1919 The Winnipeg General Strike: A Driving and Walking Tour

Winnipeg: Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Recreation, 1985. Paper bound, stapled covers, tall narrow quarto (4 - 1/4 wide x 10 - 1/2 inches high), unpaginated but approx. Pp48. Illustrated throughout with maps and over 80 historical photographs. Tight and unmarked - a very good or better copy. 130 grams. From the introduction: ""Thursday, May 15, 1919 is a date that will live long in the history of Winnipeg,"" declared the leaders of the Winnipeg General Strike. ""In less than two hours the whole productive industry of a whole city was tied up, as men and women and boys and girls came trooping out of shop and store and factory, not a wheel was turning in the big plants, not a street car was visible, and on the face of every worker was the cheerful, optimistic smile of confidence in the justice of their cause, and their firm determination to organize in any manner, for any lawful purpose, which would better their conditions and assure to all a living wage."" (Winnipeg 1919). Businessmen and the government offered a different interpretation: ""All eyes in Canada have turned upon Winnipeg where its citizens have been fighting whole-heartedly and with a very generous measure of success against a determined attempt to establish Bolshevism and the rule of the Soviet here and then expand it all over Canada. Between twenty and thirty thousand workers were tricked and betrayed into striking through the machinations of a number of confessed Bolshevists in the Winnipeg Labour Temple. The issue went right to the heart of the great body of the middle class citizens whom the strike leaders sought to deprive of the very necessaries of life. The general strike was recognized as an attempt at revolution -- and the citizens proceeded to combat it as such."" We welcome all reasonable offers on our books. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba.