1,720,979 research outputs found
“No Mere Child’s Play”: The Canadian Cadet Movement and the Boy Scouts of Canada in the Twentieth Century
No full textThis dissertation examines the Canadian Cadet Movement and Boy Scouts Association of Canada, seeking to put Canada’s two largest uniformed youth movements for boys into sustained conversation. It does this in order to analyse the ways in which both movements sought to form masculine national and imperial subjects from their adolescent members. Between the end of the First World War and the late 1960s, the Cadets and Scouts shared a number of ideals that formed the basis of their similar, yet distinct, youth training programs. These ideals included loyalty and service, including military service, to the nation and Empire. The men that scouts and cadets were to grow up to become, as far as their adult leaders envisioned, would be disciplined and law-abiding citizens and workers, who would willingly and happily accept their place in Canadian society. However, these adult-led movements were not always successful in their shared mission of turning boys into their ideal-type of men. The active participation and complicity of their teenaged members, as peer leaders, disciplinary subjects, and as recipients of youth training, was central to their success. When this participation was withdrawn adult leaders were forced to react to the desires of the boys or eject them from the program altogether.
For much of the twentieth century the Cadet and Scout movements represented the two largest uniformed youth movements, together training hundreds of thousands of Canadian boys. As such, studying these movements together offers important insights into the ways in which youth were organized in English Canada. Both movements had their origins in, and contributed to, Canadian understandings of Canada as a white settler colonial state within the British Empire and Commonwealth. They were also united by their goals of forging particular types of heterosexual masculine imperial and national subjects. Together, these movements provide insights into the ways in which particular conceptions of gender and nation have been inculcated into young people, traditionally viewed as more malleable than adults and who would potentially carry their youth training with them into adulthood.Ph.D
Comrades and Citizens: Great War Veterans in Toronto, 1915-1919
Get PDFThis is a history of returned soldiers of the Great War in Toronto covering the period from when they began returning home in 1915 through to the end of demobilization in late 1919. Based largely in newspaper research, the focus is the discourse of returned men, as they were frequently called, and the role they played in Toronto and in Canada more broadly. The dissertation examines veterans' attitudes, the opinions they expressed, the goals they collectively pursued, the actions they took and their significance as actors and symbols in the public sphere. The study shows that during and immediately after the war returned soldiers played a prominent role in public debate over conscription and wartime politics, the status of non-British immigrants in Canada, the Red Scare and re-establishment policy. In exploring these topics the study elaborates on the identities veterans collectively adopted and constructed for themselves as comrades and citizens.
Class, definitions of masculinity, British-Canadian ethno-nationality and experience as soldiers all affected formulations of veteran citizenship and comradeship. Returned soldiers' representations of their citizenship resonated powerfully in Canadian society. The experiences and symbolism of returned soldiers generated interest in civilian society that granted them easy access to the public sphere and encouraged pro-war politicians to use returnees to promote the war effort. Veterans took advantage of their access to the press and public stages to broadcast their own views and claim that their service gave them special rights to intervene in public affairs.
Comradeship was vitally important to returned soldiers and set them apart from civilians, but it was neither a simple nor stable category. Veterans' debates and the history of veterans' associations testify to the fact that collective service in the war did not erase civilian identities and create a stable platform for united collective activism after the war. Furthermore, comradeship sometimes existed uneasily with the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Parliamentary methods were fundamental to veterans' activism, but their politics were also performative, often pursued and proclaimed at street level, and a minority of veterans threatened and engaged in violence they claimed was justified.Ph
"Hire the Handicapped!": Disability Rights, Economic Integration and Working Lives in Toronto, Ontario, 1962-2005
Get PDFThis dissertation, “‘Hire the Handicapped!’: Disability Rights, Economic Integration and Working Lives in Toronto, Ontario, 1962-2005,” argues that work significantly shaped the experience of disability during this period. Barriers to mainstream employment opportunities gave rise to multiple disability movements that challenged the social and economic framework which marginalized generations of people with disabilities. Using a critical analysis of disability in archival records, personal collections, government publications and a series of interviews, I demonstrate how demands for greater access among disabled people to paid employment stimulated the development of a new discourse of disability in Canada. Including disability as a variable in historical research reveals how family advocates helped people living in institutions move out into the community and rehabilitation professionals played an increasingly critical role in the lives of working-age adults with disabilities, civil rights activists crafted a new consumer-led vision of social and economic integration. Separated by different philosophies and bases of support, disability activists and allies found a common purpose in their pursuit of economic integration.
The focus on employment issues among increasingly influential disability activists during this period prompted responses from three key players in the Canadian labour market. Employers embraced the rhetoric and values of disability rights but operated according to a different set of business principles and social attitudes that inhibited the realization of equity and a ‘level playing field.’ Governments facilitated the development of a progressive discourse of disability and work, but ultimately recoiled from disability activism to suit emergent political priorities. Labour organizations similarly engaged disability activists, but did so cautiously, with union support largely contingent upon the satisfaction of traditional union business first and foremost. As disability activists and their allies railed against systematic discrimination, people with disabilities lived and worked in the community, confronting barriers and creating their own circles of awareness in the workplace. Just as multiple sites of disability activism found resolution in the sphere of labour, the redefinition of disability during this period reflected a shared project involving collective and individual action.Ph
The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto
No full text“The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto,” argues that public entertainment was one of the most important sites for the negotiation of identities in late Victorian Toronto. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, where theatre is strictly highbrow, it is difficult to appreciate the centrality of public entertainment to everyday life in the nineteenth century. Simply put, the Victorian imagination was populated by melodrama and minstrelsy, Shakespeare and circuses. Studying the responses to these entertainments, greatly expands our understanding of Victorian culture.
The central argument of this dissertation is that public entertainment spilled over the threshold of the playhouse and circus tent to influence the wider world. In so doing, it radically altered the urban streetscape, interacted with political ideology, promoted trends in consumption, as well as exposed audiences to new intellectual currents about art and beauty. Specifically, this study examines the moral panic surrounding indecent theatrical advertisements; the use by political playwrights of tropes from public entertainment as a vehicle for political satire; the role of the stage in providing an outlet for Toronto’s racial curiosity; the centrality of commercial amusements in defining the boundaries of gender; and, finally, the importance of the theatre—particularly through the Aesthetic Movement—in attempts to control the city’s working class.
When Torontonians took in a play, they were also exposing themselves to one of the most significant transnational forces of the nineteenth century. British and American shows, which made up the bulk of what was on offer in the city, brought with them British and American perspectives. The latest plays from London and New York made their way to the city within months, and sometimes weeks, of their first production. These entertainments introduced audiences to the latest thoughts, fashion, slang and trends. They also confronted playgoers with issues that might, on the surface seem foreign and irrelevant. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the environment north of the border. Public entertainment in Toronto came to embody a hybridized culture with a promiscuous co-mingling of high and low and of British and American influences.Ph
State Repression and Political Deportation in Canada, 1919-1936
Get PDFSection 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada was in force from1919 to 1936. The dissertation traces the way in which Canada incorporated emergency law, created during the First World War under the War Measures Act, into the Criminal Code as Section 98 after the war to combat political radicalism from 1919 to 1936. In contrast to existing scholarship, this work not only explains how a liberal democracy like Canada can legally use emergency legislation outside of a state of emergency through a process of `normalization' but it also examines the effects of such laws on their human targets through case studies of criminal trials and deportation hearings. Targets included political activists, immigrants and women. It makes contributions to Canada's legal, immigration, labour and intelligence history. The study also examines the international influences on Canadian policy makers in creating such laws and the complex international identities of the transnational activists at whom these laws were often directed. The work examines how culture played a crucial role in underpinning the intelligence cycle that led to the prosecution of leading Communist Party of Canada (CPC) members. It also complicates our understanding of the CPC during Moscow's `Third Period.' It was a party that both marginalized and welcomed immigrant workers. The dissertation provides an in-depth examination of the trial of Rex v. Buck et al and the ways in which political ideology was interpreted by the court as a criminal act. It examines cases of deportation that resulted from the trial, such as the case of the `Halifax Ten,' and traces what happened to the deportees after their deportation making use of Finnish, Polish, Croatian, and German primary sources. In addition, this work demonstrates how the communist led organization, the Canadian Labour Defense League (CLDL) initiated Canada's civil rights movement by joining with moderate leftists during the `Third Period,' and before the Communist International's shift to the `United Front' policy, to repeal Section 98. It demonstrates how the normalization of emergency law continued after Section 98's repeal when its core elements were retained and folded into Canada's sedition laws where it remains today.Ph.D.2017-06-30 00:00:0
"Hire the Handicapped!": Disability Rights, Economic Integration and Working Lives in Toronto, Ontario, 1962-2005
No full textThis dissertation, “‘Hire the Handicapped!’: Disability Rights, Economic Integration and Working Lives in Toronto, Ontario, 1962-2005,” argues that work significantly shaped the experience of disability during this period. Barriers to mainstream employment opportunities gave rise to multiple disability movements that challenged the social and economic framework which marginalized generations of people with disabilities. Using a critical analysis of disability in archival records, personal collections, government publications and a series of interviews, I demonstrate how demands for greater access among disabled people to paid employment stimulated the development of a new discourse of disability in Canada. Including disability as a variable in historical research reveals how family advocates helped people living in institutions move out into the community and rehabilitation professionals played an increasingly critical role in the lives of working-age adults with disabilities, civil rights activists crafted a new consumer-led vision of social and economic integration. Separated by different philosophies and bases of support, disability activists and allies found a common purpose in their pursuit of economic integration.
The focus on employment issues among increasingly influential disability activists during this period prompted responses from three key players in the Canadian labour market. Employers embraced the rhetoric and values of disability rights but operated according to a different set of business principles and social attitudes that inhibited the realization of equity and a ‘level playing field.’ Governments facilitated the development of a progressive discourse of disability and work, but ultimately recoiled from disability activism to suit emergent political priorities. Labour organizations similarly engaged disability activists, but did so cautiously, with union support largely contingent upon the satisfaction of traditional union business first and foremost. As disability activists and their allies railed against systematic discrimination, people with disabilities lived and worked in the community, confronting barriers and creating their own circles of awareness in the workplace. Just as multiple sites of disability activism found resolution in the sphere of labour, the redefinition of disability during this period reflected a shared project involving collective and individual action.Ph
State Repression and Political Deportation in Canada, 1919-1936
No full textSection 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada was in force from1919 to 1936. The dissertation traces the way in which Canada incorporated emergency law, created during the First World War under the War Measures Act, into the Criminal Code as Section 98 after the war to combat political radicalism from 1919 to 1936. In contrast to existing scholarship, this work not only explains how a liberal democracy like Canada can legally use emergency legislation outside of a state of emergency through a process of `normalization' but it also examines the effects of such laws on their human targets through case studies of criminal trials and deportation hearings. Targets included political activists, immigrants and women. It makes contributions to Canada's legal, immigration, labour and intelligence history. The study also examines the international influences on Canadian policy makers in creating such laws and the complex international identities of the transnational activists at whom these laws were often directed. The work examines how culture played a crucial role in underpinning the intelligence cycle that led to the prosecution of leading Communist Party of Canada (CPC) members. It also complicates our understanding of the CPC during Moscow's `Third Period.' It was a party that both marginalized and welcomed immigrant workers. The dissertation provides an in-depth examination of the trial of Rex v. Buck et al and the ways in which political ideology was interpreted by the court as a criminal act. It examines cases of deportation that resulted from the trial, such as the case of the `Halifax Ten,' and traces what happened to the deportees after their deportation making use of Finnish, Polish, Croatian, and German primary sources. In addition, this work demonstrates how the communist led organization, the Canadian Labour Defense League (CLDL) initiated Canada's civil rights movement by joining with moderate leftists during the `Third Period,' and before the Communist International's shift to the `United Front' policy, to repeal Section 98. It demonstrates how the normalization of emergency law continued after Section 98's repeal when its core elements were retained and folded into Canada's sedition laws where it remains today.Ph.D.2017-06-30 00:00:0
“No Mere Child’s Play”: The Canadian Cadet Movement and the Boy Scouts of Canada in the Twentieth Century
Get PDFThis dissertation examines the Canadian Cadet Movement and Boy Scouts Association of Canada, seeking to put Canada’s two largest uniformed youth movements for boys into sustained conversation. It does this in order to analyse the ways in which both movements sought to form masculine national and imperial subjects from their adolescent members. Between the end of the First World War and the late 1960s, the Cadets and Scouts shared a number of ideals that formed the basis of their similar, yet distinct, youth training programs. These ideals included loyalty and service, including military service, to the nation and Empire. The men that scouts and cadets were to grow up to become, as far as their adult leaders envisioned, would be disciplined and law-abiding citizens and workers, who would willingly and happily accept their place in Canadian society. However, these adult-led movements were not always successful in their shared mission of turning boys into their ideal-type of men. The active participation and complicity of their teenaged members, as peer leaders, disciplinary subjects, and as recipients of youth training, was central to their success. When this participation was withdrawn adult leaders were forced to react to the desires of the boys or eject them from the program altogether.
For much of the twentieth century the Cadet and Scout movements represented the two largest uniformed youth movements, together training hundreds of thousands of Canadian boys. As such, studying these movements together offers important insights into the ways in which youth were organized in English Canada. Both movements had their origins in, and contributed to, Canadian understandings of Canada as a white settler colonial state within the British Empire and Commonwealth. They were also united by their goals of forging particular types of heterosexual masculine imperial and national subjects. Together, these movements provide insights into the ways in which particular conceptions of gender and nation have been inculcated into young people, traditionally viewed as more malleable than adults and who would potentially carry their youth training with them into adulthood.Ph.D
The Transnational Making of Ontario Tobacco Labour, 1925-1990
Get PDFThis dissertation explores the transformations in tobacco farm labour in Ontario from approximately 1925 to 1990, advancing a significant reinterpretation of the histories of agricultural labour and guestworker programs in Canada. Contrary to portrayals of Canadian agriculture as permanently plagued by labour shortage, this case study demonstrates the heterogeneity of the sector, which included not only labour-starved growers but also farmers like those in tobacco whose high profits enabled them to attract a diverse range of harvest workers each year. Indeed, for much of the 20th century, Ontario’s tobacco sector, located primarily in Norfolk County and the surrounding areas, was the premier destination for seasonal farmworkers in Canada. In the sector’s early decades, tobacco workers enjoyed significant freedom of movement, unusual opportunities for social mobility, and a vibrant culture of worker organization and resistance. However, the opportunities in Ontario tobacco were never equally available to all prospective workers, and incorporation into the sector was always marked by patterns of inclusion and exclusion. For those workers who could gain access to the tobacco labour market, the benefits of working in tobacco steadily declined over the 20th century. By the 1980s, the sector no longer offered opportunities for social mobility and the possibilities of worker organization were greatly constrained. Guestworkers from the Caribbean and Mexico found their labour and geographic mobility much more tightly restricted than any previous or contemporary groups of tobacco workers. These transformations were complex and the result of many contingent factors (in both Canada and migrant-sending countries), including: political economic trends; ideologies of race and gender; the actions of employers, local communities, and workers themselves; and the efforts of multiple levels of the state to exert greater control over tobacco farm labour. The thesis pays particular attention to the transnational dynamics of labour migration systems, guestworker program structures, and worker resistance. By historicizing farm labour in a single crop and single region over approximately seven decades, the dissertation demonstrates that farm labour is not by definition a station of poverty and extreme exploitation, but instead is made so by historical processes.Ph.D
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