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Radical and reform-minded books, pamphlets and other writings in Alberta and Saskatchewan pre-1915 (part 1)

  • Tom Monto
  • Jun 26
  • 8 min read

Updated: Sep 25

WORK IN PROGRESS

First of a series of blogs

pre-1915, 1916-1929, 1930-1939, 1940-1953, 1954-1999


esp. Labour, Farmer and Socialist

unemployed and poor


Reforms of Taxation, Land, Money, Business, Politics and governance

Bank and monetary reform pre-1935 (which starts in 1920 as far as I can see)


Single Tax (Henry George),


Election reform -- Proportional Representation, STV


Intentional communities, Utopian settlements


Social enterprise -- Co-operatives, credit unions, state enterprise


(for info on Edmonton radicals and reformers, see Montopedia blog "Progressive history of Edmonton")


Main sources for this information:

Peter Weinrich Social Protest from the Left in Canada 1870-1970 A Bibliography (UofT Press, 1982) (1954 is at No. 3741)

Peel's Bibliography of the Canadian Prairies to 1953 (revised and enlarged)

Hathi trust online

=====




========= alpha list ===



Edwards, Henrietta Muir (later one of Famous Five)

Legal status of Canadian Women 1908 Peel's PP 3170

Legal status of Women of Alberta 4302 1917 (reprinted in 1921)


Farmers Unity League Weinrich 1395



Fay, C.R. Agricultural co-operation in the Canadian west (1925) Weinrich 1104



PARTRIDGE, E.A. "Partridge of Sintaluta"


William, Weinrich 1412


Wood, Henry Wise Weinrich 1174


George Stirling

Stirling, Geo. F. (Saskatoon) 1926 Weinrich 1404 (see Weinrich 1171)


Workers Unity League Weinrich 1415, 1416, 1417


==== end of alpha section ======================




Alberta publications from Weinrich


Deachman worked with Irvine on Western Independent check for his books in Weinrich


Format for use in Candidates, vol 1:

 name year author of [title, published in            by          ].



check Irvine in index against MSWI

==============================================================

Weinrich numbers 1-350

Peel PP numbers 1-4092



In chronological order, by year


33    NWT Indian problems   Weinrich 33


xx1873 Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona?) Robert Cunningham, Speeches on the Indian difficulties Weinrich 0043 



1882

Artique, Jean D' Six years in the Canadian Northwest  Weinrich 0093  Peel 595 [what makes this left?]


Dominion land policy. speculators and land grabbers... the rights of the settler disregarded [by Conservative government]...1882



1883

Winter, William    Call to the Farmers! Brandon, MN, 1883. (Invitation to a convention of farmers...) Weinrich 99  




1884

Manitoba and Northwest Farmers' Union. Resolutions adopted at the convention... 1884 Weinrich 104  (Peel 758)


1885

Mercer, Adam G. From Savagery to Civilization. The Canadian Northwest: its history... 1885. Weinrich 107



[1885 much on 1885 Riel rebellion. Weinrich 107-131, -168b, -185]




[Murray, Norman. The Trial of Sandy Wright 1888. . satire on equal rights. (Weinrich 194)



1890

Bryce, George. Two provisional governments ... four bills of rights... (Weinrich 207)



1891

Patrons of Industry. Constitution, 1891.   Weinrich 221


The true inwardness of the Canadian Northwest rebellion Weinrich 226


x1894

Patrons of Industry. Minutes of the third annual meeting of the Grand Association... 1894. Weinrich 249




Territorial Grain Growers Association Report of the Proceedings 1902 Weinrich 0326


x1895

Alberta

"Provincial government for Alberta, its meaning and necessity". not exactly radical but interesting)

1895, March 22 Mass meeting was held at Calgary to discuss possibility of pressuring the federal government to establish the district of Alberta as a province. The result of the meeting was the formation of a Provisional Committee authorized to "take steps towards the organization of a representative League for the advancement of the movement." This booklet was published to explain the position, saying the population of Alberta might be too small to be a province but also was too large just to be a part of the NWT. (p. 7)

Identity of the committee is not given.

Frederick Haultain, now known as main proponent for a large prairie province, is not even mentioned.


Saskatchewan

1895-1900 Harmony Industrial Association

Will Paynter and his brother Ed Paynter had helped found a utopian community in 1895 at Birtle, Saskatchewan. The Harmony Industrial Association raised cattle and produced butter and lime for whitewash. It survived until 1900 when it disbanded. some former members settled in the nearby towns of Tantallon and Spy Hill. The two Paynter brothers went on to be farmers, businessmen, leaders in co-operative organizations, and utopian writers.

W.C. Paynter settled in Tantallon. (see 1921)

from Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan online "Harmony Industrial Association"

see  “Practical Utopians: Ed and Will Paynter and the Harmony Industrial Association,” by A. MacDonald, A. 1995. Saskatchewan History 47 (1), pages 13-26.

see Herperger, Joseph H. "Edward Alexander Partridge and W.C. Paynter" unpub. paper for History N435, Univ. of Regina

======


x1897

John Galbraith (1861?-1931), resident of Edmonton 1905-1910

author of a Utopian novel In the New Capital, or the City of Ottawa in 1999 (1897)



x1898

Alberta


Saskatchewan

Thomas A. Patrick Facts bearing on the future of NWT (Peel's Bibliography no. 2416)

(T.A. Patrick see 1898, 1921, 1924)


x1900


x1901


x1902

Critic newspaper put out in furtherance of James Reilly's Independent candidacy for the 1902 Territorial election (Strathern, Alberta Newspapers, p. 32)


x1903

Bond of Brotherhood newspaper endorsed by Calgary T&L Council (Strathern, Alberta Newspapers, p. 32)

Alfred Palmer, James Worsley


x1904


x1905

1905

(Alberta and Saskatchewan hived off of the NWT and made into provinces)


Alberta

Mallory, C.A. and Vair, R.J. From a Farmer's standpoint. 1905. Mallory had been president of the PofI.    Weinrich 0343


T.A. Patrick of Yorkton Member of the NWT Legislature 1894-1904

The Five Province Heresy a Menace to National Unity (1905)

(listed in Weinrich) (not in hathi; not in internet archives) (not seen)


Saskatchewan

E.A. Partridge, Shall we co-operate to secure legitimate value for our wheat. pamphlet United Grain Growers Archives


(other books by Partridge:

Partridge, A People's Road to Hudson's Bay. no date. pamphlet United Grain Growers Archives;

many other works listed in Weinrich)


see also "That Man Partridge" E.A. Partridge, His Thoughts and Times by Murray Knuttila (Canadian Plains Research Centre, Regina, 1994)



x1906



x1907

Alberta

Great West newspaper of the Society of Equity

1908 became official organ of the Trades and Labor Council

1909 absorbed by Grain Growers Guide



Saskatchewan

E. A. Partridge, A Farmers Trade Union. pamphlet in the United Grain Growers Archives




x1908

Alberta

Edwards, Henrietta Muir. Legal status of Canadian women. Weinrich 0395  

[first publication listed in Weinrich that was written by an Albertan and published in Alberta]


Alberta Homestead newspaper of the Alberta Farmers Association

published by Arthur Balmer Watt

(Renamed Homestead in 1911; carried on in publication until 1913 under management of George B. Fraser and Floyd Higgins. nothing known of these two)



Saskatchewan




x1909


(1909 founding of the UFA at Edmonton through merger of the Alberta Farmers Association (AFA) and the Society of Equity.)


496 UFA Constitution and bylaws adopted by convention Jan. 14th 1909

Weinrich 426 (Peel 2087B)




x1910

Blake, F.  The Proletarian in Politics - the Socialist position as defended by C.M. O'Brien, MLA in the Alberta Legislature. Vancouver: Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), 1910.

This publication is largely a transcript of a speech by MLA Charlie O'Brien (1875 born; ).

(Charlie O'Brien was elected for the SPC in the Rocky Mountain district, which contained many coal miners. He got even more votes in 1913 but that time did not take the seat.)

Weinrich 430

available online:

Hathitrust has copy but only for limited search.

========



John MacDougall (1859-1939) Rural Life in Canada.   (Weinrich 516)

(sparse info on this author)

======


Budden, Alf. The Slave of the Farm

Two different versions with mostly the same title:

-1910 version (date based on circumstantial evidence)

begins "It has been said that knowledge is power..."

available online:

https://www.socialisthistory.ca/Docs/PreWWI/Slave-of-Farm.htm (transcribed and put online by Peter Campbell (see  Socialist History Project website)


SPC claims credit for its publication. Canadiana online cites "... the S.P. of C., therefore, place this pamphlet in your hands ..." from page 3.

Date of publication as 1910 proven by: Western Clarion, Vancouver (Aug. 6, 1910, page 2) advertisement: "Pamphlets now ready. Proletarian in Politics, The Slave of The Farm. 5 cents each -- 25 cents per dozen".

Western Clarion, Vancouver (Aug. 6, 1910): (https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00510_190905/262)


-1914/1918 version  The Slave of the Farm – Being letters from Alf Budden to a fellow farm slave and comrade in revolt. Foreword is dated Calgary, August 1914.

1916 addendum and a Jan 1, 1918 update was included in the version as published.

National Library of Canada cataloguing info cites Western Clarion, Vancouver (Jan. 1918, p. 15): "Now ready 'The Slave of the Farm' by Alf. Budden".

Publication "issued by the Dominion Executive Committee, SPC."

Begins with poem "And the fields that gleam, like a golden stream"

available online:

(Weinrich 655) 


Alf Budden was a member of the Socialist Party of Canada who lived at North Battleford in 1912. The Socialist Party of Canada published two different versions of his essay The Slave of the Farm, as small books. He argued that farmers were capitalist only in name, and that they were basically wage slaves for mortgage companies. (Newell, The Impossibilists, p. 47)

Contributor to the Western Clarion. December 10, 1920 Budden contributed to the Western Clarion an article entitled "The Woman's Place from a Proletarian rather than a Sex standpoint", in which he said there was no "woman question" but that the women and and men of the working class have interests in common -- both are are slaves to the rulers of capital. ((Newell, The Impossibilists, p. 60) He also wrote "Competing with himself" (Western Clarion, August 1911, p. 25-29, as per Buchanan "Yours for the revolution".


Described as a resident of North Battleford, he gave a socialist lecture at Halkirk, (Edmonton Bulletin, March 1, 1912, p. 4) and that same month addressed the farmers of Bentley. (Western Globe, March 20, 1912, p. 8). (According to information provided by Roy Devore, he could not sell his wheat and burnt it up and took to the road, "becoming one of North America's leading exponents of Marxian socialism". (Newell, The Impossibilists, p. 246-247)

Alf Budden ran as socialist (Independent) candidate in Little Bow in the 1913 provincial election (April 17, 1913). (Edmonton Bulletin, May 31, 1913, p. 13). Afterwards he and Joe Knight addressed an open meeting of the Amalgamated Carpenters union at Edmonton.  (Edmonton Bulletin, May 13, 1913, p. 13)

1913 gave "a course of lectures" in Edmonton's Majestic Theatre, addressed an "open air meeting" at the corner of Rice and First, Street then got on the train to Calgary. (Edmonton Bulletin, August 2, 1913, p. 12)

May 1919 Budden and Bill Pritchard addressed unionists in Butte, Montana in the cause of the One Big Union. ((Newell, The Impossibilists, p. 47)

=====


(Weinrich did not notice the two different versions. Weinrich says The Slave of the Farm was written in 1914 but not published until 1918.)

=======



x1911

Alberta

Nova Hromada/New Society organ of Federation of Ukrainian Socialists in Canada (Roman Kremar; Thomas TomashevskyStrathearn 363



Saskatchewan


x1912

Alberta


Edmonton Saturday Mirror "A journal of protest and Conviction"

edited by Gertrude Balmer Watt (Strathearn 365)

(see Tom Radford, Peggy & Balmer (2025))



Saskatchewan

Ed Paynter, Spectres of the Night and morning light 1912.

Ed Paynter (see 1895)

(see MacDonald, Alex.  Practical Utopians; The Lives and Writings of Saskatchewan Cooperative Pioneers Ed and Will Paynter (Published by Canadian Plains Research Center/University of Regina) (see 1941)




x1913

Alberta

Moukari handwritten newspaper of the Finnish Socialist Organization in Edmonton. in publication 1913-1915? (Strathearn 366)


Saskatchewan

No-Party League of Western Canada. Manifesto. [c. 1913]  prepared by E.A. Partridge, Weinrich 524

(for info on E.A. Partridge (1862-1931), see Montopedia blog)




x1914

Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.  Canadian union meeting souvenir, City of Calgary, Alberta Canada. Calgary. 1914. 79 pages. Weinrich 534


McClung, Nellie. The New Citizenship. Winnipeg: Political Equality League of Manitoba, 1914.

(McClung had not yet come to Alberta at this point in time.)  Weinrich 547


Wade, F.C. Experiments with the single tax in western Canada   Weinrich 568


Woodsworth and others including Nellie McClung. Studies in rural citizenship designed for the use of grain growers associations, etc. 1914. Weinrich 572


=====================================


unsorted

social conditions

Peel 3159

3431

3500

3589

4051

4089


socialism

3650

3822


public health

1789


finance

1222

1273

1304

1681

1705

1746

1813

2119

3157


lots in (Peel's PP) on farmers

ufa political party

on Riel Rebellion

women in politics



Louise McKinney (see Peel's PP)


for later writings of interest see Montopedia blogs

"Radical and reform-minded books and other writings in Alberta and Saskatchewan 1915-1934, 1935-1953, and 1954-1999



1954-1999

Gerry Wright, The Immorality of the Motor-Car...


Discussions on The Road Ahead -- Strategies for Democratic Socialism

Report on "The Road Ahead" Conference, September 9-11, 1988. UofA Campus, Edmonton.

Keynote Speech by Tony Benn.

(compiled by Tom Monto; published by the Woodsworth-Irvine Socialist Fellowship)

=======================================================================

pre-1915

Peel 1-4092

Weinrich 1-572


Some sources of information used to compile the list above


Weinrich Social Protest


Peel's Prairie Provinces (3rd edition book form)






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History | Tom Monto Montopedia is a blog about the history, present, and future of Edmonton, Alberta. Run by Tom Monto, Edmonton historian. Fruits of my research, not complete enough to be included in a book, and other works.

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