The Limits of Rural Capitalism: Family, Culture, and Markets in Montcalm, Manitoba, 1870-1940

"The Limits of Rural Capitalism" is an important study of the social and economic development of the Municipality of Montcalm, a largely French-Canadian community in southern Manitoba. It challenges the view in prairie historiography that agriculture had commercialized before the west was opened to settlement, and that ethnic communities alone resisted the market's potential. Using a novel combination of demographic, financial, and legal evidence, Sylvester shows that both Ontario and Quebec migrants came west within family networks, and that neither economic individualism nor ethnic clustering overshadowed the importance of family strategies. In an environment where landed proprietorship was the norm, the demands of parents on the unpaid labour of their children constrained the growth of labour markets, and concerns for farm succession limited the accumulation of wealth. In the shadow of an industrializing and urbanizing world, these people, who came mainly from the District of Montreal and eastern Ontario, sometimes via New England, raised large families, drew largely on the unpaid labour of kin, owned their own farms, limited financial entanglements with outsiders, and established multiple heirs. While household autonomy diminished over time, the limits of rural capitalism persisted. MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Contents 6 Maps, Figures, and Tables 8 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 16 1. Shared Origins of Settlement 25 2. Making Families and Generations 42 3. The Economy of Family Farms 59 4. Credit, Commerce, and Market Change 79 5. Ending and Making Local Culture 113 6. Continuity, Inheritance, and Inequality 160 7. Leaving Rural Life 193 Conclusion 216 Appendix: A Note on Sources 222 Notes 228 Select Bibliography 274 Illustration Credits 294 Index 296 Illustrations 130 1. Shared Origins Of Settlement -- 2. Making Families And Generations -- 3. The Economy Of Family Farms -- 4. Credit, Commerce, And Market Change -- 5. Ending And Making Local Culture -- 6. Continuity, Inheritance, And Inequality -- 7. Leaving Rural Life. Kenneth Michael Sylvester. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [249]-267) And Index.