Book Description

Agitator, educator, organizer. J.B. McLachlan is legendary in Cape Breton as the pre-eminent labour leader of the early twentieth century. Long considered a classic in the field of Canadian social history, this authoritative biography by award-winning scholar David Frank tells the story of McLachlan, champion of Cape Breton's coal miners and political rabble-rouser who fought tooth-and-nail for social justice across the country. He led the coal miners of Nova Scotia in their struggles for union recognition, defending their cause in the labour wars of the 1920s and uniting them around ideas of industrial democracy and social reconstruction. The battles between mine owners and the miners were epic. Mine owners and their friends in government used violence and intimidation in their efforts to defeat workers. McLachlan, whose police file called him "an agitator of the worst type," was no stranger to the coercive forces of his day. He was charged with sedition in 1923, and his political trial in Nova Scotia stands as a notorious use of the courts to punish and silence the labour movement and its leaders. By the 1920s and 30s, he was recognized across Canada as a leading spokesman for the radical Left. McLachlan helped change the balance of power in industrial society, advancing the struggle for social and economic justice. Readers today, fighting for better wages, better benefits, better lives, can learn much from McLachlan's exploits. His experience is part, parcel, and parallel to some of the eras most famous faces, both friend and foe. From battles with anti-labour prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, to famed American miner's union leader John L. Lewis, or liaisons with preacher of the social gospel of Canadian labour J.S. Woodsworth - the first leader of the party that would become the New Democratic Party, McLachlan was front-and-centre in the social conflicts of his time. J.B. McLachlan: A Biography is a rich portrait of a brilliant early twentieth-century Canadian rebel. It has been widely recognized as an outstanding work of biography and a compelling account a Canadian labour hero. It received multiple prizes for non-fiction and historical writing, including the John W. Dafoe Book Prize, awarded to the best book on, set in, or otherwise about Canada published that year. It also received the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award (Non-Fiction), the Robert S. Kenny Prize for Labour/Left Studies, and the Canadian Historical Association's Clio Award for regional history. This monumental text offers an unparalleled history of Canadian labour history in the twentieth century, rousing the legacy of one of Canada's most important radicals for all readers who yearn for social and economic justice today.