British Columbian Coal

Paper Summary:

This paper briefly reviews the simmering feud between BC miners and management in the lucrative British Columbian coal industry of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. The paper argues that the miners' frequent uprisings against Dunsmuir and his ilk were not only acts of rebellion against the prevailing status quo but illustrations of the underlying social tensions bedeviling BC society during this period.

From the Paper:

"Any analysis of British Columbian history must also take into account the grim struggle for control between the workers and owners of BC's notorious nineteenth and early twentieth century mines. This paper will do precisely that, while suggesting that while the miners frequently fell short in their avowed goals, their courageous determined struggle against injustice illustrated the economic and workplace disparities and incongruities that typified nineteenth and early twentieth century British Columbian life. With that foremost in mind, it is to a discussion of British Columbia's most memorable and angst-ridden workplace relationship that this paper now turns. In her 1991 book, The West Beyond the West, Jean Barman does not fail to discuss the hard-scrabble existence of many BC miners under the rough hand of the Dunsmuir clan and others of their ilk. "

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