1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910823277003321

Autore

Belshaw John Douglas

Titolo

Colonization and community [[electronic resource] ] : the Vancouver Island coalfield and the making of the British Columbian working class / / John Douglas Belshaw

Pubbl/distr/stampa

MontreĢal, Que., : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2002

ISBN

1-283-52973-4

9786613842183

0-7735-7040-3

Descrizione fisica

xv, 320 p. : ill., maps

Collana

McGill-Queen's studies in ethnic history. Series 2

Disciplina

971.1/203

Soggetti

Working class - British Columbia - Vancouver Island - History

Coal miners - British Columbia - Vancouver Island - History

British - British Columbia - Vancouver Island - History

Coal mines and mining - Social aspects - British Columbia - Vancouver Island - History

Ethnology - British Columbia - Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island (B.C.) History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references: p. [267]-308.

Nota di contenuto

Front Matter -- Contents -- Tables and Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Mining Coal on the Edge of the Empire -- The Emigrant British Miners and Their Kin -- The Immigrant British Miners and Their Kin -- Work and Wages -- Conflicts in the Colonial Setting -- Mobility and Identity -- Building a Culture -- Conclusions -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In Colonization and Community John Belshaw takes a new look at British Columbia's first working class, the men, women, and children beneath and beyond the pit-head. Beginning with an exploration of emigrant expectations and ambitions, he investigates working conditions, household wages, racism, industrial organization, gender, schooling, leisure, community building, and the fluid identity of the British mining colony, the archetypal west coast proletariat. By connecting the story of Vancouver Island to the larger story of Victorian



industrialization, he delineates what was distinctive and what was common about the lot of the settler society. Belshaw breaks new ground, challenging the easy assumptions of transferred British political traditions, analyzing the colonial at the household level, and revealing the emergent communities of Vancouver Island as the cradle of British Columbian working-class culture.