Teaching Labour History

History 1166

Spring 1999

TOPICS IN CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HISTORY
Comparative Perspectives on Class, Gender and Race-Ethnicity

Graduate History

Professor:

Franca Iacovetta
Rm: 3075
Ph: 978-8477
Office Hours: Tues. 4-6 pm
Seminar: Tues. 2-4 (Room 2115)

Outline:

This course considers immigrants, minorities, and racial-ethnic relations in Canada within comparative (especially North American) and international contexts. The selected topics illustrate various approaches in the field, the diversity of male and female experiences, and the gendered and racialisr constructions of newcomers. Organized partly chronologically and partly by theme, the course covers the period 1830s-1960s and pays particular attention to the ways in which class, gender and race/ethnicity have shaped social experiences and relations between the host society and minorities. Themes include: famine Irish, African-American migration and politics, gendered identities, racial-ethnic militancy and radicalism, anti-Semitism and racism before the courts, post-1945 refugees and immigration policy.

Course Requirements:

1. Document Analysis, Due 2 March
2. Major Research Essay, 15-20 pages, Due 6 April

The required readings will be the focus in weekly seminar discussions. You will help to lead a seminar by asking two questions.

Document Analysis
15%

Essay
55%

Seminar Participation
30%

Texts:

Franca Iacovetta, with Paula Draper and Robert Ventresca eds., A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, Toronto: UTP 1997

Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, New York: Routledge 1995

Jane Rhodes, Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century, Indiana U Press 1998

John E. Zucchi, The Little Slaves of the Harp, McGill Queen's UP 1992 (paper, ed.)

Varpu Lindstrom, Defiant Sisters: A Social History of Finnish Immigrant Women in Canada, Toronto: 2nd ed. 1992

James W. St. G. Walker, "Race", Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada, Wilfred Laurier UP, 1997

Harold Troper and Morton Weinfeld, Old Wounds: Jews, Ukrainians and the Hunt for Nazi War Criminals in Canada, Penguin: Markham, Ontario 1989

Seminar Readings

10 TOPICS

With the exception of the articles in A Nation of Immigrants and the ordered books, I will leave in the front office a set of photocopies for each week's reading.

1.

Old and New Approaches: Uprooted, Transplanted, and the Diaspora

Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted, NY 1951
Selections

John Bodnar, The Transplanted: A History of Urban Immigrants in Urban America, 1987
Introduction
Ch 1 "The Homeland and Capitalism"
Ch 2 "Families Enter America"

Franca Iacovetta, The Writing of English-Canadian Immigrant History, CHA Pamphlet, Ottawa, 1997

Dirk Hoerder, "From Euro- and Afro-Atlantic to Pacific Migration System: A Comparative Migration Approach to North American History", AHA, Jan. 1999

2.

The Irish - Class, Conflict and Racism

Michael Cottrell, "St. Patrick's Day Parades in Nineteenth Century Toronto: A Study in Immigrant Adjustment and Elite Control", A Nation of Immigrants

Scott See, "The Orange Order and Social Violence in Saint John", A Nation of Immigrants

Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White

Hasia Diner, Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the 19th Century, 1983
Selections

3.

African-Americans in "Ontario"

Michael Wayne, "The Black Population of Canada West on the Eve of the American Civil War: A Reassessment Based on the Manuscript Census of 1861", A Nation of Immigrants

Harold Law, "Self-reliance is the true road to independence: Ideology and the Ex-slaves in Buxton and Chatham", A Nation of Immigrants

Jason Silverman, "Mary Shadd", A Nation of Immigrants

Jane Rhodes, Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century, Indiana U Press, 1998

4.

Child Labour and Migration

Joy Parr, Labouring Children
Selections

John E. Zucchi, The Little Slaves of the Harp: Italian Child Street Musicians in 19th Century Paris, London, and New York

5.

Gendered and Sexual Identities in Differing Contexts: Dangerous Foreigners and Unruly Women?

Robert F. Harney, "Men Without Women: Italian Migrants in Canada, 1885-1930", A Nation of Immigrants

Nancy Forestell, "Bachelors, Boarding-Houses, and Blind Pigs: Gender Construction in a Multi-Ethnic Mining Camp", A Nation of Immigrants

George Chauncey, Gay New York
Selections

Joanne Meyerowitz, "Sexual Geography and Gender Economy: The Furnished Room Districts of Chicago,1890-1930", in V. L. Ruiz and E. C. Dubois eds., Unequal Sisters

Hazel Carby, "Policing the Black Women's Body in an Urban Context", Critical Inquiry, No. 18, Summer 1992

Carolyn Strange, "Dead Men and Wounded Womanhood: Trials of Clara Ford and Carri Davies", in Iacovetta & Valverde eds., Gender Conflicts

Mary Odem, Delinquent Daughters
Selection

6.

Ethnic Militancy and Radicalism: Labour Protest, Multi-Ethnic Communities, and Repression

Ian Radforth, "Finnish Radicalism... Activism in North Ontario Woods", A Nation of Immigrants

Gregory S. Kealey, "State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914-20: The Impact of the First World War", A Nation of Immigrants

Carmela Patrias, "Relief Strike; Immigrants Workers and the Great Depression in Crowland, Ontario 1930-35", A Nation of Immigrants

Priscilla Long, "The Women of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Strike", in Ruth Milkman ed., Women, Work, and Protest, Boston, 1983

Ardis Cameron, "Bread and Roses Revisited: Women's Culture and Working-Class Activism in the Lawrence Strike of 1912", Women, Work and Protest

7.

Women: "Radicals of the Worst Sort"?

Meredith Tax, "The Uprising of the Thirty Thousand", in Ruiz and Dubois, Unequal Sisters

Donna Gabaccia and F. Iacovetta, "Women, Work & Protest in the Italian Diaspora: An International Research Agenda", Labour/Le Travail, 1998

Ruth Frager, "Sewing Solidarity", A Nation of Immigrants

Varpu Lindstrom, Defiant Sisters: Social History of Finnish Women in Canada, Toronto 1992

8.

Agents of Reform, Agents of Assimilation?

Donna Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans
Chapter 4

Elizabeth Ewen, Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars
Ch 5 "Agents of Assimilation"
Ch 8 "In Sickness and in Health"
Ch 12 "City Lights"

Mariana Valverde, "Racial Purity, Sexual Purity and Immigration", The Age of Light, Soap and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, Toronto 1991
Chapter 5

Angus Maclaren, "Stemming the Tide of Defective Aliens", Our Own Master Race, Toronto 1990

Vicky Ruiz, "Dead Ends or Gold Mines?: Using Missionary Records in Mexican American Women's History", Unequal Sisters

9.

Racism and Racialist Constructions of the Other

James W. St. G. Walker, "Race", Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada, Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1997

Troper And Weinfeld

Ron Takaki, "The Heathen Chinese", Iron Cages

Madge Pon, "Like A Chinese Puzzle: Construction of Chinese Masculinity in Jack Canuck", in Joy Parr and Mark Rosenfeld eds., Gender amd History in Canada, Toronto 1996

Ruth Compton Brouwer, "'A disgrace to Christian Canada': Protestant Foreign Missionary Concerns About the Treatment of South Asians in Canada, 1907-1940", A Nation of Immigrants

10.

Post-1945 Canada: Survivors, Refugees, and the Politics of Memory

Marlene Epp, "The Memory of Violence: Mennonite Refugees and Rape in WWII", Journal of Women's History

Franca Iacovetta, "Remaking Their Lives: Survivors, Refugees and Immigrants", in Joy Parr ed., A Diversity of Women: Ontario 1945-1980, Toronto 1997

harold Troper and Morton Weinfeld, Old Wounds: Jews, Ukrainians and the Hunt for Nazi War Criminals in Canada, Penguin; Markham, Ontario 1989
Selections