Written and researched by Bailey Garden, BCLHC Project Manager Much of the colonial history of this province has centered the perspectives of white male settlers who came in search of gold and glory. While gold miners tended to work on their own claims, some of the earliest labour organizing in Read more…
Hilda Harvey Kavanagh died in second wave of 1919 Spanish Flu by Donna Sacuta, BCLHC Executive Director British Columbia experienced three waves of the “Spanish Flu” epidemic in 1918-19. As many as 1,000 people died in Vancouver alone over 15 months of the influenza. Health officials were baffled by the Read more…
by Donna Sacuta The Labor Arts Guild: An Ambitious Wartime Project In November 1944 and again in 1945 — as the Second World War neared its end — two art exhibitions celebrating labour took place at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The first exhibition included 150 works; in 1945 there were Read more…
1. Indigenous women played a critical role in the development of BC’s fishing industry starting in the 1880s. They worked alongside family members in boats harvesting salmon and provided labour in the canneries that dotted the province’s coast. Indigenous women also participated in other industries such as mining. 2. Helena Read more…
In the summer of 1954, racist signs on the women’s washrooms at the Namu fish cannery divided the facilities between “Whites” and “Natives”. They had been there for years, but despite demands from both the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union (UFAWU) and the Native Brotherhood of BC (NBBC) they Read more…