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Marxist Masculinity and the Social Practices of the One Big Union, 1919-1924

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Marxist Masculinity and the Social Practices of the One Big Union, 1919-1924 "A Modern Weapon for Modern Man": Marxist Masculinity and the Social Practices of the One Big Union, 1919-1924 Todd McCallum B.A. (Hons.) Queen's University, 1993 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of History @odd McCallum SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY July 1995 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author APPROVAL NAME Todd McCallum DEGREE TITLE "A Modern Weapon for Modern Man": Marxist Masculinity and the Social Practices of the One Big Union, 1919-1923 EXAMINING COMMITTEE: Chair Derryl MacLean, - Mark Leier, Assistant- Professor ', Joy Parr, Endowed Professor 1, ,', , ',, . ' J /' William French, Assistant Pks3or University of British Columbia Vancouver, U.C. V6T 1W5 Examiner Date: 26 July 1995 PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis, project or extended essay (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Sinlon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institutions, on its own behalf or for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowe3 without written pertuission. Title of Thesis "A Modem Weapon for Modern Man": Marxist Masculinity and the Social Practices of -- - the One Big Union, 1919-1924 Author: IWVYI / , 11 ature) Todd McCallum (date) Will there be Unions, Strife and Strikes in the new world? No. The only union we shall have in the new world will be the one big union and the president of this union will be a working man chosen from the ranks of the working class. He, being a working man himself, knows all the grievances of his fellow workmates ....God chose him president of the union because he is God's only begotten Son. His name is Jesus. He worked at his trade until He was thirty years of age, then he went out healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, raised the dead, and even the poor had the Gospel preached unto them ....Now the Son of God was a carpenter by trade, so he knows how to build mansions for the workers to live in and no tar paper shacks in the new world .... He promised that he would never leave us and never hide his face from us any more forever. That He would give us a comforter that would teach us and help us the right way to live. We shall be one happy family, working, loving and helping one another, and we shall have no idols and no strife, and He even prom~sedthat He would wipe all tears from our faces. Thomas Pinnell, New Toronto, October 19 19 ABSTRACT In March 1919, more than 230 union representatives gathered in Calgary for the Western Labor Conference. There, they initiated plans for a revolutionary industrial organizatin, the One Blg Union, which embodied the internationalist principles of Marxlst unionism. Within its first year, the One Big Union (OBU) issued over 70,000 membership cards, and was a powerful symbol of working-class demands for the end of class exploitation. However, given its patriarchal inheritance, the OBU was always something more than just a class organization. It was an attempt by working men to organize around a specific sense of gender identity, which I have called Marxist masculinity, in order to reconstitute the social bases of male power. The first chapter outlines the events surrounding the creation of the OBU in 1919 and the wave of general strikes that swept through Canada that summer. In particular, it sketches the relationship between class politics and a masculine structure of feeling, and how this relationship influenced the OBU's ideology. The second chapter discusses three elements around which Marxist masculinity was constructed. To begin, the experiences of women in the OBU are situated in relation to the organization's policies regarding membership in individual unions and the Women's Auxilliary. As well, it examines the personal lives of OBU leaders and the naturalized assumptions about heterosexuality which governed their politics. The final chapter discusses the purge of Tom Cassldy and Catherine Rose. two dedicated activists fired because of rumours of their sexual involvement. The OBU leadership wanted to prevent a public moral panic around issues of "free love" and was thus determined to have the matter kept qulet. In takmg this position, OBU leaders regulated the gender and sexual identitles of union members through concepts of proper masculine and femlnine socialist behavlour iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract / iii Table of Contents / iv Abbreviations / v Acknowledgements / vi Introduction: "A Modern Weapon for Modern Man": Marxist Masculinity and the One Big Union 1 Chapter One: Definitely "Not a Sex Question": Marxist Masculinity and the Creation of the One Big Union 1 15 Chapter Two: "Proletarian Pills of Power": The Transformation of the One Big Union and Marxist Masculinity, 1919-1924 / 53 Chapter Three: The Strange Tale of Tom Cassidy and Catherine Rose: Free Love, Heterosexuality, and the One Big Un~on / 87 Epilogue: Towards a "New Masculine Personality" /1 18 Bibliography / 124 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS American Federation of Labor ...................... .. .................................................... AFL British Columbia Federation of Labor ................................................................... BCFL Central Labour Council, One Big Union ................................................................ CLC Communist Party of Canada .................................................................................. CPC General Executive Board, One Big Union ............................................................. GEB Industrial Workers of the World ............................................................................ IWW Lumber Workers Industrial Union ......................................................................... LWIU One Big Union ...................................................................................................... OBU Royal Canadian Mounted Police ............................................................................ RCMP Royal North West Mounted Police ........................................................................ RNWMP Socialist Party of Canada ....................................................................................... SPC Trades and Labor Congress of Canada .................................................................. TLC United Mine Workers of Amer~ca.......................................................................... UMWA Western Labor Conference .................................................................................... WLC Workers' Party of Canada ...................................................................................... WPC ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is dedicated to my parents and my sister. and in memory of my grandmothers. Granny Girard and Grandma McCallum. Prof. Mark Leier supervised this project, read several drafts of each chapter, and helped me focus the ideas at many stages. Prof. Joy Parr introduced me to much of the international literature on masculinity and provided a critique of each chapter. Prof. Bill French of the University of British Columbia was a challenging external examiner. Julie Barber-Bowman and Erin Geary guided these pages through the appropriate channels - I would have been lost without them. I am also thankful to Joy Frith, Andy Parnaby, and Paul Schipper for help~ngme w~ththe writing process, and to Paul for providing light and coffee to see us through. In my search for the OBU, I was a~dedby George Brandak of the Specla1 Collections Division, University of British Columbia and Chris Koteclu at the Provincial Archives of Manitoba Both institutions also provided permission to reprint the illustrations and photographs herein. I am grateful to Prof. Gregory Kealey of Memorial University of Newfoundland for providing me with over 1300 pages of RCMP reports and Prof. Gerald Friesen of the University of Manitoba for allowing me to quote from his interview with Margaret Sykes. Financial support was provided by the School of Graduate Studies, the administrators of the Cook Conference Scholarship, and the BC Labour History Pro-ject (it goes without saying that no corporate funding was available). Thanks also to Prof. Jack Little, who convinced me to come here and gave me a place to live so that Joy and I could extend our stay in the land of nuns and workers. This thesis would not have been written without the contributions of four peoplc. Mark Leier went well beyond what is expected of a supervisor. His breadth of knowledge, ranging from Michael Bakunm and Alexander Berkman to Parmeter Pettipiece and Oliver Stone, not to mention hls vocal range, has bettered the way I understand the world. Annette DeFaveri kept Mark sane and provided welcome relief from the daily grind of SFU. As an original member of the OBU Performance Art Collective, Andy Parnaby has listened to most of my ideas in the past five years. More importantly, he helped me laugh at them. Joy Frith experienced all of this with me, and her presence made it all come al~ve. Her ~nfluenceon my work can be felt on every page. Her rnfluence on my life extends far beyond that. Introduction "A Modern Weapon for Modern
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