Solemn Processions and Terrifying Violence: Spectacle, Authority, and Citizenship during the Lachine Canal Strike of 1843

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Solemn Processions and Terrifying Violence: Spectacle, Authority, and Citizenship during the Lachine Canal Strike of 1843
Abstract
During the winter of 1843, over one-thousand Irish migrant labourers hired to work on the expansion of the Lachine Canal near Montreal struck for higher wages. In the months that followed, they employed a range of public spectacles including nocturnal processions, charivaris, riots, and parades to intimidate their economic rivals and lobby support from the broader community. According to the author, these crowd events played a pivotal role in the way that Montreal's elites were re-conceptualizing the city, citizenship, and their own authority at the dawn of a period that would see the city transformed by mass immigration, industrialization and an entrenched capitalist economy.
Publication
Urban History Revire/Revue d'histoire urbaine
Volume
Vol. 38
Issue
no. 2
Pages
36-47
Date
Spring 2010
Language
en
URL
Citation
Horner, Dan. “Solemn Processions and Terrifying Violence: Spectacle, Authority, and Citizenship during the Lachine Canal Strike of 1843.” Urban History Revire/Revue d’histoire urbaine Vol. 38, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 36–47. http://www.erudit.org/revue/uhr/2010/v38/n2/039673ar.pdf.
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