communautaire de Guyenne, ce qui provoque un peuplement par à- que l'ouvrage évoque à maintes reprises, coups. L'agriculture suit, mais de façon et, plus récemment, des entreprises sous limitée. C'est la forêt (dans le Témiscam­ contrôle local comme Tembec et ARDA. ingue) et, au tournant du siècle, les mines Les organisations d'entraide se multipli­ de cuivre et d'or (en Abitibi) qui assurent ent après 1930. Par ailleurs, autre signe de la plus grande part du démarrage cette volonté de survivre, la région af­ économique de la région. Les mines, en fiche son originalité sur les plans poli­ particulier, attirent une population aux tique et culturel. En votant CCF et Crédit origines diversifiées, quoique majori­ social, elle accueille des partis politiques tairement francophone. En plus des an­ issues de l'Ouest canadien et peu popu­ glophones, viennent en effet des Uk­ laires au Québec. Il en est de même sur le rainiens et des Finlandais, ainsi que des plan musical, avec le style fortement membres d'autres communautés, en nom­ «western» qui inspire maints artistes du bre plus restreint toutefois. Ces popula­ coin. Ajoutons, dans cette lignée, une vie REVIEWS 299 locale très colorée, dont les auteurs, par si elle rend justice au rôle crucial joué par excès de pudeur, ne font pas suffisam­ les infirmières, passe toutefois sous si­ ment état D n'aurait pas été mauvais d'en lence l'évolution des structures hospi­ dire davantage sur des endroits comme le talières et de la profession médicale. Les notoire Paris Valley. La prédominance communautés non francophones font numérique des hommes sur les femmes en l'objet d'un traitement insuffisant compte Abitibi-Témiscamingue n'est sans doute tenu de leur poids. Il en est de même de pas étranger k la forte animation dans de bien des pratiques culturelles, et notam­ tels lieux. Toutefois, comme le montre ment du religieux, où l'on se cantonne bien le livre, la part des femmes, notam­ aux institutions et aux membres des con­ ment dans la vie associative et les services grégations. Enfin, il existe un contraste liés à la santé, fut loin d'être négligeable. excessif dans la narration entre les Par ailleurs la région entretient des deuxième et troisième parties, c'est-à- liens profonds avec le nord de l'Ontario. dire entre les périodes avant et après Faut-il rappeler que ce n'est qu'en 1898 1950: d'un côté, en effet, nous avons de que I* Abitibi est rattachée au Québec? Au valeureux pionniers, débrouillards et XXe siècle, la région subit des tiraille­ courageux, et de l'autre, des victimes ments linguistiques qui la rapprochent malheureuses et exploitées. Sans doute des villes minières de la province voisine. aurait-il fallu mieux harmoniser la Son économie est plus orientée vers présentation. Toronto que vers Montréal. En outre, sa Au total, cependant, ces faiblesses vie sociale et économique fait écho à celle n'atténuent ni l'intérêt ni la portée de ce de l'agglomération de Sudbury (telle livre, qui demeure une belle illustration qu'analysée par l'équipe de CM. Wallace de recherche collective. et A. Thomson dans Sudbury, Rail Town to Regional Capital [Toronto 1993]): on Denis Goulet y retrouve, en effet, les mêmes contrastes Christine Hudon entre le rural et le minier, la même diver­ Pierre Lanthier sité ethnique, les mêmes conflits entre communistes et anti-communistes au sein Jeremy Mouat, Roaring Days: Rossland's des populations finlandaises et ukrainien­ Mines and the History of British Colum­ nes, la même conjoncture gréviste, les bia (Vancouver: University of British Co­ mêmes interventions étatiques à partir des lumbia Press 1995). années 1960-70, les mêmes frustrations face au Sud et les mêmes volontés de se FOR DECADES at least Canadian and reprendre en main pour contrer le déclin. American historians have been posing Évidemment, un ouvrage d'une telle questions that require comparisons be­ ampleur n'est pas sans défauts. Certains tween the historical experiences of their chapitres sont trop exclusivement de­ own and other nations. The requirement scriptifs, voire scolaires et leur lecture en is more often implicit than stated, but devient fastidieuse. Il y a beaucoup de concepts of Canadian or American excep- répétitions d'un chapitre à l'autre, et sou­ tionalism become meaningless without at vent de l'essoufflement devant la matière least a few passing references to Europe à couvrir. Cette hyperdescription manque or other new-worlds — Australia, Brazil, parfois de regard critique. On passe trop or South Africa — or to one another. Did rapidement sur la xénophobie d'un Real other settler societies behave as those of Caouette, que l'on présente de manière the Western Hemisphere did, and did the édulcorée. La Galerie des célébrités nées settlers of Canada behave like those of the dans la région, au chapitre 14, finit par United States? Did other industrializing lasser. Par ailleurs, il existe des trous nations, new or old, experience the same gênants. L'étude des services sanitaires, profound social class tensions, and did 300 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

the tensions manifest themselves in the never really says what he thinks Rossland same way in Canada and the United had to do with making the province. States? The book is only 160 pages long. It It was with some of these comparative needs a better reason for being. As it issues in mind that I began Jeremy stands, it poses no central problem; it Mouat's book on Rossland. Rossland was never answers the question, "What's the a Western Canadian mining town with point?" And there was a point that begged immigrant workers (including, I assumed, to be made: The history of Rossland was some Catholic Irish). I had dozens of different from/the same as that of Ameri­ questions. Was Rossland as rowdy as an can mining towns and this is why. American mining town? Was it as vio­ Maybe Mouat omitted the "American lent? Would worker activism and protest angle" as a declaration of Canadian his­ be similar to that in the United States? torical independence. Why not, then, use What about the adjustments to and by the histories of other mining towns — immigrant workers? Would the mine bar­ Australian, for example, if Mouat doesn't ons be as litigious as their Yankee coun­ like American — to establish a model terparts? Would mining land hunger in­ against which to compare Rossland? Or volve the same dispossession of the na­ use Rossland as the model against which tive peoples as it did in the Black Hills? to compare them. Would the Canadian authorities, both na­ As it stands, Mouat has given us a tional and provincial, attempt by law to brief history of a British Columbia min­ foreclose on American economic adven­ ing town that itself had a brief history. He turism? Would Rossland's miners form does an adequate job of it, but I speak for ethnic-occupational enclaves as they did those historians of labour, immigration, in Butte? If they did none of these things, the diasporic Irish, indigenous people, why not? From such comparative ques­ working-class communities, mining, tions we learn more about both Canadian western expansion, and violence and pub­ and American history. lic order, in expressing my disappoint­ With the exception of some frustrat- ment that he did not read some books and ingly brief discussions of the relative se­ articles on other times and other places to renity of Rossland compared to, say, make those times and places a part of this Bodie or Tombstone, Mouat supplies no story. information on any of these issues. He does discuss the provincial and national David M. Emmons response to freebooting American capi­ University of Montana talists in Rossland, but not in the context of "colonial" or "post-colonial" self-con­ José Igartua, Arvida au Saguenay. Nais­ struction and with no comparative analy­ sance d'une ville industrielle (Montréal: sis. McGill-Queen's University Press 1996). Maybe I should have read his title more carefully. He intended a book about CETTE SYNTHÈSE sur l'histoire des tra­ Rossland and the making of British Co­ vailleurs d'une grande entreprise indus­ lumbia, not Rossland in the context of trielle québécoise des années 1925-1940 Western hemispheric mining towns, and s'inscrit dans le courant de plus en plus the first rule of reviewing is never criti­ riche des études sur les travailleurs indus­ cize an author for not doing what he/she triels, les entreprises qui les emploient, never intended to do. But Mouat does not les localités et régions qui les abritent et make a very convincing case that enfin les caractéristiques de leur mobilité. Rossland had much at all to do with the Fondé sur des sources originales, tant de making of British Columbia. In fact, he l'entreprise (fichier d'embauché et de gestion du personnel, documents du ser- REVIEWS 301

vice immobilier et études diverses) que des mouvements de la main-d'oeuvre, re­ d'institutions régionales (paroisse, mu­ flétant les stratégies d'embauché des tra­ nicipalité, et notamment ses roles vailleurs par l'Alcan en fonction de ses d'évaluation), l'ouvrage de José Igartua besoins par secteurs dominants d'activité présente une vue dynamique et structurée et de la répartition ethnique et géo­ des travailleurs de l'usine d'Arvida, aussi graphique recherchée, nettement entravée bien au travail, qu'à la ville et dans leur par les limites de la disponibilité régio­ famille, sans oublier dans leur organisa­ nale de travailleurs. Il cherche à cerner tion syndicale et lors de la grève de 1941. aussi les facteurs impliqués dans la Un premier chapitre («Le royaume du persévérance de l'emploi et la constitu­ Saguenay») évoque les débuts de la mise tion d'un «noyau fondateur» de tra­ en valeur des sites hydroélectriques du vailleurs stables. Il fait ressortir nette­ Saguenay (Île-Maligne et Chute-a-Caron) ment les deux phases intensives d'em­ par James B. Duke en association avec bauché lors de la construction et de la William Price au début, puis avec Arthur reprise économique de la seconde moitié Vining Davis de l'Alcoa (les deux pre­ des années 1930, lesquelles encadrent le mières lettres de chaque partie de son nom creux de la grande dépression avec des désigneront d'ailleurs Arvida), situés effets très prononcés. Dans le second cas, dans le contexte du développement Igartua aborde le travail en usine, d'abord démographique et économique du en décrivant conjointement les «secteurs Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. Le second de travail» et les métiers ou professions aborde la construction par la compagnie qui s'y rattachent, puis sommairement les de la ville d'Arvida selon ses plans d'ur­ méthodes rudimentaires et rapide de for­ banisme, une ville de compagnie dirigée mation des travailleurs, ensuite les condi­ par ses cadres en vertu d'une charte mu­ tions de travail (milieu de travail, acci­ nicipale sur mesure, dotée d'activités dents) et finalement les salaires et le sportives et culturelles également organ­ niveau de vie (le coût du logement essen­ isées par ses employés et contrôlée so­ tiellement). cialement par les églises, catholique sur­ Un autre chapitre exploite systéma­ tout, appuyées financièrement par la com­ tiquement les rôles d'évaluation d'Arvida pagnie. Les archives paroissiales mettent pour étudier l'habitat urbain et la forma­ clairement en lumière leurs rapports tion de quartiers dans la ville («quartier étroits autant que les efforts de l'Eglise des anglais» et «quartier ouvrier»), la catholique de prendre en main une popu­ répartition des ménages et des familles lation d'origines diverses encore mal en­ par quartiers et catégories socio-profes­ racinée. sionnelles (illustrés par d'intéressants Deux chapitres dégagent ensuite les plans schématiques de la ville), les modes caractéristiques de la main-d'oeuvre et d'occupation des logements et notam­ constituent autant d'études serrés, dans le ment la cohabitation et finalement le premier cas, de l'embauche des tra­ roulement et la stabilité des ménages. vailleurs (recrutement) ou des cessations Igartua introduit dans ce portrait les varia­ d'emploi (départs volontaires ou bles ethniques et religieuses, dans le con­ congédiements) à partir des fiches d'em­ texte d'une localité et d'une entreprise bauché de l'Alcan et de diverses tech­ passablement diversifiées à ce titre, du niques statistiques sophistiquées (régres­ moins au début. Il observe également des sion linéaire et analyse de classification itinéraires individuels qui, sans prétendre multiple), pas aussi révélatrices toutefois à la représentativité, confirment la com­ que l'auteur l'aurait souhaité et très her­ plexité de situations difficiles à syn­ métiques pour une forte majorité des lec­ thétiser. La démarche amorcée présente teurs potentiels. Par ce moyen, Igartua un fort potentiel cependant, surtout avec cherche à cerner les facteurs explicatifs un couplage plus systématique encore 302 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

avec le fichier des employés et le fichier crétisés récemment dans l'ouvrage de de la population saguenayenne. Gérard Bouchard, Tous les métiers du Le chapitre suivant réalise une étude monde: le traitement des données profes­ des comportements démographiques des sionnelles en histoire sociale. (PUL, travailleurs de l'Alcan et de leurs fa­ 1996), il aurait été intéressant (et le serait milles, à partir du couplage du fichier des certainement dans une étape ultérieure du employés et du fichier sur la population projet) de voir cette dimension approfon­ saguenayenne de l'IREP. Même si la die dans le contexte d'une grande entre­ courte période d'observation, la diversité prise industrielle, greffée à une région d'origine des travailleurs et leur grande essentiellement agro-forestière. Enfin, mobilité rendent difficile la couverture toute la seconde moitié de l'ouvrage ne complète des 6200 travailleurs fichés, le semble pas avoir fait l'objet de publica­ relevé rejoint une forte proportion des tion antérieure. couplages possibles (1400 sur environ La présentation demeure dépouillée 1700) des employés de l'Alcan (plus de et l'appareil des références plutôt simpli­ 80%). Le mariage, la naissance, la fécon­ fié. Un bloc d'illustrations inséré entre dité des couples, l'origine géographique l'introduction et le premier chapitre nous et par catégories professionnelles des fait vivre visuellement en une vingtaine pères à l'embauche, les cohortes de d'images les grands traits des chapitres mariages d'avant 1929, les figes au qui suivent, une innovation très intéres­ mariage, les intervalles protogénésiques, sante. Cet ouvrage rejoint à la fois les les taux de fécondité des femmes et la questions ouvrières et syndicales, taille des familles retiennent principale­ démographiques, sociales et urbaines, ment l'attention, comparés fréquemment ethniques, économiques et sociales (l'en­ au portrait régional. treprise et sa main-d'oeuvre). Au total, Les deux derniers chapitres com­ cette exploration diversifiée du monde portent, d'une part, une histoire assez des travailleurs de l'Alcan les suit à classique du syndicalisme au Saguenay l'usine, à la ville, dans leurs familles et servant de contexte à la fondation d'un dans leur action sociale. Une étude à lire syndicat catholique à l'Alcan en 1937 et, absolument pour tous ceux qui s'intéres­ d'autre part, une histoire de la grève de sent à l'une ou l'autre de ces voies de 1941 à l'Alcan, de son déroulement et des recherche. facteurs qui en expliquent l'éclatement «spontané» malgré l'interdiction en Marc Vallières vigueur pendant la guerre. Même si l'ac­ Université Laval cent y est mis sur la dimension syndicale, les rapports sont éloquents avec le milieu Mercedes Steedman, Peter Suschnigg, arvidien et les conditions de recrutement and Dieter K. Buse, eds., Hard Lessons: de la main-d'oeuvre. The Mine Mill Union in the Canadian L'ouvrage constitue l'aboutissement Labour Movement (Toronto and Oxford: de recherches à long terme, qui ont déjà Dundurn Press 1995). suscité plusieurs communications et pu­ blications, et une consolidation de la plu­ THE 1980S and 1990s have been hard part d'entre elles. Assez curieusement times for organized labour, particularly in toutefois, la répartition de la main-d'œu­ the private sector where rates of unioni­ vre par catégories professionnelles amor­ zation have declined significantly. This cée dans «La mobilité professionnelle...» context presents the labour movement Labour/Le Travail, 20 (automne 1987) with new challenges. Hard Lessons is a n'est pas reprise, ni développée dans l'ou­ timely book in that it offers commentary vrage. Tenant compte des importants on the legal, economic, and political situ­ travaux de l'IREP sur la question, con­ ation which workers face and an assess- REVIEWS 303 ment of the contribution of smaller, alter­ of a formal working-class culture through native unions to the labour movement in his work as a recreation director for Mine Canada. Mill Local 598 (Buse), the legal and la­ The book grew out of a conference bour market difficulties faced by the la­ held in May 1993 at Laurentian Univer­ bour movement today (O'Grady, sity in Sudbury to commemorate the cen­ Tucker), and the organizational and po­ tennial of the Canadian Union of Mine, litical dilemmas that arise when unions Mill and Smelter Workers. Mine Mill was such as the CAW merge with other unions one of the most successful of the inde­ from non-auto sectors of the economy pendent Canadian unions and as such its (Yates). Jean-Claude Parrot and Madele­ story is important in its own right. The ine Parent offer perspectives from the origins of the union lay in the western view point of activists on the nature of the Federation of Miners. At the height of its current situation confronting labour and success in the 1950s Mine Mill had over what needs to be done. Other chapters one hundred thousand members in fifty deal with everything from how the in­ locals. But Mine Mills' history is also crease in women's participation in the significant at this point in time for the labour market introduces new issues into lessons it may offer regarding the poten­ labour organizing, to an exposé of past- tial and limitations of smaller alternative Tory governments' collusion with em­ unions. Ironically, the celebration of 100 ployers in health and safety legislation years of independent trade unionism also and enforcement, to the impact of techno­ marked the end of this particular tradi­ logical change on the workplace. tion. In August of that year the last Mine Despite the diversity within the col­ Mill Local, 598 of Sudbury, voted to lection, several subjects run through or merge with the CAW. form the backdrop to many of the papers. The book consists of 21 chapters and One is that small alternative unions have is divided into 8 parts. As is often the case had a greater commitment to democracy with collections that have their origin in and dedication to the interests of their a conference, it is something of an eclec­ members than the large, often US-based tic mix. The fact that the conference par­ internationals. Another is the active com­ ticipants included academics and union munity involvement of Mine Mill and the activists adds to the varied nature of the significance of community contributions, contributions. Chapters written as serious especially by the wives of workers, often academic arguments complete with ex­ organized into "Ladies Auxiliaries," to tensive endnotes, such as Eric Tucker's the union's success. The competition be­ history of labour law, are soon followed tween Mine Mill and the Steelworkers for by a transcription of a panel discussion the Sudbury mining workforce is a theme among former union activists. Despite the common to many of the contributions. book's title, there are actually only 3 And finally, the wisdom or not of the chapters (1, 6 and 11) which focus spe­ imminent merger with the CAW is directly cifically on Mine Mill. Another chapter or indirectly addressed in several of the (19) which deals with the cultural work of articles. Weir Reid discusses aspects of Local Given that the conference was held to 598's history but only as a backdrop to celebrate Mine Mill's centenary, it is not Reid's biography. surprising that there is less critical assess­ Articles by John O'Grady, Bryan Pal­ ment of the controversies, successes and mer, Charlotte Yates, Eric Tucker, and failures that marked Mine Mill's history Dieter Buse provide academic perspec­ than one would like. Those who seek the­ tives on the place of smaller alternative matic and stylistic consistency may find unions in the labour movement (Palmer), the eclecticism of the collection discon­ Weir Reid's contribution to the building certing. Use of the book also may be lim- 304 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

ited by the fact it is not easily pigeon­ Suzanne Morton, Ideal Surroundings: holed as either serious academic or popu­ Domestic Life in a Working-Class Suburb lar history. This would be unfortunate, in the 1920s (Toronto: University of however, because overall the book does Toronto Press 1995). contain a lot of interesting information and analyses of the situation facing the GENDER HISTORIANS are challenging union movement, especially smaller alter­ the way we think about, and understand, native unions, at this point in time. Be­ the lives of working people. In a special hind the particular debates about the 1993 edition of the American journal La­ struggles between Mine Mill and the bor History, Elizabeth Faue and Alice Steelworkers, Mine Mills' ultimately Kessler-Harris established a framework failed attempt to create a formal workers' within which to explore the relationship culture, and the merger with the CAW are between gender history and labour his­ issues of fundamental importance to the tory. Faue defines gender as "the social labour movement. Balancing the need for knowledge of manhood and womanhood grassroots democracy and responsiveness and the ways that institutions and indi­ to and involvement with local communi­ viduals employ this knowledge," Kessler- ties, with concerns about economies of Harris as "the socially shaped cluster of scale and access to economic and other attributes, expectations, and behaviors as­ resources is not easily accomplished. signed to different sexes." Kessler-Har­ Hard Lessons has the merit of providing ris's observations on the relationship what may be considered first hand data in between gender and class are particularly the form of past and present union activ­ interesting. Along with, and like, class, ists' perspectives on these questions, ex­ she argues, gender "provides the norma­ pressed in their own words, and second tive and ideational boundaries within level analyses of some of these concerns which people choose to identify them­ by professional historians and social sci­ selves and to act." But to understand the entists. relationship between class and gender, la­ I came home from viewing the film bour historians must first "lay seige" to "Margaret's Museum" to read the last the idea "that the male-centered work­ short chapter by labour activist, musician place is the locus from which the identity, and performer Utah Phillips. Phillips re­ social relations and consciousness of counts how and why he brought some of working people ultimately emanates." In­ Joe Hill's ashes with him to the confer­ stead, they should think systematically ence. These two examples of a kind of about the gendered role of class formation veneration of the relics of individuals in the household. who may be considered saints of labour Ideal Surroundings, Suzanne Mor­ were a reminder of how important mem­ ton's study of domestic life in a Halifax ory and symbols are to successful social suburb in the 1920s, fits comfortably into and political movements. The most im­ the framework outlined by Faue and portant contribution of Hard Lessons may Kessler-Harris: it explores working-class be that it will help maintain the memory history from the perspective of gender, of an organization which for many stands and it focuses on the home, the family, as an important symbol of a tradition of and the community rather than the work­ democratic, community-oriented, and ac­ place. The community that Morton se­ tivist unionism. lected is Richmond Heights, a 325-acre section of north Halifax devastated by the Thomas Dunk Halifax Harbour explosion of 1917 but Lakehead University reconstructed under the direction of the Halifax Relief Commission. The recon­ struction offered a unique opportunity to REVIEWS 305

see inside a predominantly working-class At its core Ideal Surroundings exhib­ suburb through the records generated in its a tension between two different ap­ the 1920s by the Relief Commission, in­ proaches to the study of gender, one so­ cluding documents relating to rental cial, the other cultural. The book is struc­ property and pensions. Lacking census tured around Morton's economic and manuscript records, Morton also exam­ social analysis of life in Richmond ined the economic and social character of Heights. After identifying the "values" of the neighbourhood through an impressive respectable working people at the begin­ array of other textual sources, ranging ning of the book, Morton explores the from city directories and newspapers to relationship between ideals and reality wills and the records of voluntary asso­ through chapters organized according to ciations. When community-level analysis the life cycle. This approach adds age to was beyond the scope of her sources, she the mix of class and gender as categories included data for the city as a whole. of analysis, though the focus remains very The book explores the meaning of much on the latter. The chapter on "Eld­ gender by comparing ideal notions of erly Men and Women" offers useful in­ masculinity and femininity with the real­ sights into the different meaning of gen­ ity of lived experience. It does so for a der identity in youth and old age, and period when deindustrialization was lim­ suggests that the dependency and vulner­ iting economic growth in Halifax and the ability shared by older men and women surrounding region, and when mass, or made gender less relevant to the way that commercial, culture was penetrating the they — as opposed to younger people — lives of working people. Not surprisingly, lived. The chapter on "Husbands and Morton finds elements of both continuity Wives, Fathers and Mothers" explores the and change in the gender ideals of Rich­ domestic lives of married men and mond Heights residents. The "basic women in a decade of uncertainty and household gender ideals remained con­ change. In "Single Mothers and Female stant," she suggests, "with married men Household Heads," Morton shows how assigned to the role of breadwinner and the ideal of a male family wage assigned married women responsible for house­ to widows and abandoned women an ex­ hold management and mothering." Yet, istence of poverty and unemployment. In this "rigidity appeared to conflict with an "Men" she effectively draws upon a emerging mass culture" of flappers and growing literature about masculinity to fashion and commercial fun. Economic find that "age-old [masculine] charac­ change undermined the ability of men to teristics of strength and skill" were being sustain their roles as breadwinners and replaced in the 1920s by "a new kind of triggered a "local crisis of masculinity" manhood based on the [man's] ability to that led men to retreat further into their support a family." (130) traditional masculine roles, isolating The final chapter most fully engages women from the mainstream of a male- the subject of commercial culture and the centered working-class culture. Rein­ corrosive effect that mass culture had on forced by the influence of mass culture — the class identities of young women. Here which emphasized as a source of values Morton concludes that a "masculine consumption over production, the home working-class culture as it had evolved over the workplace, and female-centered was unable to incorporate the parade of over male-centered space — the "exclu­ young women composed of stenogra­ sion of women from mainstream work­ phers, clerks, waitresses, and telephone ing-class culture along the lines of skill operators into its mainstream... it was this and gender... weakened the entire class." parade of high heels and silk stockings (153-5) that led the Canadian working class far­ ther into the world of mass culture and 306 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

homogenous consumption." (ISO) In tory" series, raises an important methodo­ other words, mass culture eroded the class logical question about the field of gender identity of working women, creating a history. relationship between consumerism and class that was fundamentally antagonis­ Robert A.J. McDonald tic. While more suggestive than defini­ University of British Columbia tive, Morton's analysis of the links be­ tween class, gender, and consumerism is Donald H. Avery, Reluctant Host: Can­ provocative, and one of the highlights of ada's Response to Immigrant Workers, the book. 1896-1994 (Toronto: McClelland and Curiously, Morton does not include a Stewart 1995). chapter on children, arguing that children did not participate in the creation of gen­ DONALD AVERY'S Reluctant Host fo­ der ideals. Yet, as Reinhard Seider shows cuses primarily on the effects of labour, in a superb study of "Childhood experi­ ethnic, political and bureaucratic pressure ences in Viennese working-class families groups on Canada's immigration and around 1900" (Continuity and Change), refugee policies. Avery situates his analy­ recollections of childhood can reveal sis within the international context by re­ much about the gendered characteristics lating immigration policy to foreign of men and women in their roles as par­ policy and by comparing Canadian poli­ ents. Morton did interview two women cies to those of other countries, especially who were children in the 1920s, and both the United States. But as he tells us in his contacts usefully illuminated the subject introduction, this is not simply a history of gender relations in Richmond Heights. of immigration policy: Reluctant Host A chapter on children would have en­ also considers the living and working riched the book's analysis of working- conditions of immigrant workers in Can­ class family life and encouraged fuller ada and the response of immigrants to use of the technique of oral history. their treatment by the host society. Avery In addition, while the book is most is especially interested in immigrant pro­ provocative and the issue of gender most test expressed through radical unions and sharply engaged when Morton explores political parties, and in the attempt by the the cultural dimensions of gender, such as Canadian state to control such "danger­ the meaning of hunting and fishing to the ous foreigners." identity of men as "men", or the meaning The ambitious scope of Reluctant of being a "June bride" to young women, Host is best illustrated by the impressive too often gender disappears into a de­ range of sources on which Avery relies. tailed discussion of objective social data. He marshals a variety of primary sources, Thus, while Morton's definition of gen­ including the records of the Departments der emphasizes the dynamic "process" by of Immigration, Justice, External Affairs; which masculine and feminine identities the papers of various politicians and civil were "constructed" (6), in practice much servants involved in the making of immi­ of the book's life-cycle analysis has a gration policy; the records and publica­ static quality that more describes social tions of a large number of groups that condition than analyzes cultural construc­ attempted to influence this policy, includ­ tion. The problem forces readers to think ing the Canadian Manufacturers' Asso­ about the value of studying a concept that ciation, the Canadian Congress of La­ is fundamentally cultural from a social bour, various ethnic and religious organi­ perspective. In this sense Ideal Surround­ zations, and professional associations ings, one of the first three volumes pub­ such as the Canadian Medical Associa­ lished by the University of Toronto Press tion. Avery also studies the coverage of in its new "Studies in Gender and His­ immigration in Canada's leading newspa- REVIEWS 307

pen and the reports of the commissions By extending the analysis of immi­ established to consider the question of gration policy through the early 1990s immigration. Finally, he makes use of nu­ Avery is able to show that Canada contin­ merous published and unpublished secon­ ued to rely on immigrant labourers to fill dary studies on immigration that have ap­ seasonal, low paying jobs in mining and peared in the last few decades. agriculture in particular. His long-range Avery's analysis of the tensions be­ analysis, however, also points to signifi­ tween the needs of Canada's capitalist cant changes in the country's immigration labour market (employers in the resource needs. The economy of post-war Canada sector, agriculture and manufacturing in required more professional, technical, particular), the objectives of organized managerial and other highly trained labour and professional associations and workers than the country was producing. the fears of nativist groups, is consistently The migration of well-educated Canadi­ excellent. It was in this area that his first ans to the United States, moreover, in­ book, Dangerous Foreigners (1979) creased the need to fill these labour re­ broke new ground. Avery challenged ear­ quirements through immigration. It was lier works that suggested that most of the above all in the interest of recruiting such Europeans who arrived in Canada before workers from abroad that criteria of edu­ the Great Depression settled on the land. cation and training replaced race, colour He focused instead on the reliance of min­ and religion in the selection of immi­ ing, lumbering, harvesting and railroad grants during the 1960s. The decrease in construction on unskilled, transient immi­ xenophobia and racism as a consequence grant labourers who were the only ones of World War II and pressure from in­ prepared to put up with the irregular pay, creasingly influential ethnic lobbies also high accident rates, crude living condi­ contributed to the establishment of these tions and isolation that characterized new, universalisée criteria for selecting these types of work. The indispensability immigrants. But if new immigration of such workers for the Canadian econ­ needs allowed some formerly excluded omy led the government to override na­ groups to come to Canada, they also cre­ tivist objections to immigration from ated new tensions within the country. The southern and eastern Europe. Significant aims of those who argued that Canada sections of Dangerous Foreigners, up­ now required skilled, educated immi­ dated and revised, are incorporated into grants, clashed with the objectives of Reluctant Host. But while the earlier some ethnic lobbies intent on maintaining work was concerned with European im­ the sponsorship system that allowed them migrant workers. Reluctant Host includes to bring their relatives to Canada regard­ a chapter on the place of Asian workers in less of their qualifications. British Columbia prior to World War II. Because immigrants from Asia were the In keeping with his sophisticated most exploited of the immigrant labourers analysis of the complex forces that and their presence in Canada aroused the shaped immigration policy, Avery at­ greatest hostility, the new chapter allows tempts to show the role of humanitarian- Avery to bring sharply into focus the con­ ism, economic self-interest, racism and flict between capitalist employers seek­ security considerations in shaping Can­ ing cheap labour, organized labour fear­ ada's refugee policies. The value of ful of competition, and nativists bent on Avery's comparative approach is evident the exclusion of "unassimilable" Asian here. The ongoing debates over policy immigrants, and to demonstrate that at can only be fully understood in the inter­ times racism prevailed over the demands national context: the great increase in the of large employers in shaping immigra­ number of asylum seekers from the Third tion policy. World in recent years and the increasing stringency of selection in western Europe 308 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

and the United States help to explain the efforts expended by the state to stem this growing anxieties over Canada's rela­ radicalism. After World War n the influ­ tively generous refugee policies. Avery's ence of radicals within immigrant com­ analysis of the resistance of such groups munities apparently declined, and efforts as the Canadian Labour Congress, the In­ to prevent communists from entering ter-Church Committee for Refugees, the Canada overshadowed concerns with Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian radicalism within immigrant communi­ Hispanic Congress, and the Canadian ties in Canada. But since the subject of Civil Liberties Association to attempts to immigrant protest is introduced, it would restrict the volume and composition of certainly have been worth considering the the refugee flow to Canada, however, of­ reasons for the decline in immigrant radi­ fers an important reminder that not all calism in post-war Canada. Was it the Canadians agree with the restrictive refu­ result of the establishment of the welfare gee policies introduced by the Mulroney state and the more general "taming" of the government. Canadian working class? Was it a sign of Understandably, given the main focus the greater integration of immigrants into of the book, the responses of immigrant Canadian society through labour unions workers to their conditions of work and and political parties? Did it reflect the residence occupy a far less important greater presence and influence of skilled place in Reluctant Host than do Canadian and educated immigrants and of second responses to immigrants. But while and third generations within ethnic com­ Avery's attempt to be comprehensive by munities? considering the immigrants' perspective is commendable, this is the least satisfac­ Carmela Patrias tory part of a book otherwise impressive Brock University in the range and sophistication of its analysis. The description of living and Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold working conditions helps to explain why War Canada: The Making of a National Canadians disdained certain jobs that im­ Insecurity State, 1945-1957 (Toronto: migrant labourers and domestics took and University of Toronto Press 1995). why employers found it necessary to seek workers from abroad. But this theme is THIS COMPREHENSIVE study, which treated unevenly through the book — we combines the talents of political scientist are told little about the conditions of im­ Reg Whitaker and freelance writer Gary migrants after about 1950. Similarly, the Marcuse, is now the definitive study of responses of immigrants to the conditions the impact of the Cold War on Canadian they encountered in Canada are consid­ society prior to 1960. Not surprisingly, ered only for a small part of the period their saga begins with the 5 September covered by the book. Avery explains why 1945 defection of Igor Gouzenko, an ob­ some immigrant workers joined radical scure Red Army cypher clerk at the Soviet unions and political parties such as the Embassy in Ottawa. The next 110 pages Industrial Workers of the World, the Ca­ systematically analyze how a select group nadian Socialist Party, and the Social of high ranking civil servants and cabinet Democratic Party prior to World War I, ministers attempted to deal with this but this theme is not pursued in the dis­ unique threat to Canada's national secu­ cussions of the immigrant experience in rity, culminating in the creation of the the interwar and post-World War n peri­ Royal Commission on Espionage and the ods. Admittedly, Avery's interest in this subsequent treason trials, while Lester B. subject seems to have been elicited by the Pearson and his liberal internationalist anxieties that immigrant radicalism cre­ colleagues at External Affairs were busy ated among Canadians and by the great REVIEWS 309

defining Canada's role within the evolv­ could be said was that "Canada practised ing US-British anti-Soviet alliance. only restricted witch-hunting." (187) Whitaker and M «reuse join a long list Inevitably, a book of this scope has of critics who have condemned the pro­ some sections which sparkle more than ceedings of the RC Espionage as repre­ others. For this reviewer, at least, the senting, in the words of civil libertarian most interesting and revealing topics John George Diefenbaker, a violation of were those dealing with the Royal Com­ "every vestige of those things we regard mission on Espionage and its legacy; the as essential to the preservation of the lib­ persecution of diplomat Herbert Norman, erty of the subject." (69) But their critique film maker John Grierson and "peacenik" has two great advantages: the benefit of a Reverend James Endicott; the strange rich body of secondary literature, as well symbiotic relationship between the RCMP as the memoirs and papers of many of the and the CCF/NDP. Special venom is re­ participants; and their own ability to util­ served for "the zealousness with which ize the Access to Information Act to ob­ Cold War social democrats carried the tain a wide range of classified govern­ anti-Communist fight, especially in the ment documents, including reports of the crucial trade union movement," (267) Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security where, the authors claim, "Canada came Service. This latter material is used with closest to McCarthyism." (267) Yet it devastating effect when describing how could be argued that between 1948 and the "Mounties" harassed suspected com­ 1957 the CCF was fighting for its very munists whether they were civil servants existence against powerful political and subject to security clearance, former corporate enemies, vulnerable to the Red members of "progressive" organizations smear particularly in Québec where pre­ such as the Canadian Association of Sci­ mier Maurice Duplessis had branded the entific Workers, or activists within the party as "'the vestibule' of Communism." Canadian peace movement. Even worse (306) was the RCMP's enthusiasm for sharing While some readers might find the their poorly documented suspicions with continued reference to US developments the US Federal Bureau of Investigation — somewhat disconcerting, I felt that this information which was often passed on to attempt to place major events of the pe­ professional anti-communist witch-hunt­ riod within a broader context was quite ers such as Senators Joseph McCarthy effective. One might question, however, and William Jenner, and their clones in whether too much emphasis was placed the House Committee on Un-American on US trends and on American-Canadian Activities. relations, and not enough on Canada's The authors deeply resent the willing­ participation in British defence planning ness of the Liberal elite, especially Exter­ between 1945 and 1957. Another small nal Affairs mandarins Lester Pearson and flaw is the authors' somewhat ambivalent Norman Robertson, and Defence Minister assessment of the liberal internationalist Brooke Claxton, for accepting "an Ameri­ mandarins, in general, and foreign minis­ can Cold War definition," and of facilitat­ ter Lester B. Pearson, in particular. For ing the intrusion of "McCarthyism" into example, in the section dealing with the Canadian society. Nor do they accept the Canadian peace movement during the Ko­ argument that Canada's secret system of rean War Pearson is portrayed as a nar­ "institutionalized anonymous informing row-minded and vindictive functionary; upon the private lives and beliefs of civil while in the Herbert Norman case (1950- servants," (171) was morally superior or 57) he is praised for his courage and re­ personally less damaging than the US solve in upholding the honour of his col­ public loyalty enquiries. The best that league and friend. Unfortunately, this di­ chotomy is not clarified, in part because 310 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL the book does not include a proper con­ amine the demands that historic event clusion — a place where many of these placed on the Canadian union. Writing a issues could have been reassessed. textbook and a synthetic essay are decid­ There are also some places in the text edly different tasks, and Gindin does an where the historical evidence provided admirable job pulling them together. The does not justify certain generalizations. book is engagingly written, well illus­ On page 371, for instance, the authors trated, and effectively supplemented by a claim that there is "much more reason number of informational boxes, precisely today to suspect" that the United Sûtes the attributes of a first-rate textbook. His used biological weapons in Korea, an interpretative framework is thoughtful opinion which is not shared by those US and provocative. Perhaps because he sees historians who have examined the subject his primary goal as speaking to present thoroughly. Equally suspect is their asser­ CAW concerns, however, Gindin over­ tion that Canada's 1957 involvement in states the degree to which UAW and CAW NORAD was inevitable: "It is hard to see leaders and activists determined their un­ how, after Ogdensburg (1940), Canada ions' paths. As a result, he downplays the could have arrived at any other destina­ pivotal political contexts within which tion." (147) Surely, the experiences of union leaders made their decisions. World War II and the pattern of the Cold Gindin, a high-level CAW staff mem­ War so deftly described in this text helped ber, follows the gradual divergence of the determine this outcome! Canadian and American auto workers These criticisms aside, this is a fine from the pre-union era to the present. He study which combines extensive re­ recognizes that broad social forces —eco­ search, effective organization and an en­ nomic change, corporate policy making gaging writing style. It should become — helped to shape the two groups' expe­ essential reading for university courses riences. In Gindin's view, though, the which deal with Canadian foreign policy American and Canadian UAWs were and political developments during the driven apart primarily because they de­ Cold War. veloped difference union cultures, rooted in different forms of nationalism. In the Donald Howard Avery 1930s and 1940s, Canadian autoworkers University of Western Ontario followed the lead of their American brothers and sisters, battling the state for Sam Gindin, The Canadian Auto Work­ legitimation and employers for recogni­ ers: The Birth and Transformation of a tion and a share of power. The Canadian Union (Toronto: James Lorimcr and UAW took longer than the American to Company 1995). achieve their victories, but by the late 1940s the two groups had secured the IN STYLE, Sam Gindin's The Canadian same basic right to collective bargaining. Auto Workers is a textbook, designed to From that point on, Gindin argues, the introduce union members to the history of Canadian and American UAWs followed the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW). In increasingly different paths. Under Wal­ content, it is, as the author claims, an ter Reuther's direction, the American "essay" on the CAW's history, intended UAW forged a compact with industrial "not to be comprehensive ... but to ad­ capital and the liberal state. Reuther dress and develop questions and themes traded any claim to a say in corporate that are relevant to the union in the pre­ decision-making for an ever-more gener­ sent." (vii) In particular, Gindin wants to ous package of raises and fringe benefits. explore the reasons for the CAW's 1985 He undercut rank and file militancy by decision to break away from the United bureaucratizing the union. And he surren­ Automobile Workers (UAW) and to ex­ dered the UAW's political independence REVIEWS 311

for an increasingly intimate relationship played a pivotal role in the most impor­ with the Democratic Party. Building on tant of the decade's movements, the nationalist fear of American hegemony, struggle for civil rights. Taken together, Canadian UAW leaders refused to accept these efforts indicate that American UAW the same deal. The Canadians continued leaders were not all that different from to contest production, health and safety their Canadian counterparts in their hopes standards inside the shop, while rejecting and aspirations for the Union. The crucial those portions of the American agree­ difference between the two branches of ments, such as profit sharing, that reduced the UAW, rather, lay in the leaders* ability militancy. They maintained a healthy de­ to act on those hopes and aspirations. That gree of democracy inside the union. And is the difference that Gindin's analysis they refused to commit themselves un­ needs to probe. conditionally to, though they certainly al­ Any such analysis should begin with lied themselves with, the Canadian Com­ the political contexts within which the monwealth Federation/New Democratic unionists operated. As a number of com­ Party (CCF/NDP). mentators have noted, the American con­ The divisions created in the 1950s stitutional system essentially marginal­ widened in the next three decades. The izes third parties. An organization that Canadian UAW drew renewed strength wishes to participate in the mainstream of and vigour from the social movements American politics, and therefore to shape that in the 1960s challenged the postwar public policy, must align itself with one order, while the calcifying American of the two major parties. By so doing, UAW "proved incapable of tapping into however, it joins a coalition of other [the movement's] energy and potential." groups that may not share its goals. The (166) The Canadians were thus prepared post-World War II American UAW fol­ to fight back when capitalists and their lowed the logic the system had created, political allies viciously turned on organ­ joining a Democratic Party coalition that ized labour in the late 1970s. American fully supported corporate control of in­ UAW leaders, meanwhile, folded in the dustrial capitalism's awesome power. face of the corporate onslaught, retreating The UAW tried to change the party's fo­ into concession bargaining. This funda­ cus, but its efforts failed. As a result, the mental difference, brought to a head in the post-World War II union was forced to 1982 bargaining round, led the Canadians operate in a political economy dominated to leave the UAW in September 198S and by corporate power. Canadian UAW lead­ to form the CAW. ers had a bit more room to manoeuvre. Gindin makes a critical point as he The parliamentary system allowed alter­ traces the long-standing differences be­ native voices. To be sure, the CCF/NDP tween the Canadian and American UAW. did not always provide that voice. But it But he stops short of probing the source served as enough of an opposition to un­ of those differences. Gindin's discussion fettered capitalism to prod the larger par­ of the 1950s and 1960s makes the prob­ ties to the left. As a result, the Canadian lem clear. Contrary to Gindin's assertion, UAW had at least some room to maintain Walter Reuther never abandoned hope of the oppositional culture that Gindin cele­ breaking management's control of corpo­ brates. rate decision-making. Throughout the Gindin ends the book with several 1950s and 1960s, he repeatedly called for chapters extolling the CAW's vibrancy. It national economic planning, public con­ became a truly national union in the late trol of pricing policy, and public review 1980s and 1990s, as it merged with a of technological innovation. Similarly, number of other Canadian unions. It the UAW was hardly divorced from the works to build and maintain a "culture of social movements of the 1960s. The union resistance" within the expanding union 312 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

ranks. And it struggles to move from "so­ the early death of her mother and the cial unionism'' to "movement unionism," failure of her father's business activities. through which the union would lead a She was influenced by communist ideol­ "profound change in the nature of soci­ ogy and activities during the 1930s, but ety." (208) Thus does the CAW remain marriage and children created a Wil- true, Gindin concludes, to the union cul­ lowdale suburban housewife who did not ture that led to its creation. Only by un­ venture back to paid employment until derstanding the structures that fostered 1954 when she secured a secretarial job that culture, however, will future activists with the municipality of North York. be able to build on the past that Gindin Landing in a pink collar ghetto, she joined rightly celebrates. the local of the National Union of Public Employees (amalgamated with the Na­ Kevin Boyle tional Union of Public Service Employees University of Massachusetts, Amherst to form CUPE in 1963) and became its president in 1960 when she was forty-two Susan Crean, Grace Hartman: A Woman years old. for her Time (Vancouver: New Star Grace Hartman's ascent within CUPE Books 1995). was rapid during the next decade and a half. She was a good listener, well-organ­ TO AFFIRM THAT the advance of women ized, steady, and non-threatening — es­ in so many areas of life in Western coun­ sential qualities during the stormy early tries has been one of the 20th century's inner life of CUPE as related here, particu­ most important legacies it is only neces­ larly when it was headed by the mercurial sary to recall the times when jobs were Stan Little. A co-operative non-aggres­ posted according to sex. The role of Grace sion pact with another rising CUPE star, Hartman, president of the Canadian Un­ Shirley Carr, removed what might other­ ion of Public Employees during the turbu­ wise have been a barrier. Hartman's per­ lent years from 1975 to 1983, was seldom sonal experiences and trade union role determining in this process, although sig­ sensitized her to women's issues, particu­ nificant to varying degrees. larly in the workplace, at a time when Aware of her subject's strengths and even in a public service union "'a woman weaknesses, writer Susan Crean has judi­ at a convention was looked upon as a ciously cast Hartman as "a woman for her piece of ass'." (54) Her union credentials time." Crean is sensitive to context and as lent themselves nicely to the largely mid­ she attempts to establish the environment dle-class women's movement of the she notes the findings of such labour his­ 1960s. Hartman helped to found the Na­ torians as Ruth Frager, Craig Heron, Joan tional Action Committee on the Status of Sangster, and Wayne Roberts. While Women and lobbied for the Royal Com­ there is much to be learned about Cana­ mission established by the Trudeau gov­ dian public service unions in this biogra­ ernment. Throughout she retained an in­ phy, surroundings sometimes overtake tellectual independence based on her subject because evidence pertaining to identification with working women. Hartman is thin, deriving mainly from While adverse to the more arcane debates oral testimony. Crean's account of Hart- within the women's liberation movement, man's life nevertheless unfolds smoothly she was no less critical of unions, declar­ in a well-crafted account. ing in 1971 that the "majority of working women will continue to turn their backs Grace Hartman came late to labour on unions until union leaders begin to activism and to prominence as an advo­ treat them as persons with equal status." cate of women's rights. Born into an or­ (136) dinary family in Toronto in 1918, she left school early for manual labour following REVIEWS 313

When Hartman assumed the helm of ture of working-class history both in the CUPE in 1975 it had become the country's United States and in Canada. For more largest union, though it was viewed sus­ than three decades historians have de­ piciously by the industrial unions and in­ bated the issue, arguing variously the case dividuals like the vituperative Dennis for Turner's frontier hypothesis, the McDermott of the Auto Workers, with structural impact of uneven national eco­ whom Hartman sparred. Hartman's chief nomic development upon the West, and accomplishments, Crean emphasizes, re­ the peculiarly harsh conditions experi­ mained in the promotion of women within enced by workers in the region's resource the workplace, union organization, and extraction industries. One might be for­ Canadian society more generally. Hart­ given for thinking that there was little man rose to the occasion in the 1981 On­ new to add to the matter. David Brundage tario hospital workers' strike when she comes perilously close to confirming this vehemently pointed out the inequities of suspicion. the province's labour legislation and paid The Making of Western Labor Radi­ the price in a two-month jail term. calism is a study of the evolution of la­ Other than the constancy of Hart- bour organizations and ideologies in Den­ man's advocacy of women, there was lit­ ver, Colorado between 1878 and 1905. It tle ideology that governed her conduct in argues that the radicalism of such organi­ office, perhaps because the range of is­ zations as the Socialist Party of America sues that today command the attention of (SPA) and the Industrial Workers of the union leaders detracts from a more coher­ World (IWW) did not derive from the ent approach. Susan Crean rightly con­ "violence associated with frontier condi­ cludes that Grace Hartman was viewed tions or to the rapid emergence of an generally "as a traditional trade unionist, exploitative corporate capitalism in the neither bureaucrat nor expert, an unre­ mining West" but rather to the "traditions pentant democrat, a modest and decent embedded in the world of nineteenth-cen­ person. She was a woman other women tury craft unionism and labor reform." (2) liked to work for; a leader who habitually In this respect, Brundage's approach to urged workers to reach beyond their jobs, the IWW differs from that of Melvyn to grow with their work. If labour histori­ Dubosky in We Shall Be All, in which the ans and journalists said that she made her focus is on the economic and social mark as a woman but not as an innovative changes that transformed the United leader in the movement because she Sûtes in the late 1800s. The SPC and IWW lacked clout with the inner councils of did not, Brundage suggests, represent a labour, they weren't exactly wrong." sharp break with labour's past practices (220-1 ) Susan Crean gets her subject right and beliefs. Instead, they drew upon the in an informative and balanced biogra­ legacy of the craft union movement of the phy. 1870s and 1880s. As such, their support for internationalism, syndicalism, a Terry Crowley movement culture centred on working- University of Guelph class opposition to the saloon, and for the militancy found in nascent industrial un­ ions all placed the IWW and the SPC David Brundage, The Making of Western squarely within the mainstream of Denver Labor Radicals: Denver's Organized labour's historical development. Workers, 1878-1905 (Urbana and Chi­ cago: University of Illinois Press 1994). Brundage provides a well-organized account of the above mentioned compo­ ARGUMENTS OVER THE NATURE, ori­ nents of labour radicalism, dedicating a gins and importance of so-called "western separate chapter each to internationalism, Labour radicalism" have long been a fea­ movement culture, syndicalism and the 314 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

roots of industrial unionism. Brundage ever, as justification for his choice of ti­ argues that craft unioniste were key play­ tle: The Making of Western Labor Radi­ ers in Denver's Irish National Land calism. Attractive in outline, Brundage's League in the years 1880-83, an organi­ argument is less persuasive upon closer zation that did much to ease Catholic- examination. Three criticisms in particu­ Protestant rivalries among workers and lar might be made. which offered workers the experience of First, Brundage goes too far in his fighting for a cause greater than the con­ desire to correct the emphasis of earlier fines of a single trade or craft. As such, historians upon discontinuities that re­ the Land League provided many Denver sulted from changing material conditions workers with a sense of mutualism that in the West. Although launched in 190S, was crucial to the rise of the Knights of Denver's IWW did not make significant Labor (KOL), to which the author turns progress until almost a decade later. By his attention next. Brundage focuses on then, the city's population was well in the Knights of Labor in regard to the excess of 140,000, four times its size in anti-saloon movement in Denver, a move­ 1880. During the same period, Denver's ment more commonly identified with the manufacturing sector had grown from middle class. Brundage argues that the 259 establishments to almost 1,500. Den­ KOL's own opposition was based on its ver was a different city at the end of belief that the saloon was an institution Brundage's study than at the beginning, that "hindered the growth of a unified and his constant emphasis upon the con­ labor movement and served as a key so­ tinuity of labour's experiences and re­ cial base for a corrupt and antilabor po­ sponse seems a little perverse. Brundage litical machine." He thus reads the KOL's himself observes that "out-migration desire to stamp out the saloon as part of from Denver during the 1870s and 1880s its broader attempt to create an autono­ was even higher than the national norm," mous movement culture "within which which leads one to wonder to what extent Denver's organized workers could fulfill (and by what process) Denver workers their needs for companionship, recrea­ were able to establish traditions of any tion, and education." (53-4) lasting impact. Against this background In the remainder of the book, Brun­ of rapid growth and shifting population dage turns from culture to politics and base, there is ample room to question the economics. He explores the failure of the relevance of working-class support for rise of trade unions in the late 1880s to Denver's Irish nationalist movement in translate into success for the local United the 1880s to the rise of the IWW some Labor Party, and traces an interest in syn­ twenty years later dicalism among Denver workers to this This leads to the second criticism, the period. Finally, Brundage notes the im­ fact that on many occasions early strands pact of the mid-1890's economic depres­ of radical labour ideology either failed to sion upon Denver's craft unions, notably win much support among Denver workers their failure to protect their own members or simply died out altogether. As a result, from the ravages of unemployment. At it is difficult to see how they constituted the same time, the depression heralded a influential components within the IWW in new wave of organization and militancy later years. For example, as Brundage among Denver's unskilled workers, cul­ himself notes, the anti-saloon battle failed minating in the rise of the IWW after the to win the support of a majority of Den­ turn of the century. ver's workers and even "greatly exacer­ All this is fine, if Brundage's aim bated emerging tensions within the (la­ were simply to describe the evolution of bour] movement." (54) As such, there is organized labour in Denver during the little justification for Brundage to con­ late 1800s. It is less satisfactory, how­ clude that labour's involvement in the REVIEWS 315 campaign constructed "a movement cul­ capitalist development. Second, even ture ... [which] continued to live on within the West scholars have found a among the city's labor activists, coming wide range of responses to the conditions to the fore especially in early twentieth- that confronted the working-class, many century labor radicalism." (80) Brundage of which do not fit the label "radical." may be right in making this assertion, but Studies by Allen Seager on New West­ he certainly fails to demonstrate the con­ minster, Robert MacDonald on Vancou­ nection in his book. By a similar token, ver and my own work on Calgary suggest Brundage's analysis of labour radicalism that there was a sharp line dividing the rests upon the experience of a small mi­ experiences of western urban workers and nority of workers in Denver. This criti­ those in the region's resource extraction cism does not, of course, deny the validity industries. Recent work by Jeremy Mouat of Brundage's study, but it does challenge on British Columbia hard-rock miners his opening remark that labour radicalism also challenges the assumption that such "had a powerful influence upon the local workers were "naturally" inclined to­ working-class movement." (6) At best, wards radicalism. radicals represented a small segment of In this respect. The Making of West­ western labour. Brundage's text is full of ern Labor Radicalism marks a theoretical qualifications that make this clear. "The step backwards. Too readily Brundage ac­ Socialist Labor party had virtually no cepts the existence of western radicalism presence in Denver" (104); "Syndicalism as a historical phenomenon to be ex­ was never more than a minority current in plained, rather than as a construct to be the Denver labor movement in these re-examined. Unfortunately, the two con­ years" (111); "Like earlier radicals, the cepts central to Brundage's work — class IWW remained a minority force in the and radicalism — receive little discussion Denver movement as a whole." (162) or reflective examination, an absence that While labour radicals have always ex­ undermines Brundage's broader conclu­ erted an influence far beyond their num­ sions. His brief account of class forma­ bers, the extent of this influence needs to tion, for example, is almost pre- be examined more closely and critically. Thompsonian in its static, structured ap­ This leads to a third criticism to be made pearance. A greater discussion of the of Brundage's study: his decision to re­ voluminous literature on class formation visit the question of western labour radi­ might surely have benefited Brundage's calism in the first place. examination of the evolution of working- The notion that the West — both in class ideology and organization in Den­ the US and in Canada — was home to an ver. As it stands, while the Making of unusually radical labour movement is one Western Labor Radicalism tells us much that has come increasingly under attack in about organized labour in Denver, it fails recent years. Sean Wilentz and Aristide to advance the debate over class relations Zolberg have even rejected the whole idea in western America. of "exceptionalism," that there exists a "normal" pattern of development against David Bright which particular countries or regions Mount Royal College should be measured. In Canada, the pio­ neering works on western labour radical­ Leon Fink, In Search of the Working ism by Martin Robin, David Bercuson Class: Essays in American Labor History and Ross McCormack have been revised and Political Culture (Urbana and Chi­ in two ways in the past twenty years. cago: University of Illinois Press 1994). First, studies of labour in other regions have demonstrated that radicalism was THERE HAS BEEN A lot of talk lately not so much a function of geography as of about the decline of labour history. Since 316 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

it continues to privilege the experiences reminds us that despite its short life, the of male workers, remains fixated on their Knights played a significant role in the institutions, and is theoretically naive, the emergence of representative democracy story goes, the study of the working-class and the two-party system in Rutland, Ver­ past is fast becoming yesterday's news. It mont. In order to stave off the rise of was with this in mind that I read a collec­ independent labour candidates, the local tion of essays which span the career of Yankee elite mobilized the Republican one of America's second generation party machine, "tightened local organiza­ "new" labour historians, Leon Fink. tion," and created a "stable executive While the essays cover a range of topics, leadership and permanent ward commit­ they are united by Fink's sensitivity to the tees." (46) Against the backdrop of the relationship between theory and evi­ Knights' nation-wide decline, many dence, and his ability to wrestle with the workers recognized the need to counter difficult questions posed by new histori­ this renewed political offensive and ographies. In this regard. In Search of the shifted their allegiance from independent Working Class is both a timely and en­ politics to the Democratic Party. Thus the riching contribution to the debate about "club like atmosphere" of town meetings the future course of labour history and in Rutland was eventually replaced by certainly demonstrates that the rumours institutionalized two party competition. of its death are indeed premature. Clearly, historical "losers" matter; in­ Four of the nine essays are drawn deed, the town's "entire political edifice from, or are related to, Fink s major con­ had been rendered, sundered, and recon­ tribution to American labour history, structed in the face of a radical challenge Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights from below." (46) of Labor and American Politics, which Fink explores the linkages between was published in 1983. In "Class Conflict political and social history further in "La­ American Style," Fink takes aim at "clas­ bor, Liberty, and the Law: Trade Union­ sic American Exceptionalist denials of ism and the problem of the American the centrality of class to the American Constitutional Order." Here he examines political universe" during the Gilded the relationship between labour and the Age; it is an argument that many students law from the emergence of Samuel Gom- of labour history know well. The tremen­ pers to the post-World War II compromise dous change wrought by the emergence of between the AFL and the CIO. According industrial capitalism produced great so­ to Fink, in the face of obstinate employers cial unrest as evidenced by the meteoric and judicial hostility the labour move­ rise of the Knights of Labor. Drawing on ment was unable to extend the protections their republican inheritance, the Knights afforded by collective bargaining un­ envisioned a producers' democracy of aided. As a result, it embraced the state — sorts where the strength of organized a power over which it historically held working men would resuscitate "demo­ little sway — in order to exact some meas­ cratic citizenship" and protect the "public ure of protection. While some gains were good within a regulated marketplace recorded, more radical ways of interpret­ economy." (27) For Fink, this vision was ing and changing the world atrophied. as cultural as it was political; indeed, la­ "From such a reading," he concludes, "the bour radicals often "dipped selectively proper critique of modern-day labor [lies] into a popular storehouse of memory and less in its acceptance of state labor regu­ myth to capture alternative images of hu­ lation than in its weakness in adapting to man possibility." (26) In "Politics as So­ a terrain where labor's political muscle cial History: A Case Study of Class Con­ would matter more than ever before." flict and Political Development in Nine­ (163) teenth-Century New England," Fink REVIEWS 317

But Fink's understanding of labour past the late 19th century. There is much history in general, and the Knights of to be learned about community, con­ Labor in particular, has not gone uncon­ sciousness, and experience from gender tested, as evidenced by a spirited ex­ history, Fink observes, and so long as "we change with T.J. Jackson Lean, John P. recognize [its] boundaries," the "gender­ Diggins, George Lipsitz, Mari Jo Buhle, ing of labor history" might endow the and Paul Buhle entitled The New Labour culturalist tradition with the "tougher, History and the Powers of Historical Pes­ more self-critical angle of analysis" re­ simism." Diggins remains unconvinced quired to comprehend the complexity of that the language of radical republicanism workers' experiences in the 20th century. — "an immiscible chorus of political (245) But as Fink points out in "'Intellec­ tongues" — espoused by the Knights is tuals versus Workers': Academic Re­ indicative of an oppositional challenge to quirements and the Creation of Labor industrial capitalism. It is not "incanta­ History," the task before labour scholars tions of language," but the "imperative of is not just an academic one, it is also praxis" that proves the existence of radi­ political; to remain salient, historians of cal politics, Diggins asserts. (124) In con­ the working class must confront both trast, the Buhles alert Fink to the "press­ questions of theory and the "yawning gap ing need" to engage with critical theory between the scholarly community and the and "reevaluate the prevailing assump­ world it presumes to describe" or risk tions about the relationship between ex­ further marginalization and antiquarian- perience and meaning." (138) Challenged ism. (223) from both sides, Fink returns to the con­ In Search of the Working Class chron­ ceptual territory he first charted with Her­ icles the intellectual "meanderings" of an bert Gutman at the University of Roches­ extremely talented and thoughtful histo­ ter and City College of New York in the rian of the American working class. The 1970s. "Whether in an immigrant letter, a essays collected here (and I have not ad­ local election or strike report, or a slave dressed them all) are both emblematic of register, Gutman sought in addition to the achievements of the "new" labour his­ accounts of acts and events the set of tory and indicative of the issues that con­ meanings through which largely unre- front it. In the book's introduction Fink membered people understood their asked himself, and the reader, this ques­ times," he writes. "Rediscovering the lan­ tion: "My writing has been stimulated by guage, as well as the deeds, of [Gutman's] scholarly or political debates tied to a many subjects was part of this process." particular time and place. As those mo­ (142) While this exchange is intriguing ments of inspiration have faded, are those for what it reveals about the uses (and products still worthy of review?" (vii) My abuses) of hegemony, and the strengths answer to his question is a resounding and limitations of the turn to language, it yes! also serves as a snapshot of labour history in transition. Andy Parnaby Writing in "Looking Backward: Re­ Memorial University of Newfoundland flections on Workers' Culture and Cer­ tain Conceptual Dilemmas Within Labor J. Robert Constantine, éd.. Gentle Rebel: History" and "Culture's Last Stand? Gen­ Letters of Eugene V. Debs (Urbana and der and the Search for Synthesis in Chicago: University of Illinois Press American Labor History," Fink reflects 1995). critically on the accomplishments of "cul- turalists," and suggests that in order to EUGENE VICTOR DEBS remained con­ regenerate the Thompsonian project la­ stantly in the American public eye from bour historians must push their analyses the time of his trial for refusing to obey a 318 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

federal injunction during the Pullman idea of a real revolution accomplished by strike of 1894. After six months in Wood­ purely democratic, non-violent means. stock Jail, Illinois, he turned to Socialism, This group included some of the best helped create the Socialist Party of Amer­ known names of the international social­ ica, and ran as a presidential candidate in ist movement, including Karl Kautsky in every election from 1900 to 1920 except Germany, Jules Guesde in France, a good 1916, when he contested a Congressional section of the Independent Labour Party district in Indiana. He conducted the cam­ in Britain, and, in America, Eugene Debs. paign of 1920 from his cell in the Federal As Debs wrote to Kautsky, "It is from Prison in Atlanta, Georgia, where he had you, dear Comrade, that I learned some of been incarcerated under the war-time Es­ my earliest and most precious lessons in pionage Act of 1918. He was released by Socialism. I have since wondered often President Harding without a pardon on how anyone, however feeble and be­ Christmas Day, 1921, after a public cam­ nighted mentally, could read your crystal paign on his behalf. Debs died in 1926. clear Marxian exposition and interpreta­ During all these years Debs carried on tion without becoming and remaining a a correspondence with a diverse group of socialist." This "democratic revolution­ people. Many were family members (like ary" position explains Debs' consistent his brother Theodore, who acted as his refusal to countenance a broad working- secretary), fellow socialists, and personal class party in spite of pleas from the likes friends, including writers like James of Samuel Jones or Henry Demearst Whitcomb Riley, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lloyd. It also accounts for his uneasy Lewis, Carl Sandburg, and Claude Bow­ relationship with Victor Berger, the Mil­ ers. Others were simply fellow-citizens. waukee Socialist, whom Debs called a Debs' letters show him prepared to give typical political boss and whom he sus­ himself unsparingly to the Socialist Party, pected of reformist backsliding from real even to the point of frequently undermin­ socialism, and of hankering after broad- ing his health. They also reveal an honest based labour politics. Debs, of course, and generous man, scrupulously straight­ regarded Samuel Gompers and the forward when he criticized yet scarcely American Federation of Labor as beyond ever betraying a hint of personal grudge. hope and suspected Berger of toadying to Sinclair Lewis wrote to him in 1926 of a both. Instead, Debs anticipated the rise of dinner he had attended in which guests a pro-socialist industrial unionism that referred to Debs as the "one real honest- would break the AFL mould. Debs' to-God saint of whom they had ever "democratic revolutionary" position also known." It was a widely held view among explains his reconciliatory attitude to­ socialists and non-socialists alike. ward Communism after its split from the Socialist Party. Claiming that his incar­ Although Debs' tolerant, humane ceration freed him of any responsibility views undoubtedly account for his repu­ for the division of the American left in tation as the "Gentle Rebel" of the present 1919, he held out for unity. Like his coun­ volume, or the "Citizen and Socialist" of terparts in Europe who tried to form, in Nick Salvatore's biography, this image Lenin's phrase, a "two and a half Inter­ possibly gives a wrong impression of national somewhere between the Second Debs' politics. Among socialists in all (Reformist) and the Third (Communist), countries in the period, it is tempting to Debs only very reluctantly gave up on see a sharp dichotomy between peaceful Russia. The anarchist Emma Goldman, "revisionists" and violent "revolutionar­ who condemned the Soviet system in ies," with Debs safely in the former camp. spite of being well-treated in Russia after In fact, the struggle was three-way, with her deportation from the United States in a large group of "orthodox" Marxists be­ tween the two extremes, clinging to the REVIEWS 319

1919, probably helped Debs change his more personal, some of which are less mind. interesting. But the present selection cer­ Debs' consistent opposition to broad tainly gives a well-rounded account of the labour coalitions made his support in man. 1924 for the Conference for Progressive Political Action, headed by Robert La- W.M. Dick Follette, all the more surprising. Some University of Toronto found it completely incomprehensible. Debs, however, explained to one enquirer Colin Gordon, New Deals: Business, La­ that the "Socialist Party, enfeebled and bor, and Politics in America, 1920-1935 decimated by the war, felt justified in (New York: Cambridge University Press casting its lot with the progressive organ­ 1994). ized workers who had declared their with­ drawal from the old capitalist parties." He IN RECENT YEARS much of the focus of felt "satisfied that the future [would] vin­ New Deal scholarship has shifted to the dicate the wisdom of this policy." The period of the late-New Deal and the tran­ turnaround, however, might rather have sition from the New Deal to war. Colin vindicated many "right-wing" socialists Gordon's New Deals demonstrates once who had argued for the policy earlier. again, however, that the debate over the With the Socialist party "as near a corpse "early" New Deal is far from settled. Gor­ as a thing can be and still show signs of don poses a boldly revisionist challenge life," as Debs remarked to his office man­ by contending that the "second" New ager Bertha Hale White in 192S, he must Deal's Wagner and Social Security Acts have wondered. The nearest he came to a were not the products of worker insur­ confession in his correspondence, how­ gency, reformist liberals, and an anti- ever, was his statement to Claude Bowers business ideology. Rather they were that, although "fundamental principles" "creatures" of business demands and in­ were the same everywhere, "there is a dicative of the "essential conservatism" different psychology in every nation, dif­ of the New Deal. ferent economic and political conditions, Gordon's arguments build on theories and these have not been wisely reckoned of rational choice and collective action to with by socialists or they would be much develop a sophisticated analysis of the farther along with the American move­ relationship between politics and mar­ ment." kets. In contrast to historians who stress All the themes discussed above are the emergence of a "visible hand" or a well covered in the present volume of viable associational capitalism by the Debs' letters, a selection from J. Robert 1920s, Gordon proposes a "disorganiza- Constantine's exhaustive three volume tional synthesis." (29) The rhetoric of edition published in 1992. In this new business-government conflict, he con­ volume, Constantine has replaced the ex­ tents, has obscured the fact that economic planatory footnotes with introductory governance is shared by business and paragraphs. He has also condensed the government. Business enjoys a "privi­ introductory biographical essay and re­ leged" position in the formation of public duced the number of photographs. The policy, but it also confronts both intense editing remains superb. In the matter of competitive pressures and internal organ­ selection, Constantine has decided on a izational disarray. Hence it is constantly broad sampling from both personal letters weighing private and public controls to and those concerned with public affairs. minimize competition while protecting Scholars might have preferred to devote profits and managerial authority. But be­ the one volume edition to the Socialist cause it is fragmented, it cannot impose Party and civic matters, leaving aside the private collective decisions to regulate 320 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

competition. It must seek political solu­ izational disarray because it could not tions, but because the American political achieve effective code compliance. system is also fragmented the costs and The second new Deal, Gordon argues, risks of these usually exceed the advan­ was but an extension of the NRA experi­ tages. The result is a political economy ence and the efforts to abate competition that "tends toward organizational chaos." during the twenties. For at least some (34) industrialists, the lesson of the NRA was He applies this general framework to that the most logical and effective means the interwar period to argue that the Wag­ of regulating industrial competition was ner and the Social Security Acts were the through "business-minded unions." (199) culmination of business efforts that began Consequently, faced with severe compe­ in the 1920s to come to terms with what tition and an invigorated labour move­ he describes as a "chronic crisis of com­ ment, many businesses "turned to federal petition." (85) Well before the Great De­ labour law as a last-best reprieve from the pression, business was frantically trying tortures of the market." Business, he is various strategies of collective action to careful to argue, did not openly or eagerly reduce competitive pressures that Gordon embrace the Wagner Act, but its opposi­ variously describes as "profitless," "stag­ tion was "superficial" and "cynical" nant," "savage," "brutal," "merciless," (218) and its influence on the Act's ori­ "destructive," and "bloodthirsty." One of gins and administration greater than gen­ these strategies was organizing trade as­ erally recognized. sociations and peak associations, but The Social Security Act was also the these efforts at self-regulation turned out culmination of a quarter-century battle to be "organizational placebos" that could over the scope and costs of industrial wel­ not enforce collective agreements. fare plans, state social insurance pro­ Another strategy, although not grams, and anticompetitive strategies. widely adopted, was "regulatory union­ Faced with the threat of uneven costs and ism." Gordon concedes that the mass-pro­ intensified regional competition, some duction industries remained fiercely open business leaders wanted pensions and un­ shop, and the welfare capitalist systems employment insurance nationalized to of the twenties, he says, were nothing limit competition and eliminate regional more than expressions of industry's de­ disparities. mand to control workers and stabilize la­ Although both acts were "business- bour costs (no enlightened capitalists friendly measures in progressive cloth­ here). But some industries, he contends, ing," (280) it was not long before busi­ realized that national unionization could ness became disenchanted with them. restrain competition, minimize regional This souring was less a product of ideol­ cost advantages, bar marginal competi­ ogy than the failure to achieve recovery tors, and help sustain mass purchasing and minimize competition. And very power. This alternative, he insists, would quickly it became clear that both meas­ take on greater appeal in 1935. ures would impose new costs and raise Industry turned to politically backed new threats to managerial autonomy. controls when the depression struck. The In the end, then, the New Deal was a first of these, of course, was the National reshuffling of an "old deck." It was Recovery Administration (NRA), which "never meant to imply a fundamental Gordon argues was "concerned less with overhaul of the economic order." (304) Its strengthening the economy than with promise quickly outstripped its results be­ long-standing patterns of competition and cause it never built a viable economic disorganization." (171) The NRA, how­ democracy. ever, failed to resolve industry's organ­ This is an impressive book. The argu­ ment throughout is presented in a cogent, REVIEWS 321 lucid style. The research in new or sel­ labour's potential as a force for progres­ dom-used sources and the command of a sive change has never been fulfilled. wide range of business histories is excep­ David Brody, Nelson Lichtenstein and tional. The analysis is always provoca­ Howell John Harris, among many others, tive. have described the development of a plu­ In important places, however, the ar­ ralistic industrial relations system that gument is more provocative than con­ stripped workers of the potential for con­ vincing. It is one thing to argue that the trol of the shop floor and promoted pro­ second New Deal had important roots in ductivity in exchange for high wages and business-dominated initiatives of the benefits and a workplace rule of law. In twenties and of the NRA. It is quite an­ politics labour lost its radical edge, aban­ other to say that the Wagner Act and the doning its commitment to economic plan­ Social Security Act were the product of ning and redistribution to support business and industry demands. Gordon Keynesian growth policies. Moreover, by sweeps away other influences far too eas­ eschewing independent labour politics to ily and minimizes the role of public offi­ become a junior partner within the Demo­ cials and the New Dealers who at times cratic Party coalition, labour lost its abil­ seem almost peripheral figures. He may ity to act as an independent political well be right that historians have over­ force. stated the ideological divide between Amberg uses the United Automobile business and government during the Workers (UAW) as a case study to exam­ 1930s, but then he overstates his own case ine more closely the process which ulti­ for the virtual absence of ideological di­ mately left labour a relatively powerless visions. Scholars studying trade associa­ special interest group. To explain the de­ tion activity may question his charac­ velopment of the UAW, he sets up two terization of the futility of business or­ ideal types of industrial orders, producer- ganization. ism and managerialism. Producerism is a But whether one agrees or disagrees, form of industrial democracy associated Gordon demands the serious attention of with flexible production in which skilled any scholar interested in the New Deal workers participate in decision-making at and the history of the 20th century's po­ all levels and are empowered politically. litical economy. Under managerialism, which is associ­ ated with mass production, "all strategic David E. Hamilton decisions are made by owner-managers University of Kentucky and executed down the line." Deskilled workers know only their immediate tasks, Stephen Amberg, The Union Inspiration "work relations are based on contract," in American Politics: The Autoworkers and links between work and politics are and the Making of a Liberal Industrial severed. (29) Order (Philadelphia: Temple University According to Amberg, the social Press 1994) democratic program of the early UAW represented most closely the producerist IN 1948 LABOUR relations scholar Sum­ ideal. As World War II ended, advocates ner H. Slichter observed that America was of social democratic producerism within gradually becoming a labouristic society the UAW and the CIO pushed for the es­ dominated by workers rather than busi­ tablishment of representative democracy ness. Today as organized labour becomes in industry, full civil liberties for employ­ increasingly marginalized both in the ees, management by functional knowl­ plant and in politics, such a vision seems edge rather than authority, a fully devel­ rather far-fetched. Since the late 1970s, oped welfare state, and federal govern­ scholars have been trying to explain why ment planning to promote industrial 322 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

modernization. Amberg carefully details settlement rigidified that firm's tradition­ struggles during the late 1940s over in­ ally informal authority structure and ulti­ dustrial relations, in particular the bar­ mately led to its destruction. On the po­ gaining rounds, and over national eco­ litical side of the settlement, as junior nomic policy. During these struggles, de­ partners of the Democratic Party neither termined employers and an acquiescent the UAW nor the AFL-CIO were able to government put steady pressure on the effectively promote labour's economic UAW, forcing the autoworkers' union to agenda during the Kennedy and Johnson narrow its goals. According to Amberg, administrations. the settlement reached in the auto indus­ By the late 1960s the UAW faced trou­ try by 19S0 established the limits of the bles on every front. Insurgent rank and New Deal's industrial order. Under that file movements emerged among workers settlement, managerialism in large part who had grown impatient with the collec­ triumphed. Reuther abandoned the effort tive bargaining strategy which sacrificed to establish institutional connections be­ working conditions for more pay and tween industrial relations and national failed to address issues like racism. More­ economic policy, exemplified by his de­ over the tight boundaries established by mand that GM open its books and link the liberal industrial order meant that la­ prices to wages. Moreover, questions of bour was unable to respond aggressively investment, organization of work and to new economic conditions. By the product strategies were excluded from 1970s, the auto companies responded to collective bargaining. Instead, the UAW increasing foreign competition by closing traded job control for limited contractual plants and subcontracting work, and the restrictions on management and periodic courts ruled that these decisions did not wage increases and benefits. At the same fall within the realm of collective bar­ time, labour remained firmly wedded to gaining. Amberg argues that ultimately the Democratic Party, which abandoned the rigidities associated with the postwar the commitment to full employment and settlement made it difficult for labour to endorsed instead the politics of growth, or defend itself in the more hostile economic commercial Keynesianism. and political climate of the past twenty The last part of Amberg's study ex­ years. By the late 1970s, the "virtuous amines the wide-ranging impact of la­ circle of stable labor relations, high bour's accord with capital in the auto in­ wages and profits and Democratic domi­ dustry. He identifies pockets of producer- nance" had collapsed and the auto unions ist resistance among skilled auto workers and organized labour as a whole were in and in some small firms like Studebaker retreat. (274) even as the accord was being shaped. Am­ Amberg's study gives us a much bet­ berg contends that through the 1930s ter understanding of the development of skilled autoworkers continued to struggle the settlement in the auto industry and for greater control of the shop floor, ad­ helps explain why labour has been unable vocating flexible work organization. But to respond effectively to changed eco­ by the end of a decade of pressure from nomic conditions. What is more problem­ both management and union, skilled atic is his contention that social demo­ workers had lost their broader vision and cratic producerism was ever an alterna­ become primarily interested in protecting tive. Even today when economic crisis their own special craft privileges. In con­ has led managers to experiment with the trast to the major auto companies, Stude­ flexible production which Amberg asso­ baker had developed a more flexible ciates with producerism, he admits that model of production with all its employ­ workers are still excluded from invest­ ees involved in a broad range of work ment decisions. While some leaders of the tasks. The effort to impose the postwar CIO used the language of producerism, REVIEWS 323 back in the 1940s, there is no evidence autonomy and dignity of auto workers." that there was any viable support in an (4) industry committed to mass production or The editors' introductory essay pro­ in government to move in that direction. vides a balanced and incisive overview of As long as mass production paid for the the history of work relations in the indus­ highest standard of living in die world, it try, stressing the relative weakness of un­ is questionable that there was significant ionism, the conservatism of the political support among workers, even Amberg's order, and the fact of enormous corporate skilled workers, for an alternative labour- power in shaping the context in which management system. In hindsight, it is shopfloor issues were contested. Lindy easy to see the limitations of the postwar Biggs' contribution outlines the relation­ settlement which provided little protec­ ship between factory design and work tion for workers from the ravages of de- processes in the industry's first third-cen­ industrialization. But in the face of mas­ tury. Biggs' contribution, along with the sive resistance from employers to any in­ essays by Asher and Edsforth, call into trusion on managerial rights, it is perhaps question the usefulness of the theme of better to view the postwar settlement as "destining" in characterizing autowork. an achievement that significantly im­ Although neither explores the topic fully, proved the lives of many workers. these essays raise important questions about the nature of auto work at key tran­ Elizabeth Fones-Wolf sitional points in the changing production West Virginia University regimes of the early 20th century. In "The Speedup: The Focal Point of Robert Asher and Ronald Edsforth (with Workers' Grievances, 1919-1941" (writ­ the assistance of Stephen Merlino), eds., ten with the assistance of Raymond Bory- Autowork (Albany: State University of czka), Asher and Edsforth powerfully New York Press, 1995). document the physically and emotionally exhausting nature of depression-era THE SOPHISTICATED and thoughtful es­ autowork and root the militancy that says in Autowork cover the period from founded the UAW directly in workers' about 1914 to the present. They focus on determination to gain redress. Even here, shopfloor issues. This book both comple­ however, the authors note the divisive ments and intriguingly contrasts with an nature of many shop floor struggles and earlier collection. On the Line: Essays in stress the difficulty faced by international the History of Auto Work, edited by Nel­ union leaders in dealing with justifiable, son Licthenstein and Stephen Meyer but often impractical, worker expecta­ (1989). The current volume, produced tions. "UAW leaders," they observe, during a period of union rollback and "could neither endorse a level of mili­ declining labourite political influence, is tancy that would bring the union down, or less quick to judge the United Automobile refuse to resist the speedup that so an­ Workers (UAW) negatively and more sen­ gered their membership." (97) sitive to the constraints, both historical Kevin Boyle's careful examination of and contemporary, that have limited op­ worker attitudes during World War II portunities for worker empowerment. challenges Nelson Lichtenstein's by-now From the mid-1930s onward, declare familiar depiction of the World War II Asher and Edsforth, "UAW leaders UAW as a no-holds-barred fight between worked very hard, aggressively, and militant rank and filers and production- imaginatively, within the constraints of obsessed union leaders. In a careful read­ the system of collective bargaining that ing of grievance records, Boyle finds that was mandated by Congress and domi­ control issues were far from the top of the nated by corporate power to expand the auto worker's agenda. UAW officials, he 324 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

argues, responded intelligently to work­ tion. Babson's discussion of emerging place pressures and workers themselves UAW strategies designed to rebuild a perceived their protests as examples of shopfloor union presence in a changing patriotic productionism in action. environment offers at least a glimmer of Asher contributes a revisionist ac­ hope in a period otherwise unfriendly to count of the important 1949 Ford strike, notions of true worker empowerment. crediting Walter Reuther with a more re­ Autowork does not touch all bases. sponsive attitude toward shop-floor is­ Absent are commentary on factional and sues than previous writers do. An addi­ ideological conflict in the emergent UAW tional contribution of this essay is its care­ of the 1930s and 1940s, sustained discus­ ful tracing out of the ongoing shopfloor sion of the union's key political role, and conflict at Ford that punctuated the puta­ examination of the Reuther-era internal tive golden age of auto production, the politics of the Auto Workers. Contribu­ 1950s and 1960s. Ford managers sought tors to this collection assert, sometimes constantly to undermine contractual pro­ pointedly, the connections between shop- tections and to expand managerial discre­ floor matters and the broader political tion while "at critical junctures, union economy, but no one explores in detail officials at all levels provided a great deal this dimension of autowork. Nonetheless, of support to production workers in their this is a superior collection of essays, one resistance to management-initiated that profits from the insights of UAW crit­ speedups ...." (153) ics of the 1960s and 1970s while attaining More sympathetic to the problems of a balanced and broadly sympathetic per­ union officials than the contributors to On spective. the Line, participants in this collection are by no means uncritical of the union hier­ Robert H. Zieger archy. Edsforth, for example, sees University of Florida Reuther as devious and disingenuous in his efforts to sidetrack a strong rank-and- Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Labor and Commu­ file drive to shorten the work week. In a nity: Mexican Citrus Worker Villages in telling comparison of UAW response to a Southern California County, 1900-1950 shop-floor protest in Detroit and Lord- (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illi­ stown in the 1960s and 1970s, Heather nois Press 1994). Ann Thompson skewers top leaders for their insensitivity to the distinctive idi­ GILBERT GONZALEZ offers a case study oms of black workers' protests. Sociolo­ of the Chicano citrus worker communities gist Craig A. Zabala, however, uses of Orange County, California. Should vignettes of sabotage in a California as­ those of us whose speciality does not lie sembly plant around 1980 to stress the in Chicano studies, or Southern Califor- symbiotic relationship between formal nian immigration be interested? Yes. structures of collective bargaining and in­ While his subjects had many experi­ formal kinds of workers' resistance. ences comparable to those of other immi­ Steve Babson provides a detailed and grant communities, there are important thoughtful overview of Japanese-inspired distinguishing features which make this changes in auto workplaces and in indus­ study an important addition to the history trial relations regimes in the 1980s and of workers and immigrants. First, unlike 1990s. Babson's is an unusually cogent those in much of the literature on Mexican account, one that reveals how powerfully immigrants and immigrants in general, long-term struggles over the content and the California citrus communities com­ pace of work continue unabated, with the prised rural workers, whose lives and cul­ new idiom of "lean production" serving ture would be transformed only later in to obscure conflict at the point of produc­ the century by urbanization. Second, the REVIEWS 325

Chicano immigrants maintained special But the mainly autonomous village forms of contract — particularly through culture was part of a larger economic and the Mexican consulate —with their coun­ cultural system. Public schools formed try of origin across a border contiguous one set of institutions on the interface. with the United States. This contact con­ The village school systems were racially tributed to the shape and speed of cultural segregated, with the Mexican segment change, as well as to the shape of labour characterized by lower pay for teachers, relations in the citrus groves. These two inferior buildings, and a curriculum aspects of the citrus worker villages lend geared toward vocational education. a uniqueness to Gonzalez' study. His Ironically, the ultimate purpose of the en­ other major themes are more common in forced segregation was a program of cul­ the literature on Northern American la­ tural assimilation, which would neverthe­ bour and ethnicity. Gonzalez shows the less maintain class and status inequality considerable strengths of the immigrant for Mexican labour. Nor surprisingly, the communities as they dealt with poverty, schools became sites of cultural syncre­ racism and forced segregation. tism, where singing of the Mexican song, He demonstrates the interplay be­ "Jesucitt" might be sung at a Cinco de tween a dynamic, large-scale, capitalist Mayo celebration whose program also agricultural industry and the lives of featured "Did You Ever See a Lassie," farm-workers themselves. California cit­ and a Maypole dance. (108) rus fruit-picking and packing were year- Americanization campaigns targeted round activities. Until the Exclusion Act adults for assimilation in the pre-World of 1882, most pickers were Chinese, re­ War I era. These efforts paralleled those placed thereafter by the Japanese. In the in other parts of the country. The 1913 first decades of the 20th century, the mas­ Commission of Immigration and Hous­ sive expansion of the citrus industry was ing, supported by the California Fruit fed by a huge influx of Mexican labour. Growers' Exchange, promoted home vis­ Growers organized large cooperatives, its and classes by Americanization teach­ dominated by the California Fruit Grow­ ers, and the establishment of Americani­ ers' Exchange (which took the name zation centres. Like the schools, the cen­ "Sunkist" after 1952). tres were used and changed by the Citrus production was second only to communities so that, to some extent, they oil in importance to the California econ­ served ends defined by the villagers them­ omy in the first half of the 20th century, selves. Unlike urban Americanization most of it concentrated in six counties in programs, which typically dealt with im­ Southern California. Gonzalez estimates migrants from a variety of backgrounds, that, at the height of production, 100,000 these became meeting grounds for two Mexican citrus workers and their families cultures, Mexican and American. lived in the villages. Residents saw these One chapter of Gonzalez' study is villages not as migrant labour settlements devoted to an account (a version of which but as permanent homes, and developed appeared in Labor History) of the Califor­ complex and durable community institu­ nia citrus workers' strike of 1936. Vio­ tions despite harsh living conditions. lently suppressed, the strike brought sup­ Community events included Mexican In­ port and leadership from the Mexican dependence celebrations, religious obser­ consulate, which ultimately contributed vances, and various recreational activi­ to a split between conservative and radi­ ties. Gonzalez mines both newspaper ac­ cal unionists. The growers, their Ex­ counts and oral history interviews to give change, and a revitalized anti-strike As­ a feeling for the texture of these occa­ sociated Farmers of California worked sions. with law enforcement officials to defeat the workers and their union. While there 326 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

was some increase in wages, the strikers American Southwest. Scholars in this failed to get union recognition, many area will find the volume of value, as will were blacklisted, and grower paternalism those with interests in comparative work was shattered. in ethnicity and labour. The citrus worker villages declined in the era of World War U for a variety of Peter Seixas reasons. Labour shortages raised wages University of British Columbia and drove growers to import cheaper mi­ grant labour from Mexico. At the same Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, Selling Free time, other industries grew in Southern Enterprise: The Business Assault on La­ California, providing an expanded range bor and Liberalism, 1945-1960 (Urbana of employment opportunities to the older and Chicago: University of Illinois Press generation. Cities and suburbs also began 1994). to expand into the citrus-growing regions, transforming the landscape itself. In this IN A MORE LIMITED fashion this book context, several civil rights organizations takes up the story and elements of the launched attaks on the segregation and analysis in Lizabeth Cohen's brilliant inequality faced by Mexican Americans. 1990 work Making a New Deal: Indus­ As the era of the citrus worker villages trial Workers in Chicago 1919-1939. passed, they were replaced by the urban That work explored the interaction of eth­ barrio. nic and mass cultures, and the creation of The argument put forward by Gon­ a CIO culture of unity. This new political zalez is diffuse. Throughout the book culture became the foundation for a New there is a tension, rather than an easy Deal coalition dedicated to industrial de­ complementarity, between narrative and mocracy, social justice, and an interven­ analysis, between historical detail and tionist welfare state. Fones-Wolf picks up larger theoretical concerns. Gonzalez an important part of this history in 1943, provides a loose and often uncomfortable showing employers' post-war concern synthesis of a chronological account (the with and reaction to what they perceived rise and fall of the villages) and a thematic as a labour-oriented political culture. exploration of a series of topics. Thus They saw this demonstrated by, for exam­ union organizing is discussed neither be­ ple, much local civic support for the un­ fore nor after the one chapter on the 1936 ions in the 1946 strike wave and the strike. Nor do we follow systematically Democratic victory in 1948. the kinds of structural shifts in capital Using the records of business associa­ organization which he promises in the tions and industrial leaders, as well as introductory chapters. Some stylistic union archives, she details the develop­ problems also intervene in the reading. ment of a powerful business offensive to Quotations are used where paraphrases recapture the political culture. The offen­ would have been appropriate; the present sive took many forms including new hu­ tense crops up unexpectedly in the his­ man relations campaigns to contest for torical account. Finally, there are places worker loyalty, economic education in where a partial knowledge of the primary the factory, corporate engagement in and secondary literature is apparent. A community relations programmes, pro­ glance at the footnotes on the Americani­ motion of private higher education, eco­ zation chapter reveals omission of impor­ nomic education in the schools, and a tant primary and secondary literature, and well-endowed battle for the political soul inclusion of dates and less relevant studies. of the Protestant churches. Fones-Wolf is Criticisms notwithstanding, Labor not content to show just the corporate side and Community helps to round out our but also presents the union efforts to picture of the Mexican experience in the counter this ideological offensive with la- REVIEWS 327

hour education, political action and some she argues effectively that the post war use of mass communications. business offensive for, in the words of the One of her most interesting chapters late Bert Cochran "the intellectual «con­ is on "Business, Labor, and Religion." quest of America,'' was the first act in the She draws on important sources from all conservative domination of American po­ sides in the National Council of litical culture. Second, she observes that Churches, including the papers of Charles the idea of the 1930s as one of unrelieved P. Taft, the moderate brother of Senate consensus should be revised, for "it was Robert Taft, J. Howard Pew of Sun Oil, a the continuing attraction of liberalism and business hard liner, and the liberal organized labor that was behind the ideo­ churchman G. Bromley Oxnam. These logical assault." She has made her case sources enable her to produce a sophisti­ for both of those propositions. cated and nuanced portrayal of the power of money to undermine inclinations to­ Stephen Scheinberg wards social justice on the part of the Concordia University National Council of Churches. Unfortu­ nately she does not devote comparable Dorothy Ray Healey and Maurice Isser- attention to the Catholic church with its man, California Red: A Life in the Ameri­ traditional ties to the working class and can Communist Party (Urbana and organized labour. Chicago: University of Illinois Press The author gives us numerous exam­ 1993). ples of both union and employer efforts to use radio, television, and print to promote IN THE WAKE of New Left politics and their positions. For the most part, how­ renewed interest in working-class history ever, she addresses only the more nar­ in the 1960s and 1970s, many American rowly conceived propaganda of each side. academics became captivated by the his­ Unlike Cohen, who portrayed the impact tory of the "Old Left," particularly the of commercial films, radio, and records, American Communist Party. At the same as well as broader aspects of the consumer time, some former Communists began to culture, Fones-Wolf limits her study to write their memoirs and autobiographies; the propaganda produced by the business accounts by people like Vera Weisbord, associations and unions themselves. In Peggy Dennis, Al Richmond and, for a rare departures she mentions On the Wa­ rare Communist with a sense of humour, terfront, the portrayal of labour in the Jessica Mitford, provided new insights Orphan Annie comic strip, and in the last into the politics, organization and gender paragraph of the book Ronald Reagan's relations of the Communist movement. work for General Electric. Yet, in the These autobiographies emerged along business offensive against the unions with new interpretations of the CPUS A by surely the business of mass communica­ historians such as Mark Naison, Paul tions had a more important role in the Lyons, and Robin Kelley. These scholars, formation of consciousness than the tons though not uncritical of the Party, were of propaganda pamphlets produced by the less inclined to emphasize the Soviet or National Association of Manufacturers. Stalinist influence on the CPUSA, and re­ The "selling of free enterprise" by busi­ jected Theodore Draper's influential ness was the very day work of Holly­ work which had concentrated on the role wood, the television industry, radio and of Soviet foreign policy in determining all the press. Perhaps that is a subject for a CPUSA policy and which had repudiated different study but its omission is disap­ any notion of an "Americanized" party. pointing. Focusing on the trade union connection, the grass roots, particular campaigns, re­ Fones-Wolf does offer some interest­ gional organization or the relationship of ing and challenging conclusions. First, 328 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

the Party to particular groups such as Af­ extent to which a more distant biographer, rican-Americans, this revisionist scholar­ especially one critical of Stalinism, might ship offered an antidote to Draperian have made it It is, after all, Healey's interpretations which failed to explain attempt to understand, justify and explain why the movement did attract and hold her life, more than a critique of her own many committed Leftists in the 1930s and politics. As Isserman notes, one question 1940s. always nags: why did she take so long to California Red is a marriage of the leave the Party? She was especially criti­ second current of Communist historiogra­ cal of the leadership after the 1950s, but phy and the tradition of autobiographical persevered through Hungary, even memoir: it is the life story of Dorothy Ray Czechoslovakia, not to mention the do­ Healey, a long-standing CPUSA leader, as mestic disasters of those years. Her stub­ told to and written by Maurice Isserman, born longevity may be partly explained a revisionist historian of the Party. Isser­ by her loyalty to the memory of long years man's earlier book, Which Side Are You of sacrifice, idealism, and devotion to the On ?, explored the ideas and politics of the working-class struggles supported by the generation of Communists who joined the Party. One senses, however, in the de­ Party in the Depression decade and then tailed replays of the many wrangles weathered the storms of World War n and within the inner Party sanctums that she post-war debates. His assessment of Party relays in the later part of the book, an history held out some sympathy for Earl addictive inability to set aside the power Browser's attempt to "Americanize" the struggles of the Party in the face of over­ Party in the aftermath of World War II. As whelming evidence of atrophy and a child of an Old Left family, but a pro­ authoritarianism. ponent of New Left ideas, Isserman ap­ Although Isserman obviously asked proached Party history with considerable her questions relating to these issues, he sympathy for the grass roots activism of does not provide critical commentary on Communists and their attempts to create them. While the book is co-authored, the a more "home-grown" variety of Commu­ story and the dominant interpretation are nism. Healey's, not Isserman's. He admits, for Dorothy Ray Healey was a Commu­ example, that her interpretation of Brow­ nist from California who cut her first po­ der's position is rather different from his. litical teeth in the class versus class poli­ Isserman's role was to interview, tran­ tics of the early 1930s, worked as a union scribe, edit and write the story, sometimes organizer and party functionary, rose to using his words to express Healey's positions of prominence in Los Angeles thoughts. He also intersperses her text and the West Coast, and eventually be­ with excerpts from other sources such as came an advocate for reform within the newspapers or FBI reports, as well as in­ National Party. Her story is a compelling terviews with Healey's family, friends, one, told with vivid recall and some pas­ and comrades. While this "pastiche" style sion; although no longer a Party member, is sometimes disconcerting and distract­ she remains committed to a socialist vi­ ing, it can also add small insights, con­ sion of social change. Because she was trasts, and ironies to Healey's dominant one of few women leaders in the Party narrative. whose activism stretched over almost five California Red is one of the most re­ decades, because she often disagreed with vealing, informative and engaging ac­ the leadership, and because of the breadth counts of an American Communist life of her activism, the memoir is a valuable ever published. It touches on many as­ addition to the autobiographical tradition pects of Party life from union organizing of the American Left. It is sometimes in the growing and canning industries of self-critical, though certainly not to the California to the inner power struggles of REVIEWS 329

National Party politics in the 1950s. The at the time. In an earlier debate between sections on union organizing, both at the former Communist Peggy Dennis and grass roots level and later through New Leftist Ellen Kay Trimberger about Healey's work within the CIO are excel­ the relationship between the public and lent, as are the detailed remembrances of the private lives of Old Left women, Den­ her role as a club organizer and as a Party nis admitted that it was difficult to com­ functionary. In the case of many cam­ bine the roles of leader/activist and paigns and issues, Healey can rehearse wife/mother in the Party. As Dennis noted the debates within the Communist camp — and this is clearly true for Healey — as well as those with their adversaries, Communist women did not concentrate and she tries to create some under­ on issues of "personal fulfilment" and standing for her choices, as well as Party they made the sacrifices they thought nec­ manoeuvres, by always exploring the po­ essary for the collective causes promoted litical and social context within which the by the structured, disciplined party to Party operated. And certainly, some pas­ which they were dedicated. sages are very moving, particularly those As part of the autobiographical tradi­ describing the opposition Communists tion of Old Left memoirs, California Red and workers faced in the midst of early is a valuable and revealing account of the union organizing, or those delineating the Communist Party. It offers insight into persecution of the McCarthy period — the Party's history, considerable detail Healey was arrested and imprisoned more about Party work and life, and some criti­ than once, including under the infamous cal appraisal from Healey of the successes Smith Act. and failures of her own work over five Coining from a woman within a Party decades. that claimed concern for women's op­ pression but was nonetheless dominated Joan Sangster by male leaders, the memoir is also infor­ Trent University mative. Healey was never known for her advocacy of the "woman question" as Harvey Klehr, John E. Haynes and much as for other political work — and Fridrikh I. Firsov, The Secret World of perhaps this is precisely why she was American Communism (New Haven & taken seriously as a leader, unlike some London: Yale University Press 1995). other women, such as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who seemed to be more of a fig­ THE AUTHORS SET OUT in this book to urehead in later years. Healey is aware of describe the relations of the Communist the way in which the Party, through its Party of the United States (CPUSA) with political methods and ideology, made it the Comintern, and Soviet intelligence more difficult for women than men to be agencies, based on a selection of ninety- active and rise to the leadership. One two documents drawn from the large senses, however, that she was a rather holdings of the Comintern archives in exceptional, strong, committed, confident Moscow. The authors contend that the woman who was able to overcome the CPUSA was subservient to and received obstacles that weighed many other large subsidies from the Comintern and women down. Save for her relationship closely cooperated through its secret ap­ with her son, which was clearly abso­ paratus with Soviet intelligence services. lutely central to her decisions, other as­ The authors also place their findings in­ pects of her private life are often por­ side the context of CPUSA historiography. trayed as they related to her political life, Orthodox opinion contends "that the and her personal choices vis-à-vis rela­ CPUSA was never an independent Ameri­ tionships, pregnancies and so on were can political party but a creature given life clearly moulded by the needs of the Party and meaning by its umbilical ties to the 330 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Soviet Union." (17) The "revisionist" credit the CPUSA for accepting them, the school "holds that the American Commu­ authors reproduce a ledger sheet showing nist movement was a normal, albeit radi­ payments in 1919-20 to various individu­ cal, political participant in American als, denominated in Russian rubles, valu­ democracy ... with its roots in America's ables, or in foreign currencies. During the democratic, populist, and revolutionary intervention period (1917-21), the Allied past." (17-8) powers blockaded Soviet Russia and The authors' objective is to show that sought to destroy the value of the many the revisionist school is wrong in all its types of circulating paper rubles. Rubles, main lines. While many of the documents especially Soviet rubles, had no foreign included in the collection are interesting, exchange value in January 1920, for ex­ the book itself is unscholarly. It is a po­ ample, when according to the authors the litical tract intended to settle a grudge ledger sheet shows that American jour­ with the new/old left The authors employ nalist John Reed received 1,008,000 ru­ tendentious, if not dishonest arguments, bles in valuables. When Reed tried unsuc­ innuendo, and guilt by association. cessfully to leave Soviet Russia in Febru­ The tract also lacks historical context ary 1920, Finnish authorities stopped him and fails to address important historical with only "1,300 in various currencies issues. For example, what were the and 102 diamonds estimated to be worth Comintern's relations with other national $14,000, a small fortune in 1920," say die communist parties, or with the Commu­ authors. But this was a trifling sum when nist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and compared with "several million dollars in the Soviet government? In the 1920s Brit­ valuables" which the authors claim the ish, French, and American diplomats as­ Comintern handed over to American sumed that national communist parties communists. (24) were mere creatures of the Comintern, Dimitri Volkogonov in his book on which was an instrument of the Soviet V.I. Lenin (1994) states that the Comin­ government controlled by the CPSU. Was tern had no idea how much money it was it all so simple? Narkomindel officials passing out to foreign revolutionaries. (from the commissariat for foreign af­ But Reed tried to leave Soviet Russia with fairs) often told western diplomats that only $15,500. What happened to the rest the Soviet government could not always of the money and how was it sent to control the Comintern, and that Nark­ American communists since Reed died omindel certainly could not. They were later in the year without returning to the incensed by Comintern activities, which United States? "We do not know," replied interfered with business-like relations the authors, in a heated, defensive In­ with the West and acquisition of long, ternet exchange (H-Russia) with the pre­ cheap western credit to develop the Soviet sent reviewer in July 199S. But if they do economy. not know how the money was sent to the The authors push their conclusions United States, how can they state cate­ further than their evidence warrants. This gorically that several millions in red- may surprise, since one might have ex­ tainted money was sent at all? The Bol­ pected the vast Comintern archives to sheviks, of course, saw no taint on the have given up more incriminating evi­ money. They considered themselves to be dence. Yale University Press, in its sensa­ internationalists, and by their lights, it tional April 1995 press release, claims would have been dishonourable not to that the authors have bagged the Bolshie render aid to other communist parties. bear. But have they? The authors say the during the inter- Consider a few examples. In order to war years the Comintern subsidies to the show the extent of Comintern subsidies to CPUSA were large ($75,000, for example, foreign communist parties, and to dis­ in 1923). The $75,000 was not big money REVIEWS 331

for a country as large and prosperous as alleged Communist agents working in­ the United States, but most Comintern side the American government become subsidies and CPUSA expenditures men­ "dozens" on the next page (310-1), but of tioned in the authors' documents are three these only two were imprisoned. They say and four figures. The financial statement two documents "pilfered" from the State of the "Brother-Son" clandestine network Department by a communist "thief" (110, (1942) shows total expenditures of 218) "prove" the CPUSA had "integral $ 11,311, a beginning balance of $30,145, links to Soviet espionage." (205) This and no income. More than half the expen­ evidence is silly. Quite apart from the ditures are three figures. In 1932 a CPUSA unimportance of the two documents and official complained " ... it is annoying to the conspicuous absurdity of the authors' expect funds and not get them, because contention, pilfered Soviet documents are altho (sic) we are stretching out what we a penny apiece in British and French ar­ had, lack of assurance of any more pre­ chives. When American security agencies vents us progressing with the work in any obtain Soviet documents or ciphers by way that will involve expense." (25,211- clandestine means during World War n, 2,51) the authors offer no negative comments. The authors stress the importance of (237) In fact, they celebrate the revela­ CPUSA secrecy and clandestine work. tions of the "Venona" decrypts, now be­ Once again the documents in the collec­ ing released by the American govern­ tion suggest that the secrecy was as ama­ ment. Undoubtedly it is a case of deux teurish as the sums expended to support it poids, deux mesures. were modest. Not the three stooges by any The authors characterize CPUSA head means, but not the nefarious, pervasive Earl Browder as an "NKVD Talent Spot­ operations which the authors seek to por­ ter" (233) based on a single document in tray. In 1925 a CPUSA document com­ which Browder reported to the Comintern plains of a "careless method of sending in 1940 that French Third Republic poli­ mail" (33); in 1932, of mail being sent to tician Pierre Cot was to work with the the wrong comrade (51); in 1939, of poor USSR for a Franco-Soviet alliance. A So­ safeguarding of documents. (101) And viet defector has alleged that Cot was a contact with the Comintern was so clan­ Soviet "agent"; the Venona decrypts destine that CPUSA officials complained prove it, assert the authors in their In­ (for example, in 1932 and 1942) about not ternet posting of 13 July (see also 236-7). hearing from it. In 1939 a top CPUSA But other French cabinet ministers — for official could not recall all the names of example, Georges Mandel and Paul Rey- the members of Central Control Commis­ naud — turn up in Soviet cable traffic to sion. Another document dated 1939 re­ Moscow. Mandel and Reynaud were ports that "Party work at Ford companies strong advocates of a Franco-Soviet alli­ is badly organized." (102) Some of the ance, sometimes seeing the Soviet ambas­ material is more soap opera than espio­ sador in Paris in the late 1930s to pass on nage. A party member, for example, visits information or to complain about the poli­ his politically recalcitrant wife against cies of their government. Does that make party orders. Reynaud and Mandel Soviet "agents"? If There were pervasive CPUSA espio­ Cot acted disloyally toward France, it has nage activities, say the authors, and "in­ yet to be proven. tegral links" between the CPUSA and Charles de Gaulle rebuffed Cot in CPSU/Soviet intelligence agencies. (205) 1940, when he offered his services to the For example, seventeen CPUSA members Free French; he was "an embarrassment," were also members of the CPSU; by the the authors imply, because he was tainted authors' reckoning these seventeen be­ by over-enthusiasm for the USSR. To sup­ come "many." (202) "More than forty" port this point, the authors cite Jean La- 332 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

couture's biography ofde Gaulle. But La- wife had nothing to do with it. Once couture notes that de Gaulle rejected Cot again, is this honest treatment of the evi­ because of his ties with the rotten Third dence? Republic, not the USSR, and that a year The authors are unrelenting: "the later de Gaulle wrote to Cot to praise his CPUSA's own cover arm was an integral conduct as a "bon Français." In 1944 Cot part of Soviet atomic espionage" (226); went on a mission to Moscow for the the CPUSA involvement in Soviet atomic French government at Alger. Is this hon­ espionage "undermine[d] the American est treatment of the evidence? political process." (218) The Soviet test­ Finally, there is the case of Soviet ing of an atomic bomb in 1949 destroyed intelligence operations to obtain Ameri­ the monopoly which the United States can nuclear secrets during World War II, government hoped to retain for 10 to 20 in which the authors claim the CPUSA years and destroyed the American "sense clandestine network was directly in­ of physical security." The United States volved. They focus their attention on one would henceforth have to face the danger Morris Cohen, code-name Louis, who of "serious civilian deaths or destruction" worked in the "Brother-Son" clandestine (225) just like Europe and the USSR, the network. A Soviet intelligence officer re­ authors might have added. Once again, a cently claimed that in 1942 Louis re­ case of deux poids, deux mesures. How­ cruited for Soviet intelligence a physicist ever, the authors do not stop there: "Had who was working on the Manhattan pro­ the American nuclear monopoly lasted ject to develop an atomic bomb. The longer, Stalin might have refused to allow authors produce an undated 1942 sum­ north Korean Communists to launch the mary of "Son" activities, which referred Korean War, or the Chinese Communists to Louis' clandestine work. The docu­ might have hesitated to intervene in the ment strongly implies that Louis was not war...." (226) The authors do not produce in the United States in 1942, that in any a single scrap of evidence to support such event communications with him were assertions. And then there is this prepos­ "extremely difficult," and that the net­ terous statement: American "commu­ work did not know what he was doing. nists' duplicity [with Soviet agencies] (209-10) Were there two comrade agents poisoned normal political relationships code-named Louis, or could one agent and contributed to the harshness of the have been in two places at the same time? anti-communist reaction of the late 1940s The authors later observe, almost inad­ and 1930s [read McCarthyism]." (106) vertently, that Soviet intelligence wanted Do the authors know nothing of Secretary its agents to sever Communist Party ties. of State Robert Lansing's malignant anti- Indeed, Soviet intelligence may not have Bolshevism, even in 1917, or of the 1919 trusted unprofessional and undisciplined Red scare, the Palmer raids, and the viru­ CPUSA members to conduct its most im­ lent anti-communism of the inter-war portant secret enterprises. years which in the 1930s impeded the defence of the west against Nazism? The authors claim in their Internet postings of 13 and 20 July that the Venona The gap between the authors' evi­ decrypts demonstrate "beyond a shadow dence and the authors' conclusions is of a doubt" that Julius and Ethel Rosen­ wide. The above examples are not excep­ berg were "spies" "involved" in Soviet tions; on the contrary, in virtually every penetration of the Manhattan project. The section of this tract the attentive reader decrypts appear to show that Julius will find such gaps. They call into ques­ Rosenberg provided technical and indus­ tion the very integrity of the scholarship. trial information to Soviet agencies, but Yale University Press promises more that he had little or nothing to do with books from these authors; the press would penetration of Manhattan and that his REVIEWS 333 do well to apply the epigram "Doubt passionate man and a historian of genius. everything" to their subsequent work. The equally eloquent, moving and, we "Mind the gap," warns the piped re­ might add, rich, elegant, suggestive, and cording in the London Underground to wide-ranging book under review is a use­ exiting passengers. Readers! Mind the ful and fascinating extension of this origi­ gap also! The evidence adduced in this nal "lengthy essay." tract suggests, contrary to the authors' As Palmer himself observes in his view, that the CPUSA was a relatively Preface, the book does not claim to be a small organization, largely made up of biography of Thompson. A full biography amateurs, working with small financial will, suggests the author, "no doubt be and other resources and having at times written some day, but it will of necessity inadequate or sporadic communications entail deep researches into archival with the Comintern and between its own sources, family papers, far-flung corre­ various elements. While the CPUSA may spondences, personal relationships, and well have had close working ties with the political and intellectual history of the Soviet intelligence agencies, the evidence mid-to-late twentieth century. It will re­ produced by the authors fails to show it. quire resources of expertise and sensitiv­ ity rarely found in any individual student Michael Jabara Carley of history; knowledges and appreciations Ottawa that reach across the chronologies and academic boundaries, politics and poet­ Bryan D. Palmer, E.P. Thompson: Objec­ ics, that Thompson traversed in his life as tions and Oppositions (London: Verso a chronic objector. This will be a long and 1994). important treatment of a life of signifi­ cance and complexity." Palmer's aim is AS REGULAR READERS of Labour/Le more limited: "What follows will prove a Travail will already know, Bryan Palmer mere footnote to this study, a memoir and enjoyed enduring and increasingly close a homage that skirt as much as they probe, professional and personal ties with Ed­ introducing sets of reflections that are ward Thompson during the last twenty meant to illuminate suggestively more years of the Thompson's life. Founded than they aim to provide definitive de- upon common commitments to historical toil." writing, left politics and internationalism, Palmer is, furthermore, only too and notwithstanding differences of cul­ aware of the potential dangers of hagiog- ture, age, upbringing and occasional raphy and uncritical writing raised by his "rocky moments," the "odd friendship" friendship with and admiration for between Thompson and Palmer devel­ Thompson. The author thus acknow­ oped a profound strength characterized ledges openly his particular points of by "an awkward mutuality," "reciprocal commitment and the "sense of benevo­ humours and self-deprecations" and pas­ lence" with which he has regarded his sionate loyalties and objections. subject. But Palmer's overriding concern Thompson's death in the summer of 1993 rests not with the presentation of a rigor­ "literally stopped" Palmer in his tracks. ously critical evaluation of Thompson's Palmer returned from paying respect to academic and political practice, but with and celebrating Thompson's life at the setting his subject within his own context, family home in Worcester to write an terms of reference, and norms and values. obituary for Labour/Le Travail. The Just as Thompson sought to restore con- obituary grew, in veritable Thompsonian textualization, agency, worth, and respect manner, into a "lengthy essay," published to the lives of early 19th-century labour­ in two parts in 1993 and 1994, to stand as ing people so Bryan Palmer is keen for the an eloquent and moving tribute to a fine, reader to hear Thompson's own voice and 334 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

observe the ways in which Thompson de­ task for Palmer is to empathize hermeneu- veloped his outlook on life and his multi- tically and to understand rather than rig­ faceted personal and social identities. orously and clinically to interrogate, criti­ Thompson may not have to be rescued, cize, and judge the academic and political like the stockingers and poor handloom work of the object of enquiry. Failure to weavers, from the "enormous conde­ appreciate this fact has, predictably and scension of posterity" (although the un­ mistakenly led one recent critic, James D. predictable swings of political and intel­ Young, to condemn Palmer's study as lectual fashion may induce such a move­ "hagiographical and uncritical." ment within the burgeoning "Thompson There is no doubt that E.P. industry"), but the reconstruction of his Thompson: Objections and Oppositions own life, context and terms of reference succeeds admirably in fulfilling the aims is of undoubted historiographical, per­ of its author. Thompson's democratic, sonal, and political importance. Palmer morally-charged, and socialist-humanist expresses well his purpose: "I know I voice comes through loud and clear in his have offered too may pages here, and I various roles as academic, political activ­ know, quite acutely, that they are likely ist and "chronic objector" to cant, frozen to be dismissed, as have other pages I orthodoxies, tyrannies and voices of un­ have written on Thompson, as 'hagi­ reason. The warm-heartedness and great ographie' . Thompson himself thought my generosity of E.P.T., whether as teacher 1980 book on him 'too uncritical per­ or friend, combined with his sharp impa­ haps?'. I have written these pages in what tience with student and other examples of I tried to make Thompson's terms, rather self-indulgence and lack of discipline, are than mine. My own criticisms seem rather also clearly revealed. And the text is full unimportant at the moment. There will be of illuminations, suggestions, reflections, others to do this kind of much-needed and acute insights. The chronological and work. They should attend, however, to geographical span is impressive. For ex­ Thompson's own history, which this ample, chapter one roots Thompson's in­ comment has pointed towards, and which ternationalism partly in widespread fam­ the factory management of the Thompson ily traditions and connections stretching academic industry has been lax in coaxing from the United States (through his into production. They may find explana­ mother's side of the family), to Bulgaria tions and resonances in Thompson's past (where his communist brother, Frank, with those areas where legitimate differ­ fighting for the Partisans, had been exe­ ence arises out of his historical and politi­ cuted), to India (where his father had en­ cal writings." (165-6). gaged with politics of Indian inde­ Central to Palmer's project, there­ pendence), to Italy (where Edward served fore, is the construction of meaning. And, during World War II) and Yugoslavia in true Thompsonian fashion, meaning is (where Edward and Dorothy Towers, his to be sought not in largely free-floating future wife, worked on the Yugoslav and de-contextualized ideas and lan­ Youth Railway construction project). guages, but rather in a series of engage­ Subsequent chapters cover a wide variety ments between language and ideas and of topics. Chapters two and three embrace the social world, between concept and Edward and Dorothy's years in Halifax evidence, the "personal" and the "social," and involvement in extra-mural education the "personal" and the "historical" and and the Communist Party; their anti-Fas­ 'political,' and between agency and con­ cism and anti-Stalinism; their departure ditioning structures. The Thompsonian from the Party in 1956; the mixed recep­ method of historical investigation is, in tion to the publication of the The Making effect, geared to the study and illumina­ of the English Working Class (1963); and tion of the teacher himself. The primary the intellectually productive, if politically REVIEWS 335

charged, period at Warwick University an excellent "footnote," Bryan Palmer is during the late 1960s and early 1970s. eminently qualified to write, either indi­ Thompson's disillusionment with and as­ vidually or as part of a collective, the saults upon Althusserian and many other complete biography of E.P.Thompson. forms of dogmatic and/or theoreticist Marxism during the 1970s, his massive Neville Kirk influence upon the peace movement of Manchester Metropolitan University the 1980s, and his continuing objections, passions and visions up to his death con­ Cormac O'Grada, Ireland Before and Af­ stitute the core subjects of chapters four ter the Famine: Explorations in Eco­ to the concluding chapter seven. nomic History, 1800-1925 (Manchester Palmer tells his story in an engaging, and New York: Manchester University nuanced, and lively manner. He writes Press 1993). clearly and with passion. E.P. Thompson: Objections and Oppositions is a "good IT IS RARE for a book that deals with read" which undoubtedly merits the atten­ relatively technical problems in Irish ag­ tion of a wide range of readers, both aca­ ricultural and demographic history (espe­ demic and non-academic. As indicated cially one that bears the imprint of a earlier, the author is, however, fully alive university press), to appear in a second to the fact that, as memoir, his study lacks edition so soon after the publication of the by its very nature the completeness of a first. In the case of this volume, this can full biography. There are gaps to be filled be partly explained by growing public and and issues and questions which merit fur­ scholarly interest in the Irish Famine. Be­ ther elaboration: the nature of tween its original publication in 1988 and Thompson's domestic life; the links and the observance in 1995 of the one hundred tensions between the personal and the and fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of public/political; the profound emphasis the potato blight in Ireland, the number of on creative and democratic self- and col­ famine-centred titles in print grew from a lective activity and organization; and the mere handful to a few dozen. But the sharp critique of Leninist vanguardism popularity of this book is due above all to offered in The Making of the English its impressive scholarship and to the Working Class. The nature of author's ability to present innovative Thompson's political allegiances and vi­ ideas about complex subjects in a clear sions in his later life, his thoughts upon and stimulating way. the contemporary crisis and futures of The five inter-related essays which socialism and organized labour, the na­ comprise Ireland Before and After the ture of his long relations with the labour Famine are essentially the same as those movement and manual and white-collar which appeared in the first edition. Each workers (which in turn could tell us much has been revised and expanded to accom­ about the important, longstanding, and modate new research, to correct minor problematic issue of building lasting and errors and to make stylistic improve­ mutually beneficial relations between ments. O'Grada also adds some new middle- and working-class socialists in items to the appendixes that are attached Britain), and the 'places' and 'functions' to every chapter, among them a letter of socialist intellectuals in British aca­ from Charles Stewart Parnell's grandfa­ demic and public life are topics which ther in 1798 which suggests that he helped also merit extended treatment. shape Thomas Malthus' ideas about To offer such suggestions is, of checks to over-population. course, to go way beyond the stated terms Malthus is the starting point for of reference of E.P. Thompson: Objec­ O'Grada's opening chapter on the pre- tions and Oppositions. Having produced Famine economy. Early 19th-century Ire- 336 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

land appears to substantiate basic Malthu- many have assumed. For all of its impor­ sian principles: a rapidly expanding rural tance in the diets of Irish people, the po­ population awash in poverty and heavily tato accounted for a mere one-fifth of dependant upon a single, highly vulner­ agricultural output in the early 1840s. able source of food, naturally fell victim Per-acre yields of other crops, especially to the calamity of 1843-50. This scenario, wheat, barley and oats, compare favour­ O'Grada argues, is over-simplified. The ably with those in other European coun­ potato was a boon to most Irish people: tries. Agriculture on the eve of the Famine there was nothing in their experience to was highly commercialized: at least a suggest that it was a dangerous crop and quarter of everything produced on the its nutritional content protected them land was exported. The traditional picture from the kinds of maladies that afflicted of a stagnant, backward economy in this the masses of poor in other countries. period is therefore difficult to sustain. Ireland's poverty, which was abysmal by O'Grada's essay on the "incidence any standards and which grew worse over and ideology" of the Famine offers a cor­ time, was not uniformly pernicious. For rective to so-called revisionists who those who survived infancy, life expec­ would downplay mortality figures and ab­ tancy was about the same as in other Euro­ solve British statesmen from blame in pean societies. Nor did their poverty their mishandling of the crisis. About one make the Irish lower classes less healthy million people, or one-ninth of the popu­ than their counterparts elsewhere. Data lation, died as a result of the catastrophe from the service records of the British of 1845-50, most of them from typhus and Admiralty, in fact, indicate that Irish other Famine-related diseases. But in a males were taller and presumably better- real sense those who died were also vic­ fed in childhood and adolescence than tims of ideas — the ideas of political those of most other countries, including economists such as Adam Smith and Nas­ Britain. sau Senior which guided the thinking of Despite its inequities and its deficien­ policy-makers in Whitehall on the matter cies, Ireland's economy before 1845 "did of Famine relief and which were unsuited not contain the seeds of its own inevitable to the task of saving so many lives. destruction by famine.'' (40) Had the po­ O'Grada's discussion of these matters an­ tato blight not struck or had it struck later ticipates the more extensive recent work than it did, cheap sea transportation and of such scholars as Peter Gray and expanding labour opportunities in Britain Christine Kinealy. and America after mid-century would This book concludes with two shorter have provided a comparatively painless essays on the post-Famine economy and remedy for the country's poverty and population. The first suggests that tradi­ over-population. To suggest, as O'Grada tional perceptions of such matters as land­ does, that one of the worse tragedies of lord-tenant relations, the laziness of Irish the Famine lay in its unfortunate timing is fanners and the adoption of agricultural not to make light of the calamity itself. innovations since the mid-19th century Without the Famine, it is also likely have been overly gloomy. The final chap­ that historians would have judged 18th ter is a wide-ranging discussion of inheri­ and early 19th Irish agriculture more fa­ tance, emigration and fertility. vourably than they have. We lack abun­ Many of the ideas and arguments pre­ dant evidence concerning many aspects sented here are developed further in of pre-Famine farming but, as O'Grada O'Grada's important new work, Ireland: shows in his second essay, it would ap­ A New Economic History, 1780-1939. pear to have been much healthier than Both books offer challenging ideas and REVIEWS 337 insights on almost every page and deserve l'intérieur de certains syndicats et cer­ to be read by everyone who has an interest taines sections socialistes et plus fort en in the economic and social forces that banlieue parisienne que dans la capitale. have shaped modern Ireland. Se développent également un discours et une pratique contradictoires, car si on cri­ Gary Owens tique vivement l'État, qui met en danger Huron College les intérêts des travailleurs, on sollicite University of Western Ontario son intervention de façon permanente. «Le temps des crises» entre décembre Jean-Louis Robert, Les Ouvriers, la Pa­ 1916 et mars 1918 présente ensuite un trie et la Révolution. Paris 1914-1919 mouvement social d'une ampleur sans (Besançon: l'Université de Besançon précédent. Une certaine lassitude face à la 1995). guerre et ses effets sur la condition ou­ vrière jointe i une conjonction complexe L'AUTEUR JEAN-LOUIS Robert, profes­ où se cumulent des facteurs climatiques, sor à l'Université d'Orléans, présente économiques, militaires, de même que les dans ce livre la deuxième partie de sa premiers échos de la Révolution russe, thèse d'État intitulée Ouvriers et mouve­ entraînent une vague de grèves majeure, ments ouvriers parisiens pendant la en particulier en mai-juin 1917. Ces Grande Guerre et l'immédiat après dernières, féminines à 80 pour cent, ont la guerre, histoire et anthropologie. Il tente particularité d'émerger de la base et non d'y suivre, comme le titre l'indique, l'at­ du mouvement syndicale organisé, re­ titude des ouvriers et du mouvement ou­ flétant la marginalité dans laquelle les vrier à Paris entre le début de la guerre en femmes ont été tenues par ce mouvement. 1914 et le traité de Versailles. L'auteur La progression du pacifisme ouvrier se suit en parallèle deux volets du mouve­ poursuit et on voit s'opérer une césure ment ouvrier, soit l'activité syndicale entre un mouvement syndical en pleine d'une part, et l'évolution du parti socia­ expansion et un mouvement socialiste en liste, d'autre part. À cause des aléas de la chute libre. documentation conservée, le premier as­ Entre mars et novembre 1918, alors pect fait cependant l'objet d'une couver­ que l'offensive allemande et la contre-of­ ture beaucoup plus systématique et fensive alliée se succèdent, les sentiments développée que le premier. Grèves et profonds des travailleurs parisiens se réunions de base sont analysées de façon révèlent. Même s'ils partagent tous une exhaustive, minutieuse et critique à partir forme ou une autre de défensisme, le sen­ de procès-verbaux et comptes rendus de timent de classe et le sentiment inégalé de réunions et d'assemblées, de rapports de la nécessité de la lutte sociale se mani­ police, de correspondances, de journaux, festent clairement. La guerre a accentué etc. la fracture sociale, laissant d'un côté les Les résultats de la recherche sont ouvriers parisiens qui renforcent le mou­ présentés sous forme chronologique en vement syndical et de l'autre les patrons quatre grandes sections correspondant à dont l'image négative est très générale­ des phases majeures de la guerre. La pre­ ment partagée. mière, qui couvre la période entre août La dernière section, peut être la plus 1914 et décembre 1916, insiste sur des réussie, porte sur juin 1919 et le mouve­ cassures décisives qui apparaissent et per­ ment de grève qui se développa pendant sisteront jusqu'à la fin de la guerre. Mal­ cette période caractérisée par la reconver­ gré l'Union sacrée au début de la guerre, sion de l'économie, la démobilisation et on y voit se dessiner un mouvement paci­ l'attente du traité de paix. Toute la section fiste plus fort dans le département de la est centrée sur la grève des métallos Seine qu'ailleurs en France, plus fort à parisiens et le débat sur sa nature révolu- 338 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

tionnaire. L'analyse aborde d'abord d'édition qui doit exiger de l'auteur d'une l'idéologie des grévistes, polarisée du thèse qu'il épargne au lecteur les mille et côté négatif par Clemenceau, les bour­ un méandres de la recherche pour mieux geois et les dirigeants syndicaux con­ faire ressortir les grandes articulations de fédéraux et fédéraux (à cause de leur refus l'analyse. Le travail d'édition de cet ou­ d'entrer dans une dynamique révolution­ vrage ne mérite d'ailleurs pas de félicita­ naire), et du côté positif par la Révolution tions car on y retrouve de nombreuses soviétique, nouveau phare du mouvement erreurs de toutes sortes. ouvrier. Sont ensuite examinés les lieux Globalement, on peut souligner la pa­ de grèves et les stratégies de rue et briève­ tience et la minutie du travail de Jean- ment les rapports avec les autres com­ Louis Robert et la contribution certaine posantes de la classe ouvrière parisienne, qu'il apporte à la connaissance du mou­ en général centrées exclusivement sur les vement ouvrier. On peut cependant s'in­ revendications à court terme plutôt que terroger sur l'audience qu'il recevra en sur la révolution sociale. dehors d'un cercle très étroit, alors qu'il Dans l'ensemble, on aurait pu s'atten­ apparaît clariement que l'auteur disposait dre à une réflexion plus approfondie sur des matériaux requis pour être à la hau­ les relations entre les concepts de classe teur des attentes suscitées par un titre et de nation, pourtant au coeur de l'ou­ aussi attrayant. vrage. L'auteur, parti «d'une conception assez délibérément empirique pour éviter Christine Piette d'aboutir à une conclusion préinscrite Université Laval dans un positionnement préétabli» n'ar­ rive pas à une conclusion très claire à cet Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols and égard. On peut également déceler une per­ Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reforma­ spective un peu étroite de l'approche qui tion Zurich, Strasbourg and Basel (Cam­ est exclusivement centrée sur la région bridge, New York and Melbourne: parisienne pendant la période considérée. Cambridge University Press 1995). Des comparaisons avec l'ensemble de la France, une contextualisation de l'ana­ ICONOCLASM, the destruction of relig­ lyse dans un temps plus long et une inser­ ious images, is one of the areas where the tion plus importante dans les débats his- popular energies behind the 16th-century toriographiques auraient certes pu en­ Reformation become most evident. richir considérablement l'étude. Ces Iconoclasm was, in part, supported by the ajouts auraient d'autant plus augmenté teachings of Reformation theologians, l'intérêt des lecteurs que l'ensemble de who wanted the images removed, but only l'ouvrage est collé trop étroitement à la in an orderly and legal manner. Ulti­ thèse initiale «légèrement remaniée.» mately iconoclasm was legitimized, with selon la présentation au dos de l'ouvrage. evident reluctance, by governing powers On pourrait ajouter trop légèrement re­ that were more concerned with the main­ maniée. La profusion des détails et des tenance of civil order than with any of the nuances, de même que le foisonnement disputed notions of true Christianity. Ac­ des intervenants pour la plupart inconnus, cordingly, by means of iconoclasm, font en effet perdre de vue la perspective anonymous actors from the "ordinary d'ensemble. Si dans une thèse, on n'a pas people" pressured and interacted with the à se préoccuper des connaissances theological and political elites. The end générales des membres du jury et qu'on result was the bare austerity of the re­ se doit d'étayer sa thèse de façon très formed churches of south Germany and détaillée, un volume destiné au public, Switzerland, one of the most striking ma­ même historien, doit y être plus sensible. terial effects of the "Reformed" Reforma­ C'est là la responsabilité de la maison tion, which distinguished it not only from REVIEWS 339 the material richness of medieval Latin jecte of the old faith during two days in Christianity, but also from the cult of February 1529, and forced the governing north Germany and Scandinavia, where council not only to acquiesce in the icono­ Lutheran theologians and rulers sup­ clasm and complete it, but also to accept pressed iconoclasm, with its explosive an exclusively Protestant religious order popular energies. and to purge its own membership. Only in As in her previous book. Always the trial records of iconoclasts from Zu­ Among Us: Images of the Poor in Zwin- rich do the individual motives of the im­ gli 's Zurich, Lee Palmer Wandel has cho­ age-breakers come to light. In Strasbourg sen a topic of importance to the social and Basel iconoclasm is presented as a history of religion. As in that book, too, more or less anonymous elemental force the source material on the main topic is that the preachers encourage, to some de­ limited. She has picked the three self-gov­ gree, and to which the rulers surrender, erning towns of Zurich, Strasbourg and despite their quest for compromise solu­ Basel and closely analyzed trial records, tions. This difference is due to the petitions and chronicle accounts of icono­ author's primary dependence on chron­ clasm there, as it was connected with the icles in her treatment of Strasbourg and institution of a fully Protestant religious Basel, which is not the case in her treat­ regime. This research has gone beyond ment of Zurich. published documentary collections and The book establishes some important sifted hitherto unused archival material. points about early Reformation icono­ The resulting book is basically a col­ clasm. Most importantly it establishes the lection of four essays with introduction evangelical commoners ("ordinary peo­ and conclusion. The first articulates the ple") as independent actors whose deeds sophisticated medieval theology of im­ cannot be accounted for by initiatives of ages, going back to the Syrian saint John the elites, the preachers and rulers. Also, of Damascus. This is followed by three Palmer Wandel shows that "iconoclasm" essays on the iconoclasm of Zurich, Stras­ was more than a destruction of repre­ bourg and Basel, respectively. Icono­ sentative art such as could be attacked clasm presents different faces in these with Old Testament proof-texts; it in­ three polities. In Zurich, following less cluded candles and altars, the whole eye­ than a year of individual acts of icono­ catching material paraphernalia of the old clasm, which were severely, if not dra- faith, which was forced to yield to the conically, punished, in June 1524 a com­ ear-catching Word, of the preachers, of mittee of the town government systemati­ the bible, and, presumably, of God. cally destroyed the objects of the older Conditioned by the heterogeneity of religious cult. In Strasbourg a much her sources, Wandel interprets the moti­ longer process stretching over seven vation of iconoclasm as differing from years from 1524 was marked by the grad­ town to town. In Zurich the material ele­ ual "purification" of the town from relig­ ments of worship, together with the tithe, ious images by the direct action of per­ amounted to robbery of the poor, "the true sons who were at first lightly punished, images of God," as well as fleecing of then admonished to refrain from further other commoners who wanted to "down­ destruction, and in the end given full en­ size" the elaborate and expensive medie­ dorsement by a government mandate of val religious order. Some of the same February 1530. In Basel the government tones were sounded in Strasbourg as in temporized with iconoclastic activists in Zurich, but the main theme was that im­ 1528 and tried to maintain a policy of ages were ancillary to altars upon which religious pluralism. The outcome was a the "blasphemous" cult of the mass was riot of some two hundred commoners, centred ("blasphemous" because, to the that physically destroyed the religious ob­ Protestant way of thinking, the unique 340 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

sacrifice of Christ could not be repeated As Annette Kuhn points out in the in the mass). In Basel Wandel sees anti- preface, the study of these documents clericalism as the main theme, and the make it clear that as early as the summer climactic iconoclastic riot as a carnava­ of 1932, the general outlines of the Nazi lesque invasion by commoners of the sa­ programmes and attitudes towards cred space of an arrogant and privileged women were clearly in place. The empha­ clerical elite. No doubt all of these mo­ sis on racism, family politics, "eugenics" tives played some part in the iconoclastic and the reduction of women to breeders actions of the Reformation in Switzerland of the next generation was clearly ex­ and south Germany. pressed, as was the gendered idea of the The essays work well with a limited Nazi body politic, which clearly excluded source material pertinent to an important women from high party office. topic. They impute a symbolic language Part I of the book provides a thorough to the iconoclastic acts, which the author historical overview for the period under interprets gracefully and imaginatively. consideration, based on the editors' ex­ One is sometimes reminded of Freudian- tensive readings of the documents. Part II ism and its principle of "overdetermina- contains the 257 documents selected for tion," in which symbolic meanings are this volume. These are diverse: there are heaped upon each other and the more ex­ copies of official party directives involv­ planations the better. There may be some­ ing women's organization; official pro­ thing inherently subversive in interpret­ nouncements and speeches by party lead­ ing Protestant history in this way. After ers and ideologues; propagandiste state­ all, Protestantism began in the search for ments found in brochures and manifestos; the single "true" import of God's Word, articles in the printed media; as well as as opposed to the "sea of meaning" fa­ excerpts from diaries; memoirs, and let­ voured in medieval biblical exegesis. ters, often from the women who helped to further this male-dominated and misogy­ James M. Stayer nist movement. Ironically, the vast major­ Queen's University ity of women who devoted their energies to furthering the Nazi cause believed they Hans-Jurgen Arendt, Sabine Hering, and were achieving a position of equality on Leonie Wagner, eds., Nationalsozialistis- the basis of the National Socialist Weltan­ che Frauenpolitik vor 1933: Dokumenta- schauung which assigned radically sepa­ tion (Frankfurt/Main: dipa-Verlag 1995). rate spheres to men and women. Part III is an appendix containing use­ THIS IMPORTANT collection of docu­ ful information on female membership in ments dealing with National Socialist at­ the Party and its auxiliaries, female vot­ titudes and policies directed towards ing patterns, short biographies, a chronol­ women prior to 1933 fills an important ogy, and an index. This is followed by a gap in our knowledge of the development series of photos and graphically illus­ of National Socialist ideologies and prac­ trated documents. The quality of printing tices in the years prior to the seizure of and photographic reproductions is high, power. While there have been numerous and the book is well worth the DM 58. It works, including some excellent studies is also worth noting that the book repre­ in English, on the effects of the Nazi re­ sents a fruitful collaborative effort in­ gime between 1933-45, relatively little is volving scholars from both the Federal known of the early years, when the Nazi Republic of Germany and the former Ger­ party languished in obscurity along with man Democratic Republic. other radical right wing movements until The book helps to further not only our the depression provided a trigger for ex­ understanding of the appeal of radical tremists of all sorts. right-wing approaches to the "woman REVIEWS 341 question" to certain segments of the trenched system which dreamed of Brazil (mainly middle class) population, espe­ as the France of South America ignored cially during times of economic disloca­ their cultures. Eduardo Silva neatly cir­ tion during the 1920s and 1930s: it also cumvents the problem of sources by fo­ sheds light on current right-wing radical­ cusing his study on a single individual. ism and gender issues in Germany. Na­ CIndido da Fonseca Galvao a.k.a. His tional Socialist women formed an anti- Highness Prince Oba H of Africa, hitherto feminist women's movement against the dismissed as an alcoholic eccentric, was, German women's movement, and were as the author effectively shows, repre­ important in creating some respectability sentative of a key socio-cultural group — for the often rowdy members of the early the free-born men of colour—and a para­ Nazi party. The fact that present female digm for analysis of the larger dynamics sympathizers of the German Republican of society. party also see themselves as the guardians The subject of Silva's work was born of "feminine values" and opposed to at Lençoes in the diamond region of Ba- feminism raises the issue of the continuity hia, the son of a former slave who was of certain constructions of womanhood, Yoruba, born in what is now Nigeria. On and the importance of these to the politi­ the mining frontier the factors of produc­ cal realm. tion were not so tightly controlled nor were cultural and racial boundaries so Rosemarie Schade rigid. It was possible for an ex-slave to Concordia University make an independent living and for his son to acquire the rudiments of the domi­ Eduardo Silva, Prince of the People: The nant culture, in particular literacy. The Life and Times of a Brazilian Free Man outbreak of the war against Paraguay in of Colour (London: Verso, 1993). 1865 offered an avenue for advancement. The ranks of the Voluntdrios da Pâtria BRAZIL in the 19th century was far more (Volunteers of the Fatherland) contained than the masters and the slaves. The free- both rich and poor, cultured and illiterate, born and freed — white, mulatto, mestizo white and coloured. Fonseca Galvao and black — were numerous and partici­ gained the post of sublieutenant. By a pated in a dynamic and expanding econ­ tradition inherited from the colonial pe­ omy, especially in the towns and on the riod, military officers enjoyed fidalgo agricultural and mining frontiers. A sig­ (noble) status. nificant part of the free and freed were Hopes for continued upward mobility immigrants from Europe and Africa, who proved vain. Invalided out of the war in retained their links with their homelands 1866 with a hand wound, Fonseca Galvao (as the Brazilian quarter in Lagos, Nigeria found himself without prospects and attests) and their ethnic identity. Brazil without any means of living. He eventu­ during the Imperial regime (1822-1889) ally moved to the national capital, Rio de thus provides an excellent case study of Janeiro, and there he developed a new the interplay of class, race, gender and persona. Without denying the dominant ethnicity which has in recent years consti­ religion, language and dress, he presented tuted such a rewarding approach to ana­ himself as Dom Oba II Principe d' Africa, lysing the past. the leader by birthright of an ethnic com­ One drawback to such a study of Im­ munity — the Yoruba immigrants and perial Brazil is the relative paucity of ma­ their descendants. By so doing he sought terials. The regime possessed no strong both to secure his own place in the domi­ apparatus of control (and so generated nant society and to act as mediator for and limited records). The subordinated so gain a clientele within the ethnic com­ groups were not literate, and the en­ munity. 342 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

As Silva demonstrates in Chapters 6 Christine Httnefeldt, Paying the Price of and 8 (perhaps the best parts of the book), Freedom: Family and Labor among Dom Oba achieved some success in the Lima's Slaves. 1800-1854 (Berkeley: second goal during the 1880s, making University of California Press 1994). effective use of the Yoruba symbols of power. Far from inhabiting a dream SLAVERY IN PERU ended with a govern­ world, Fonseca Galvao-Dom Oba was an mental decree but according to this excel­ integral part of the pequena Africa (little lent monograph, the slaves themselves Africa) of Rio city that blended the Afri­ had already eroded the institution long can and the Portuguese. The dominant before Peru's legislators succumbed to culture did not take him seriously but, the tides of the movement for abolition. being patriarchal, client-oriented, and Rather than passive pawns in this struggle personal, it accommodated him, espe­ over the chains of human bondage, cially since he offered it no challenge. He Lima's slaves were extremely inventive could attend the Emperor's public audi­ in their campaigns for personal freedom ences on Saturdays, bombard the authori­ and did not accept either the identity or ties and newspapers with letters, and eke the values which owners tried to impose out a living from others' charity. upon them. This book documents these This kingdom fell with the Empire, strategies as well as the context in which overthrown by an army coup in Novem­ they took place in post-Independence ber 1889. Stripped of his honorary lieu­ Peru. With the recent publication of Peter tenancy for opposing the new republic, Blanchard's Slavery and Abolition in Dom Oba was no longer tolerated. He Early Republican Peru, the outlines of a died a few months later. The people of once under-studied topic, Peruvian slav­ colour were driven downwards by the ery in the early 19th century, are becom­ flood of immigrants from Europe. Class ing clearer. and racial categories, much more strictly Although the slaves of Lima are the defined and enforced, were becoming focus of this book, the author recognizes synonomous. and explores the important connection be­ Eduardo Silva's study is not flawless. tween outlying estates and the urban cen­ It lacks a strong conceptual framework, tre. In a fascinating chapter, she describes so the individual chapters form separate not only the connections between the ru­ studies of differing purpose and varying ral and urban worlds but the slaves' un­ merit. The first two chapters in particular derstanding that the opportunities for are too rambling and descriptive. The freedom were strategically better in the author seems oblivious to gender as a city. As such, they tried by whatever category of analysis. The text contains means possible to migrate. The reverbera­ both mistakes of fact and misconceptions. tions of this connection between city and Some of these may, however, be due to countryside in the lives of Lima's slaves the translator's lack of understanding of re-emerges in other parts of the book. For the Brazilian context. Her lack of skill at example, recalcitrant slaves who peti­ times produces clumsy English. Nonethe­ tioned either for a new master or for the less, the work is innovative, stimulating chance to buy their freedom were often and shows what can be achieved in the spirited away to an estate. This tactic, as field of Brazilian history. practised by owners desperate to avoid considerable financial loss, was the ob­ Roderick J. Barman ject of many outraged petitions by the University of British Columbia relatives of the slaves. This analytical perspective adds many more layers of complexity to the telling of the experi­ ences of slaves; it provides a richness to REVIEWS 343 the monograph which would recommend of its racial identity. Slave husbands ar­ it if only for this aspect gued against the presence of their wives Yet, the study has much more to offer. in the same house as their own master Marriage and the consequent family net­ since the humiliation of seemingly un­ work were a major part of the slaves' avoidable abuses was inimical to the tactics for freedom. Couples offered each Catholic conception of marriage. Not all other considerable support especially if of these petitions were successful, but one was free and could more easily peti­ they demonstrate the slaves' under­ tion authorities on the behalf of the en­ standing of the strategic use of the Catho­ slaved partner. But the act of marriage, lic Church and the values which emanated aside from any romantic inclinations, was from it and Peruvian society. an extremely potent weapon. The Catho­ The author uses the testimony of lic Church became one of the slaves' most slaves and their owners quite liberally and important allies since the clerics upheld these excerpts provide a lively sense of the rights of married slaves to cohabit. In the spirit of many of the slaves. It is clear their zeal to see the end of immoral extra­ that many of the slaves used the prevail­ marital relations. Church officials for­ ing values of Peruvian society to their bade the separation of married couples, advantage but often rejected values which prevented the sale of one partner or the were demeaning to them. They chal­ transfer of one half of a couple to a distant lenged the identity which the elite wished place. The sanctity of marital relations to impose upon them and rejected the thus became important within the arsenal servitude which their condition implied. of the slaves as they fought for their free­ The complaints of masters can be just as dom. evocative. In particular, the long saga, The networks of marriage partners told by the mistress, of a slave called José and children which derived from mar­ Gregorio shows a very active and open riage were also vital to the slaves. Not contempt for the "rights" of ownership. only were those who had already escaped With impressive research, Christine bondage able to intervene in abusive situ­ Hiinefeldt provides an engaging picture ations but also they had a greater capacity of the road to freedom for Lima slaves. to acquire the funds to purchase the lib­ She puts the slaves front and centre, mak­ erty of their relatives. Yet, the slaves ing them the principal actors in this story. themselves were not passive in this proc­ In fact, she concludes that the masters ess. They often tried to lower their price were not able to successfully resist the to make freedom more accessible; they onslaught of the slaves' attacks on their did so by feigning sickness or by acting bondage and in fact were fighting a losing out in a rebellious manner. Masters battle. In this book, the politicians who fought back by depositing these slaves in eventually outlawed slavery in Peru are bakeries (which served as closed work- absent but they are not missed. It is an camps for disobedient slaves) or sending engaging study which historians of slav­ them into the countryside. ery and others specializing in the history Slaves and their relatives also turned of the family should read. the values of Peruvian society against the masters and used these to attack the Sonya Lipsett-Rivera abuses they suffered. Female slaves, who Carleton University often suffered the sexual depredations of male owners, argued that the loss of their virginity was grounds for manumission. Others contended that the fruit of such unions, a child born of a slave mother and free father, could not be a slave because 344 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Kevin A. Yelvington, Producing Power: The consequent restructuring of the la­ Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in a Carib­ bour force has resulted in more unem­ bean Workplace (Philadelphia: Temple ployed men and female breadwinners, a University Press 1995). situation that has social implications reaching far beyond the workplace, into KEVIN A. YELVINGTON'S, study of the homes, politics, and social policy. The interrelations of ethnicity, gender, and widespread nature of these changes gives class in a Trinidadian factory is based on Yelvington's study a significance far be­ his participant observation from 1986 to yond the particular insights he provides 1987 and his doctoral thesis in social an­ into the social dynamics of a Trinidadian thropology at the University of Sussex factory. (1990). His fieldwork provided the basis Employers in Trinidad use cultural for understanding the relations and cul­ and political as well as economic mecha­ ture in which these workers participate nisms to influence the availability and and for a critical evaluation of theories of price of labour and to discipline their em­ social identity and social reproduction. ployees, but the employees react in vari­ This book is well organized and clearly ous ways to the commodification of their written, the empirical observations well labour power, often by drawing attention integrated with the theoretical concerns. to the social and moral obligations that Alongside Maria Patricia Fernandez- are implicit in the positions taken by the Kelly's For We Are Sold, I and My Peo­ state and the capitalists. The historic tran­ ple, Aiwha Ong's Spirits of Resistance sition from slave to wage labour, from the and Capitalist Discipline, and Helen I. commodification of the labourer to that of Safa's The Myth of the Male Breadwin­ his or her labour power, did not end their ner, Yelvington's book is a major contri­ exploitation, but it did change the legal bution to our understanding of the roles and social context of the continuing strug­ of women in the recent industrialization gle for emancipation. By articulating a of the Third World. theory of practice that unites history, cul­ An "industrial" organization of la­ ture, structure, and human agency, and bour and ethnic segmentation of the la­ integrating the levels of the factory, the bour process are not new in colonial and society, and the global economy, Yelv­ formerly colonized societies. Indeed, the ington clarifies the various ways that peo­ Caribbean may be seen as having pio­ ple may transform, and be formed by, the neered these aspects of the modern divi­ institutions and situations in which they sion of labour between the 17th and 19th work and live. As he says, "power and centuries. Yelvington summarizes the production are intimately bound up with wealth of material on the use of enslaved each other and ... we cannot understand African and indentured Indian labour in the creation and contestation of such sig­ Trinidad during the development of capi­ nificant social identities as ethnicity, talism as the crucial context for the for­ class, and gender without also under­ mation of contemporary inequalities standing the material productive arrange­ based on ethnicity, gender, and class. ments of the specific context." (4) Yelv­ What is relatively new in Trinidad, and ington takes a dialectical approach to the many other countries, is the growth of culture of domination and resistance: export-led industrialization that coin­ "Ethnicity, class, and gender are socially cides with a general decline of agricul­ constructed in relation to each other," (8) tural occupations. In this dual process and changing forms of consciousness and there has been a dramatic decline in the identity are related to changes in the mode jobs that are considered suitable for men of production. Chapter One outlines his and an increase in the availability of jobs theoretical approach to the interrelation­ for women, particularly young women. ship of ethnicity, gender, class, and the REVIEWS 345

politics of power under capitalism. Chap­ and culturally specific, cannot be derived ters Two and Three situate his ethnogra­ from abstractions about "hegemony" or phy in the history and economy of Trini­ "modes of production," but can be under­ dad and describe the work force and the stood, as Yelvington shows quite bril­ work routine in the factory. Chapters liantly, only as they exist in the real ac­ Four, Five, and Six examine, in turn, eth­ tivities of real people in particular condi­ nicity, gender, and class at work in the tions. factory, and the conclusion returns to the theoretical issues with which the book O. Nigel Bolland began. Colgate University Like any good piece of scholarship, Yelvington's book raises as well as re­ Zachary Lockman, éd., Workers and solves questions. One question raised, for Working Classes in the Middle East: example, has to do with the distinction Struggles, Histories, Historiographies made by Michel de Certeau between (Albany: State University of New York strategies and tactics of resistance, in Press 1994). which tactics are conceived as an "art of the weak." While tactics may yield posi­ THIS ANTHOLOGY on the state of the art tive results, Yelvington points out that, in Middle Eastern labour history resulted "given the nature of the overarching from a 1990 workshop at Harvard Univer­ power relationship, the utilization of sity. It consists of articles with different these tactics provide [sic] a basis of fur­ methodologies, theoretical, temporal, and ther attempts to subordinate the subordi­ regional focuses by leading historians of nate in the long run." (229) Thus, a the Middle East, many specialists in la­ woman worker who emphasizes her pas­ bour history. It provides a wealth of infor­ sivity or sexuality in order to negotiate mation to the non-area-specialist labour some improvement in her work situation historian as well as conceptual and histo- contributes to the social construction of riographical insights to the general Mid­ gender in such a way as to reinforce the dle East historian. The all-too-common subordination of women. Perhaps trade problem of eclecticism in anthologies de­ unions may be seen in this light, if we can riving from conferences has been averted see what is "strategic" at one level as a in this volume by a comprehensive ana­ "tactic" at another level. To obtain un­ lytical introduction by the editor and two ionization within a factory such as the one critical essays at the end (by Edmund Yelvington studied may be a strategic vic­ Burke III and Dipesh Chakrabarty), all tory for the workers, but in the society as informed by the debates at the workshop. a whole trade unionism remains a tactic The study of workers and working of the weak in so far as it continues to classes in the Middle East has been ne­ acknowledge the subordination of the glected due to various historiographical workers under capitalism. The issue of biases. The Orientalist disdain for subal­ union recognition, therefore, may be cru­ tern social groups and identities has rein­ cial to workers' resistance in the factory, forced the modernization theorists' con­ while it is a matter of compromise with ventional privileging of elites. Propo­ capitalism in the society at large. nents of dependency theory have emphasized class, but devoted insuffi­ Yelvington's analysis is commend­ cient attention to a working class weak­ able because he helps us understand the ened by Western industrial capitalism. variety of ways that people define and are Recently, the New Left has focused atten­ socially defined in terms of their ethnic, tion on the working class as a revolution­ gender, and class identities by the power ary agent by subscribing to a more rigid relationships in their society. These rela­ Marxist analysis. tionships, because they are historically 346 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

In the Introduction, Zachary Lock- Several authors (Lockman, Joel Beinin, man reviews the existing paradigms and Ellis Goldberg) offer new insights and presents the revisionist agenda of this correctives on their past work on Egypt, project (Labour may be on the margin of as others (Kristin Koptiuch, Marsha Prip- Middle Eastern studies, but Lockman's stein Posusney) dialogue closely with that discussion reveals that labour history is work. The nuanced presentation of theo­ far from being the most neglected aspect retical and historiographical issues per­ of Middle Eastern social history, in large taining to Egypt in a number of historical part thanks to the past work of the con­ periods contrasts with the compendious tributors to this book.) The Introduction, substantive treatments of "histories and with diversity as its main theme, ad­ historiographies," particularly in the dresses the merits of the Middle East as a chapters on Turkey (Feroz Ahmad), Iran unit of analysis. The editor discusses the (Assef Bayat), and Iraq (Eric Davis). pitfalls of accepting the Middle East as a These differences in scope and meth­ unit of inquiry by virtue of common (Is­ odology do not present problems in the lamic) cultural patterns or common trans­ cohesion of the book, which is organized formations under the impact of the capi­ chronologically, but in the project's the­ talist world economy. Lockman con­ matic consistency. In the early chapters, cludes that the Middle East is "a Sherry Vatter and Donald Quataert pro­ legitimate entity because it has meaning vide the late Ottoman backdrop. There are for many people, within the region itself parallels between Quataert's broader and outside of it, however that meaning analysis of state-labour relations and Vat­ was originally produced." (xvii) He is ter's appraisal of the journeyman-master less inclined to view the "working class" relationship in Damascus. Both authors as a useful category; to be sure, the plurals stress guild dynamism, and point to the in the book's title point to the project's workings of a moral economy in the emphasis on the multiplicity of experi­ workers' demands for fairness. Quataert ences, self-views, and narratives. discusses the modes in which workers The authors pose a number of new expressed their grievances (petitions, directions in the study of Middle Eastern public appeals) even as they groped for labour and many agree on a research collective action in unions (which looked agenda that moves discourse analysis to more like guilds than modern syndicates) the forefront. There is an overall appeal vis-à-vis a repressive state. to view workers not only in the workplace In the first article that treats Egypt, but in their daily lives, and in the context Koptiuch describes the persistence of vi­ of their domestic and public cultural prac­ brant petty commodity production long tices rather than as the members of a van­ after Egypt confronted industrial capital­ guard fulfilling its deterministic role in ism and well into the 20th century, thus the factory. imparting further strength to the case for The core of the book consists of es­ abolishing the sharp dichotomies between says on Egypt. Why and how Egypt has artisan labour and "proletarian" labour. In come to constitute the laboratory for the a separate chapter, Lockman elaborates study of Middle Eastern labour, however, on another main theme of the volume: the is not addressed in the historiographical significance of investigating the cultural and historical discussion. Egypt does components of class formation while ex­ serve as a useful model here, and concep­ ploring and accounting for the multifari­ tualizations and problematics most elabo­ ous narratives of labour history, foremost rately articulated for Egypt are effec­ among them those reflecting worker sub­ tively addressed by the non-Egyptianist jectivity. Goldberg then addresses one contributors as well. Yet, the focus on manifestation of the workers' voice by Egypt also creates a certain imbalance. analysing some memoirs of Egyptian la- REVIEWS 347

hour activists from the 1930s. He argues economic struggles into political ones. that a relationship of agency rather than Particularly poignant in Davis' account is subordination prevailed between the the prominent role that the Iraqi working workers and administrators/owners of class played in politics and society in the textile factories as a result of the workers' 1940s and 1930s by transcending ethnic rational expectation of benefits (primar­ differences. ily job security) deriving from enhanced As Burke points out in his comments, productivity. Posusney, in contrast, is this volume might have benefitted from a skeptical of attempts to understand more consciously comparative approach. worker consciousness with the very lim­ And as the editor laments by pointing to ited discursive evidence. She turns her the financial constraints of the workshop, attention to an analysis of collective ac­ the collection does not include contribu­ tion and upholds the moral economy ar­ tions from labour scholars pursuing ca­ gument by concluding that worker action reers in parts of the Middle East that are in contemporary Egypt is by and large the objects of their research. The anthol­ restorative (if not symbolic) rather than ogy remains, however, as perhaps the sin­ rational, seeking more favourable terms gle most significant contribution to the at times of economic prosperity. In the study of labour in the Middle East by last chapter on Egypt, Beinin turns to con­ virtue of its breadth of scope and revision­ temporary Egyptian critiques of the his­ ist import. It builds on existing theoretical torical role of the Left in the workers' ground by offering further conceptual nu­ movement as one of betrayal and co-opt­ ances, fresh information, and new direc­ ing by the Nasserist state. Beinin does not tions for empirical research. Indeed, this reject this argument, but takes issue with collective effort by the leading historians the contention that such betrayal was re­ of labour should be a paradigm for other sponsible for the dissipation of a revolu­ components of Middle Eastern subaltern tionary opportunity in 1977. The social studies. movement of the late 1970s encompassed many different subaltern strata, he argues, Hasan Kayali which lacked a unified consciousness. University of California, San Diego The volume's stress on the need to analyze worker attitudes in a broader cul­ Martin J. Murray, The Revolution De­ tural, economic, and political context ferred: The Painful Birth of Post-Apart­ finds concrete expression in the articles heid South Africa (New York and by Ahmad and Bayat, who look at Turkey London: Verso Books 1994). and Iran, respectively, across an extended period. While most contributors would FOR THOSE LOOKING for a well-in­ agree on the importance of the role of formed coherent study of the historical women on the one hand and Islam on the transition era in South Africa (1990-94), other, in the project of shifting the focus this new publication by Martin Murray from "structure" to "culture" it is only in will be a useful starting point. In the in­ Ahmad's account that we encounter the troduction, he suggests that he will be female worker's voice, and in Bayat's combining a sociological and conjunctu- some analysis of how class consciousness ral approach. In practice, The Revolution has come to be articulated through relig­ Deferred is largely good political narra­ ion. Bayat and Davis provide concise ac­ tive (if sociologically informed) with lit­ counts of labour historiography pertain­ tle theoretical input. Murray is an ing to Iran and Iraq, respectively, while agrarian historian of agrarian South Af­ the Turkish experience provides Ahmad rica who has previously written a study of the opportunity to investigate the vicissi­ the politics of the 1980s. This sequel, like tudes in the transformation of workers' its predecessor, is based primarily on a 348 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

close reading of the best periodical litera­ to a sweeping analysis. If so, the concep­ ture in the country assisted by discussions tualization of a "deferred revolution" with some of the more perceptive analysts might be harder to sustain. The ANC does in South Africa. Perhaps due to hindsight, not really show signs of a clearcut divi­ it is the better volume. Murray occasion­ sion between left and right. On the one ally makes factual mistakes — "Venda... hand, there is a universally acknow­ straddling the Limpopo River" (63) — ledged, still raw history of struggle and some of his interpretations require bathed in moral rectitude. On the other, more supporting evidence — "de Klerk there is a strong capacity for pragmatism remained a partially immobilized captive and a tendency towards opportunism. In­ of the 'securocrats' left over from the side the ANC, there will continue to be Botha era" (89) — but he generally has a Left intellectuals who plot a trajectory of keen eye for what is significant. structural transformation without any real This book virtually stops with the means of achieving their goals. It in fact 1994 election; only a few paragraphs at suits even the most cynical or conserva­ the end look forward to the post-election tive in the leadership to continue to have era. The key issues are strategic: Murray such a pool of intellectuals and activists. gives an excellent sense of the changing Murray's last pages express hope for balance of forces in the transition period. the adoption of a coherent Keynesian pro­ From a perspective sympathetic to revo­ gramme on the part of the ANC but as of lutionary change, he observes and evalu­ late 1995, relatively little has been deliv­ ates the United Democratic Front (UDF) ered. Without it, as Murray clearly em­ and the exiled African National Congress phasizes, those that have power in civil (ANC), the trade union movements and society will continue to wield it. Murray the "civic" organizations. Much is de­ exaggerates both the coherence of ANC voted to showing how factors such as the strategy and its capacity to stand up to weakening of the armed struggle, the tra­ pressures from the business world in jectory of violence, structural divisions South Africa. within black South Africa and even Yet the ANC s problem with delivery within the South African black working may have far more to do with competence class, help to explain growing weak­ and capacity than intention. I can repeat nesses on the side of the forces for change an anecdote I was told the other day con­ as negotiations proceeded. cerning the first Communist government There was a strange disjuncture in to take office in the Indian state of Kerala South Africa between the world of strug­ in the 1950s; the chief minister, Nam- gle politics and the hard bargaining be­ boodiripad, commented that it was a com­ hind closed doors that eventually brought plete error to have thought that they were about the creation of a new political order then assuming power. All that they were and it is difficult to evaluate the actions doing was taking over an administration of the men and women who were engaged whose byways they hardly grasped. in both at once or in succession. Is there Yet unlike the Kerala Communists, in fact, as the title suggests, a deferred the ANC are apt to stay in office for a long revolution waiting in the wings? Murray time; their support base does not rest es­ skates close to saying that providence sentially on performance. Because of this, ought to "address" adequately the histori­ they may have the luxury of learning cal social ills of South Africa but why slowly and making mistakes. There may should this be the case without an effec­ even be reason for radicals within the tive political or economic actor? (2) ANC, whether Communist Party mem­ Perhaps following the limitations of bers, trade unionists or others, to hope the kind of sources to which Murray that their day will come. For black South turned, the ANC itself has not been subject REVIEWS 349

Africans, there are no alternatives to the ously challenged was devoid of an em­ ANC in sight pirical foundation. 7%« Revolution Deferred is a very Graham's book is one of a handful of useful book; nonetheless one perhaps studies of auto transplants in North needs to mention its generic limitations. American that have exposed the MIT Murray's more important analytical group's fanciful characterizations of what points, his strategic connections, are it's like to work under lean production. largely taken from a variety of South Af­ The author spent six months working on rican critics. At most, he adds a note of the assembly line at the Subaru-Isuzu caution or qualification. He is not really (SIA) plant in Lafayette, Indiana. During able to transcend what he has read in this time, unbeknownst to the company South Africa or to select the lasting and her co-workers, Graham was gather­ themes that might give this work a more ing data — mainly systematic observa­ long-term analytical purchase. There is tions and informal conversations with co­ no convincing theory of transition or workers — for her PhD thesis. From a change by which Murray allows us to shopfloor perspective Graham provides a measure South African events. Murray rich account of a lean factory and the has perhaps allowed himself too much experiences of workers as they were scope to comment on an overly broad quickly transformed from raw recruits to range of issues; a narrower but more fo­ hardened veterans. cused study might have made a good book A pre-employment screening process better. — batteries of tests and interviews con­ ducted periodically over two months — is William Freund aimed at selecting (from some 30,000 ap­ University of Natal plicants) a cooperative workforce moti­ vated to work in a union-free plant. The Laurie Graham, On the Line at Subaru- procedures were not foolproof, however, Isuzu: The Japanese Model and the as Graham and others gave answers they American Worker (Ithaca: ILR-Cornell knew the company wanted. Successful University Press 1995). applicants underwent three weeks of ori­ entation and training, over one-half of THE ARRIVAL in North America of Japa­ which was devoted to communicating nese transplants allegedly marked the be­ company values and shaping attitudes. ginning of a golden age in the auto Many workers also saw through this industry. In The Machine That Changed hype, although they pretended otherwise. the World, a multi-million dollar cross- As they settled into their jobs, work­ national study conducted by a team of ers found that the lofty ideals transmitted Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier were not practised on the shop- (MIT) researchers, Japanese production floor. Instead, they experienced constant management, or lean production, was speedup, highly standardized jobs, con­ portrayed in evangelical tones as a post- tinuous monitoring by supervisors and Fordist corrective to mass production's team leaders, tightly controlled and nar­ inefficiencies and inflexibilities, its rowly defined participation (kaizen), peer mind-numbing jobs performed by alien­ pressure, favouritism, and unscheduled, ated workers, and its adversarial labour- mandatory overtime. Women found management relations. While the study themselves performing the least skilled compiled reams of comparative statistics and most labour-intensive jobs. There on output per person, defects, space utili­ were few black workers and fewer still in zation, die-change time, and other meas­ any position of authority. The most jar­ ures of efficiency, its portrayal of workers ring discrepancy between promise and re­ as multiskilled, empowered and continu­ ality was the alarmingly high incidence of 350 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

injuries, particularly repetitive strain in­ fashioned, nor is there anything to distin­ juries. guish SIA as post-Fordist. (It also is in­ Graham isolates seven elements of structive to recall that social controls SIA operations that generate what she were instituted at the Ford Highland Park calls an "iron-cage of control": stringent plant in the second decade of this century. recruitment criteria, ideological training, To qualify for $5 a day wages workers philosophy of kaizen, team concept, com­ had to demonstrate to company inter­ pany shaping of shopfloor culture, a com­ viewers that their lifestyles met Henry puterized assembly line, and just-in-time Ford's rigid moral standards.) production. She explains how each of Perhaps SIA workers were not as these operates to achieve worker compli­ bloody-minded as Ben Hamper, the Flint ance. Despite the "iron-cage," workers auto worker who wrote Rivethead and engaged in acts of individual and collec­ whom Graham uses to typify workers un­ tive resistance, ranging from refusals to der Fordist mass production. However, participate in team meetings and com­ even if we assume that Hamper is typical, pany rituals to sabotaging the line. An the contrast is not nearly as sharp as Gra­ entire chapter is devoted to a discussion ham suggests. Instead of committed of resistance. workers who identified with the com­ "The Japanese model," Graham ob­ pany, Graham found compliance, cyni­ serves, "creates a highly controlled at­ cism, and resistance. Certainly, the resis­ mosphere aimed at preventing workers tance would have been more focused and from expressing their inherent resentment effective had an independent union been of authority and domination, which could present, but that is another matter. Work­ potentially lead to concerted action and ers showed little interest in unionizing, could foster their independence from the but this reflected insecurity and fear company." Graham concludes that SIA, rather than identification with the com­ and by implication lean production in pany. SIA showed on in-plant TV screens general, represents a post-Fordist, all the unionized plants in the US that had hegemonic workplace because it uses so­ closed. SIA's large corps of temporary cial as well as technical controls to con­ workers with lower wages and no benefits tain resistance and generate consent. This served as a constant reminder to the full- is a remarkable conclusion since her data timers that their employment security was and analyses point in another direction. tenuous. And Graham's co-workers told An organization is hegemonic only to the her that they believed unionization would extent that subordinates internalize the lead SIA to relocate. Ben Hamper did not dominant ideology and act accordingly. face these kinds of threats. All this adds This does not describe workers at SIA any up not to hegemony but at best to what more than it does those at Mazda in Michael Burawoy called hegemonic des­ Michigan, NUMMI in California, and potism, a term that Graham curiously ig­ CAMI in Ontario. In the above quote the nores. operative words are "aimed at." Had SIA Post-Fordism is a misleading con­ kept its promises of open communication, cept, but this is a minor quibble. This is empowerment, cooperation, etc., Graham an outstanding book. Like Satoshi might have told a different story. Instead, Kamata's Japan in the Passing Lane, a she remarks: "With the demands of capi­ participant observation study that starkly talist production, it became apparent that exposed the price Japanese workers pay SIA was just like any other company op­ for Toyota's success, Graham's ethno­ erating within the same constraints." And graphic account of SIA shatters the san­ in the author's own words, SIA was driven guine mythology surrounding Japanese by "hidden and open intimidation." This transplants in North America. The book is is not the stuff out of which hegemony is on the required reading list of my under- REVIEWS 351 graduate course in industrial sociology. It There is also a dispute concerning the is a must read for students of lean produc­ cause of its emergence. Charles Murray, tion and team concept, and I recommend for example, in Losing Ground, contends it to anyone interested in labour and in­ that the urban poor are "rational-decision­ dustrial relations. makers" who have responded to the in­ centives built into social policy, particu­ James Rinehart larly America's public assistance system. University of Western Ontario Lawrence Mead, in contrast, sees the problem in the wholesale breakdown of Lydia Morris, Dangerous Classes: The the moral integrity of urban communities Underclass and Social Citizenship (New — particularly concerning work and fam­ York: Routledge 1994). ily. Only a widespread enforcement of Jonathan Simon, Poor Discipline: Parole social discipline can turn the situation and the Social Control of the Underclass, around. 1890-1900 (Chicago: Chicago University Lydia Morris is the only one of the Press 1993). three books reviewed here that examines Christopher Jencks, The Homeless (Cam­ the underclass in its entirety. She brings a bridge: Harvard University Press 1994). refreshing cross-national perspective to a debate that has grown stale. The key lens THE THREE BOOKS under review all ad­ through which she analyzes the under­ dress different aspects of concentrated ur­ class debate is the concept of "social citi­ ban poverty with particular reference to zenship" that she sees as the exact reverse the United States. They each do so from of the underclass: social citizenship a particular "left" perspective. Morris ex­ stands for "the promise of social inclu­ amines the literature on poverty and the sion, as opposed to [the underclass' con­ welfare state in the USA and UK as a notation of moral and material exclu­ traditional social democrat. Jencks tries sion]." to make sense of social policy for the She provides a close reading of the homeless as a befuddled liberal. And Si­ development of the underclass debate in mon unleashes the arsenal of poststructu - the United States from the perspective of ralist deconstruction against the crisis of British social welfare thought. She docu­ the parole system of California. ments the durability of the idea of a so­ The object of all three books is the cially excluded "residuum" throughout urban underclass. Over the past decade, the 19th century and the efforts of social both in the popular press and scholarly democrats to use the welfare state to in­ journals, the underclass has occupied an corporate this class into the social order. important place. Yet, in spite of this atten­ Thus, for Morris, the core of the conser­ tion, the last ten years have done little to vative literature on the underclass is an clarify what "it" is. On the one hand, there attack on the viability of the welfare state. is a dispute about its novelty. William If we are to abandon the concept of social Julius Wilson, whose The Truly Disad­ citizenship — give up on the dream of vantaged is the best known treatment of T.H. Marshall and subsequent social the topic, contends that the underclass is democrats to use government policy to a new phenomenon — a product of the ameliorate and to incorporate — in favour combination of post-sixties social policy of an older model of class and social pol­ and the post-industrial transformation of icy in which public aid is used as a means the cities. Others — most notably Nicho­ of social subordination and discipline, we las Lehman — trace the underclass' ori­ must expect a continuing attack on exist­ gins to the rural South of the late 19th ing social programs. century. In the United States, of course, no commitment to a social democratic vision 352 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

of social citizenship was ever remotely "substandard" housing that was the only made. American reformers — from the type of housing the very poor could af­ Progressives through the War on Poverty ford. — however, did share the social demo­ In essence, then, homelessness is for crats' vision of a gradualist amelioration Jencks a symbol of the limits of the cur­ of social need. In this respect, Morris' rent liberal welfare regime. Life, for the application of British models of social poor, is hard, and there is no prospect that policy brings out an unstated feature of either the American economy or the so­ the American debate — the extent to cial welfare system can fundamentally which American liberals have abandoned change that fact. As a result, even well- this vision. meaning efforts are likely to lead to dead­ Nowhere is this more apparent than in ends. For Jencks a program that promises Christopher Jencks' assessment of the limited, but concrete results (he suggests problem of the homeless. As in his Re­ an increase in SROs and a public day-la­ thinking Social Policy, Jencks tries to re­ bourer program), are preferable to one construct a sadder but wiser liberalism. which combines high-minded rhetoric As Morris' analysis would suggest, it is a with little prospect for success. liberalism in which the vision of social The limits of reform is a theme for incorporation has diminished and the ob­ Jonathan Simon as well. Poor Discipline ligations of citizens have increased. could have been a very interesting case Jencks provides us with a skeptical study of how changes in social conditions review of the magnitude and causes of the and the influence of public debate com­ problem of the homeless. Although he bined to change the functioning and ide­ does not support advocates' views that ology of the criminal justice system. In the homeless population is now a signifi­ essence, Simon tells how a program that cant proportion of the population, Jencks' began life with the intention of returning "best guess" is that there were four times individuals to productive work in their as many homeless in the late 1980s as communities was affected by the break­ there were at the beginning of the decade. down of the low-skill labour market, the Jencks finds that at the same time the attenuation of social control in poor urban homeless population was booming, the neighbourhoods, and shifts in policy (es­ population in "single-room occupancy" pecially the replacement of indeterminate buildings (SROs) declined. by mandatory sentences). In essence, the Jencks concludes that the causes of parole system had to redefine itself, judg­ the increase of homelessness cut across ing its success not by how well former orthodox liberal and conservative expla­ prisoners did, but how well the system nations. Indeed, a neoconservative con­ was managed. cern with "unintended consequences" of Unfortunately, someone apparently social policy is the most consistent theme introduced Professor Simon to Michel in his account. The impact of the return of Foucault at an impressionable age. Thus, the mentally ill "to their community" instead of a historical case study, we are turned — in the face of community insti­ treated to a "genealogy" of parole. Al­ tutional decline and tax pressures —into though the poststructural rhetorical over­ the widespread "dumping" of the men­ lay does not undermine his accomplish­ tally ill. The efforts of advocates to in­ ment, it is not clear that it adds much to it crease the availability and desirability of Most strikingly, Simon — like Morris shelter may have increased the willing­ — sees the history of parole as part of the ness of the poor to leave crowded private return to a 19th century vision of society accommodations for the new shelters. in which the poor are officially excluded The desire to reinforce housing standards from full citizenship status. Certainly, the may have led to the destruction of the fact that one in four African-American REVIEWS 353 men in their 20s was in some form of The "underclass" debate is only one correctional custody in 1988 underlines aspect of our unsuccessful efforts to cope the extent to which surveillance and con­ with this impasse. Just as the Prohibition centration — what Simon calls the campaigns of the early 20th century cap­ "waste-management" model of correc­ tured public anxiety over the impact of tions — has replaced a vision of social industrialization, urbanization, and immi­ reform. gration on American society, so the The social changes of the past two ghetto poor have served as our symbolic decades have knocked social reform on its crusade. Although Morris and Simon are ear. The welfare state reached the limits right to point to the similarities between of its fiscal capacity just as changes in the the "dangerous class" rhetoric of the 19th world economy made it impossible for century and contemporary rhetoric, the governments to control their rates of eco­ difference is that in 1880 we had never nomic growth and unemployment. In the tried to construct a vast bureaucracy to United States, the rise of a ferocious con­ ameliorate need and want. Now that it has servatism has made it easy to forget that been tried and found wanting, we are at a reformers could no longer present a vi­ loss about what to do next. sion or a road map which led to a society that was more equal and just. Mark J. Stern University of Pennsylvania 354 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

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