Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Winter 1998
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1, Winter 1998, pp. 71-72.
Abstract
The argument is a tidy one indeed. By concentrating on the reactions of farm workers to changing labor-capital relations Danysk contends that the tens of thousands of people who came to toil in the farm fields of prairie Canada over half a century can be conveniently divided into two groups. The first, those who worked in agriculture during the homestead stage before World War I, worked primarily to learn agricultural practices and to acquire sufficient capital to apply to their own quarter section once they acquired it. With labor in short supply they were able to control their relationship with their employers to a considerable extent. The War, however, was a watershed, and in the 1920s the absence of good land helped to consolidate rural capitalism. With independent ownership less likely, farm workers before the Depression became rural proletarians acting as members of the working class in league with industrial labor, but disadvantaged by small numbers working in isolation. Consequently, their only option in the event of dissatisfaction usually was to locate similar employment elsewhere or to leave agriculture entirely.
The data, both literary and mathematical, which Danysk musters to support her conclusions are indeed impressive. As with most sweeping generalizations, however, equal evidence can be found for the exceptions. For example, if land was so scarce after the war, why was the Soldier Settlement Board able to place so many returned veterans on their own holdings? Moreover, good land was available for the plow in the Peace River country well into the '30s and continued to attract farm workers intent on farming. Furthermore, many farm workers in the '20s, like the Hoadley Boys in Alberta, came with capital in hand, and like their pre-war counterparts only wanted skill and experience before purchasing already developed farms. In all likelihood once they had farmed for a while the liens held on their property by the bank, the implement dealer, and the general merchant usually left them with less capital than their employees had in pocket. Finally, the agricultural ladder was not as rigid as the author implies since one of a number of personal setbacks ranging from prairie fires to unsympathetic bank managers could rapidly turn agrarian capitalists back into laborers working for another farmer to survive.
Quibbling aside, despite their time-honored role in good novels and bad jokes, the hired hands emerge from this book as wooden figures, their individuality hammered into this "conflictual" relationship between capital and labor. This is unfortunate since the primary and secondary literature is full of individual case studies of people triumphing over or succumbing to adversity because of individual personality and circumstance. Those from the much-criticized group of allegedly class-bound British harvesters brought over in 1923 and 1928 who eventually "made it" serve as cases in point.
Comments
Copyright 1998 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln