Authors: John Demont
The figure for coal mine strikes in Nova Scotia during the 1920-25 period comes from Christina M. Lamey, “Davis Day Through the Years: A Cape Breton Coalmining Tradition,” in
Nova Scotia Historical Review,
Vol. 16, No. 2 (1996), pp. 23-33. Reprinted by permission of the author and the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society (publisher of the
Collections,
successor journal to the
Review).
The McLachlan biographical details that follow come mainly from
Frank J.B. McLachlan: A Biography: The Story of a Legendary Labour Leader and the Cape Breton Coal Miners,
the author’s interviews with Frank and with McLachlan’s daughter-in-law Nellie McLachlan.
The “greatest living question” quote comes from Frank via an email exchange with the author. McLachlan’s quote about wisdom is an inscription on the J.B. McLachlan memorial in Glace Bay.
The information about the start of the Provincial Workmen’s Association and the biographical material about Drummond comes from Ian MacKay, “‘By Wisdom, Wile or War’: The Provincial Workmen’s Association and the Struggle for Working-Class Independence in Nova Scotia, 1979-97,” in
Journal of Canadian Labour Studies,
Fall 1986, and MacKay’s entry on Drummond in the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
The comment about soaring profits comes from a perusal of the
Morning Chronicle
(Halifax) in 1909.
The pattern of harassment of the UMWA membership comes from Paul MacEwan,
Miners and Steelworkers: Labour in Cape Breton,
pp. 23–38, and Philip S. Foner,
History of the Labour Movement in the United States: The T.U.E.L to the End of the Gompers Era
(New York: International Publishers Co., 1991), pp. 230-235.
The Lewis quote is from
The Morning Chronicle
(Halifax), June 11, 1909. Wanklyn’s quote is found in the same paper, July 6, 1909. The arrival of the troops is also noted in the
Morning Chronicle
(Halifax), July 8, 1909.
The march anecdote and general information about the strike comes from Paul MacEwan,
Miners and Steelworkers: Labour in Cape Breton,
pp. 23–38.
The Wolvin quote occurred on June 22, 1923, and is noted in “The 1923 Strike in Steel and the Miners’ Sympathy Strike,” in
Cape Bretons Magazine,
no. 22, June 1979.
The accounts of the first few nights of the strike come from coverage of the events in the
Sydney Post.
The anecdote about the face-off between the strikers and the machine gun comes from Donald MacGillivray,
Military Aid to the Civil Power: The Cape Breton Experience in the 1920s,
p. 102.
The account of the riot in the Whitney Pier area comes from the
Halifax Herald,
July 2, 1923.
Bernie Galloway and Doane Curtis’s story and quotes come from “The 1923 Strike in Steel and the Miners’ Sympathy Strike,” in
Cape Bretons Magazine,
no. 22, June 1979.
McLachlan’s letter was reprinted in its entirely in “MacLachlan Incites Strike by Circulating Lies Regarding the Conduct of Provincial Police,” in the
Sydney Record,
July 6, 1923.
The details of McLachlan’s arrest come from various stories in the
Sydney
Record,
July 7, 1923.
The anecdote about the meeting with Byng comes from Frank,
J.B. McLachlan:
A Biography,
pp. 307-08.
Lewis’s comments about the “red element” are found in the
Sydney Record,
July 11, 1923.
The excommunication of McLachlan and Livingston is noted in the
Sydney
Record,
July 18, 1923.
The source for the change of charges is Frank,
J.B. McLachlan: A Biography,
p. 326.
For coverage of the trial I read the (Halifax)
Morning Chronicle,
Oct. 16-18, 1923.
Cahill’s “miscarriage of justice” quote is found in Philip Girard, Jim Phillips, Barry Cahill,
The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 1754–2004: From Imperial
Bastion to Provincial Oracle,
p. 165. Mellish’s legal background is found in the same source, pp. 164-166.
The information about the length of the trail comes from the (Halifax)
Morning Chronicle,
Oct. 18, 1923.
The detail on McLachlan’s jail term and his triumphant return comes from Frank,
J.B. McLachlan: A Biography,
p. 338.
The quotes from his New Waterford speech comes from the
Sydney Post,
March 17, 1924.
The 1925 coal production figures come from Report of the Royal Commission Respecting the Coal Mines of the Province of Nova Scotia 1925, Appendix B, and the Cronyn quotes from pp. 63-64.
McLurg’s quote—as well as the average wage for a miner—comes from the Glace Bay Miners’ Museum website (
http://www.minersmuseum.com/history_of_mining.htm
).
The detailed deductions from the miner’s pay envelope can be found in Report of the Royal Commission Respecting the Coal Mines of the Province of Nova Scotia 1925, Appendix E.
The line about the 2,000 idle families comes from Donald MacGillivray “Cape Breton in the 1920s: A community besieged,” pp. 55-56.
The detail about the destitution during the 100 percent strike comes from a number of sources: the
Sydney Post,
the Halifax
Morning Chronicle,
Frank
J.B. McLachlan, A Biography,
Donald MacGillivray, “Cape Breton in the 1920s: A community besieged.”
Randolph Paiton’s story actually appeared in the
Sydney Post,
April 15, 1925.
Cronyn’s view is found in the Report Royal Commission on Coal Mines, 1932, pp. 41-46.
The source for Sara Gold’s account is “A Social Worker Visits Cape Breton, 1925,” in
Cape Bretons Magazine,
no. 38 (no date given), pp. 22-50.
The
Halifax Herald’s
editorial was reprinted in the same source on p. 47.
The
Ottawa Citizen
editorial was reprinted in March 18, 1925,
Sydney Post.
Most of Prime Minister King’s labour background is detailed in H. Blair Neatby’s entry on William Lyon MacKenzie King in the
Dictionary of
Canadian Biography.
For my account of the events of June 11, 1925, I used Frank,
J.B. McLachlan,
A Biography,
pp. 382-383, and coverage in the
Sydney Post
beginning on June 12, 1925.
Some of the Cape Breton nicknames come from my own ever-evolving list and some from William Davey and Richard MacKinnon, “Nicknaming Patterns and Traditions among Cape Breton Coal Miners,” in
Acadiensis
(Spring 2002), pp. 71-83.
My apologies for repeating the Biscut Foot anecdote which I’ve already included in one book and a magazine column, but I like it so much that I’m likely to keep telling it until the day I die.
The
Time
magazine quote about Besco comes from “Empire’s Steel,”
Time,
June 2, 1930.
The biographical information on Holt—including the Newman quote—comes from an entry on Holt on the McCord Museum’s website (
http://www.mccordmuseum.qc.ca
).
My main source on Depression-era Atlantic Canada is Ernest Forbes,
Challenging the Regional Stereotype, Essays on the 20
th
Century Maritimes
(Fredericton, N.B.: Acadiensis Press, 1989).
The figure about the decline in coal production in Pennsylvania comes from the
ExplorePAHistory.com
website.
The decline in colliery employment in Britain is noted by the United Kingdom Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
Coal production figures in this chapter come from “Canadian Production of Coal, 1867 to 1976,” Historical Statistics of Canada, Statistics Canada, Table Q1-5, found at
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-516-XIE/sectionq/sectionq.htm
; the Report, Royal Commission on Coal Mines, 1932 (Appendix C and p. 24); and from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources.
The fact that Dorothy Duncan and Hugh Maclennan met aboard a ship is noted in
The Small Details of Life: Twenty Diaries by Women in Canada,
1830-1996
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), p. 394.
The Duncan quotes come from Dorothy Duncan,
Here’s To Canada
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941), pp. 40-41.
The list of 1936 imports to the Cape Breton colliery league come from Colin Howell,
Northern Sandlots: A Social History of Maritime Baseball
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 168-69.
For the day-to-day history of the colliery league and its impact on Cape Breton I’m indebted to James D. Myers, “Hard Times—Hard Ball, The Cape Breton Colliery League 1936–39,” master’s thesis, 1997.
Roy Moore’s career statistics come from the online Baseball Almanac (
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=moore01
).
The background about Springhill’s mining history comes from Roger Brown,
Blood on the Coal, The Story of the Springhill Mining Disaster
(Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press, 1976).
The
New York Times
article on the 1891 calamity was titled “A terrible mine disaster, probably one hundred lives at least are lost,” Feb. 22, 1891.
The figure on coal mine deaths comes from the database Nova Scotia Mine Fatalities, 1720-1992, compiled by Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management.
The description of the Dosco miner machine comes from a 1953 speech that Dosco president Lionel Forsyth made to the Empire Club of Canada in Toronto.
The New York Times
story about the 1956 accident was “118 Men Trapped in a Nova Scotia Coal Mine as Gas Explosion Smashes Pithead to Bits,” Nov. 2, 1956.
The Tabor quote comes from Roger Brown,
Blood on the Coal, The Story of the
Springhill Mining Disaster,
p. 31.
The psychological impacts of the explosion of 1956 are noted by Melissa Fay Greene in
Last Man Out: the Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster
(Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2003), pp. 20-21.
The findings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers are contained
in H.D. Beach and R.A. Lucas,
Individual and Group Behavior in a Coal
Mine Disaster
(Washington: National Academy of Sciences—National Research Council, 1960).
Melissa Fay Greene extensively documents the deification of Ruddick in
Last
Man Out.
The miners’ experience in Georgia is detailed in “Rescued Miners Frolic in Georgia: 13 from Nova Scotia Savor the State’s Hospitality—Lone Negro is Segregated,”
The New York Times,
Nov. 21, 1958, and “Nova Scotia Miners Back From Georgia,”
The New York Times,
Nov. 27, 1958.
The information on life after the bump for the Ruddick family comes from an unpublished manuscript about the disaster quoted by John Leeder in text accompanying “No More Pickin’ Coal” by Valerie Hope MacDonald, Maurice Ruddick’s daughter, published in
Canadian Folk Music Bulletin,
vol. 23.4, December 1989.
The description of K.C. Irving comes from John DeMont,
Citizens Irving:
K.C. Irving and His Legacy, The Story of Canada’s Wealthiest Family
(Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1991), pp. 63-64.
The maritime exodus during the 50s is noted by E.R. Forbes and D.A. Muise in
The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), p. 384.
The information on the changing coal market comes from, among other sources, the submission by District 26 of the United Mine Workers of America to the Royal Commission on Coal (1959) pp. 2-3.
Dosco’s role in the war years comes from Forbes and Muise,
The Atlantic
Provinces in Confederation,
pp. 313–314.
Nova Scotia’s coal production figure for 1940 come from “Canadian Production of Coal, 1867 to 1976,” Historical Statistics of Canada, Statistics Canada, Table Q1-5, found at
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-516-XIE/sectionq/sectionq.htm
.
The working mines figure can be found in the Nova Scotia Department of Mines, 1940 Report on Mines, tables 7 and 8.
Dosco’s wartime boasts are noted in Michael Earle, “‘Down with Hitler and Silby Barrett’: The Cape Breton Miner’s Slowdown Strike of 1941,” in
Acadiensis,
Spring 1988, pp. 56-90.
The section on wartime labour squabbles in the collieries comes from Michael D. Stevenson, “Conscripting Coal: The Regulation of the Coal Labour Force in Nova Scotia during the Second World War,” in
Acadiensis,
Spring 2000, p. 62, and Christina Lamey, “Davis Day Through the Years: A Cape Breton Coalmining Tradition,” in
Nova Scotia Historical Review,
Vol. 16, No. 2 (1996), pp. 23-33.
The newspaper editorials criticizing the coal labour force in Nova Scotia come from Michael Earle, “‘Down with Hitler and Silby Barrett’: The Cape Breton Miner’s Slowdown Strike of 1941,” p. 56.
Michael D. Stevenson notes the difficulty in getting colliers back in the mines in “Conscripting Coal: The Regulation of the Coal Labour Force in Nova Scotia During the Second World War,” p. 76.
The 1944 coal production figure comes from “Canadian Production of Coal, 1867 to 1976,” Historical Statistics of Canada, Statistics Canada, Table Q1-5, found at
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-516-XIE/sectionq/sectionq.htm
.
Forbes and Muise note the disparity of the government support in
The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation,
pp. 306–345.
Ottawa’s abandonment of Dosco is detailed in David Kilgour,
Inside Outside Canada,
Chapter 2: (Edmonton: Lone Pine Publishing, 1990.)
The international coal situation is detailed in A.H. Raskin, “Survey Shows Coal Losing to Gas, Oil,”
The New York Times,
March 8, 1950; Jack Raymond, “Ruhr Coal Output Faces New Hitch,”
The New York Times,
Dec. 12, 1947; and “British Coal Pits are Nationalized,”
The New York Times,
Jan. 1, 1947.