Description
Book SynopsisFor most Canadians today, Labour Day is the last gasp of summer fun: the final long weekend before returning to the everyday routine of work or school. But over its century-long history, there was much more to the September holiday than just having a day off.
In The Workers'' Festival, Craig Heron and Steve Penfold examine the complicated history of Labour Day from its origins as a spectacle of skilled workers in the 1880s through its declaration as a national statutory holiday in 1894 to its reinvention through the twentieth century. The holiday''s inventors hoped to blend labour solidarity, community celebration, and increased leisure time by organizing parades, picnics, speeches, and other forms of respectable leisure. As the holiday has evolved, so too have the rituals, with trade unionists embracing new forms of parading, negotiating, and bargaining, and other social groups re-shaping it and making it their own. Heron and Penfold also examine how Labour Day''s monopol
Trade Review
'... Heron and Penfold have laid invaluable and long-overdue groundwork in a field of study that to date has been remarkably poorly documented.' -- Jan Ravensbergen The Montreal Gazette
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction: The Making of Labour's Day Chapter One: HOLY DAYS, HOLIDAYS, AND LABOUR DAYS Chapter Two: THE CRAFTSMEN'S SPECTACLE Chapter Three: SHARING LABOUR DAY Chapter Four: THE UNIVERSAL PLAYDAY Chapter Five: MARCHING TO DIFFERENT TUNES Chapter Six: CLENCHED FISTS, CLOWNS, AND CHILLING OUT Conclusion: The Legacy of Labour's Day Abbreviations Notes Index
