The New Democracy : Challenging the Social Order in Industrial Ontario, 1914-1925

James Naylor traces the transformation of class relations in the industrial cities of southern Ontario, examining the character of the regional labour movement, the nature of employer and state response, and the reasons for the failure of labour's "new democracy." "Wartime conflicts forged a regional working class capable of acting collectively on a number of fronts. Southern Ontario workers had a long tradition of craft unionism, and the nature of industrial cities and working-class communities was quite different from that in the West. In short, workers and bosses in southern Ontario fought in a different arena and under different circumstances than elsewhere. Building on their own experiences at work and in the war, workers developed their own vision of post-war 're-construction'--back cover