by Bob McDonald This article is reprinted from the May 2019 Vancouver Historical Society newsletter. Bob McDonald, one of BC’s leading historians, passed away on June 19, 2019. This image is from a Labour Day parade on Hastings Street in Vancouver in the late 1890s. Here we see a forty-foot 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…
Did you know that October is Women’s History Month in Canada? This year’s theme is #MakeAnImpact – we would like to highlight a woman in BC’s labour history who certainly did just that. Helena Gutteridge, ca. 1911 – City of Vancouver Archives [371-2693] The 1912 recession was difficult for all Read more…
With high unemployment and a recession in full swing, the Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL) was formed by the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council in August 1907, with the aim of “keeping Oriental immigrants out of British Columbia”. It is a sad and troubling part of BC’s labour history. Unfortunately, this Read more…
(Excerpt from On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement, by Rod Mickleburgh [2018]) The thousands of Chinese immigrants who endured so much helping to unite Canada by rail left little record of their ordeal. But we do have one personal account written by former railway Read more…