"They didn't starve us out": Industrial Cape Breton in the 1920s (documentary film)
Directed by Patricia Kipping, 1991. National Film Board of Canada, Documentary Lens.
Click here to watch.
This film is narrated by director Kipping, and gives us an image of life in Cape Breton's industrial towns through photos, newspaper illustrations and clippings, accompanied by folkloric songs and interview soundbites provided in voice-over. Kipping seems to lean toward the perspective of the miners whom she lets relate how life was like in these worker communities. BESCO, she explains, structured the lives of their employees and that of their families: company stores, power, electricity, row homes, water distribution were all provided by the corporation. Roy Wolvin bought all the steel and coal companies in 1920. The film also sheds light on how women and children lived during this period: although they didn't have much money, they had pride and ensured that their children went to school and that the clothes they had were washed and pressed every week. Little details like this give the viewer an impression that miners were fighting to maintain this humble and comfortable, but by no means extravagant, lifestyle. By contrast, BESCO is cast as a kind of villain, depriving miners of their ability to maintain this standard of life.
Kipping defends the demands of the miners and accuses the government of reacting savagely by ordering the police and army to act against them, as though the miners were "foreign enemies." She explains: "All they wanted was to earn a decent wage, and to live like free people." Most of the witnesses to the strikes that are interviewed persist in thinking that the miners, may have acted out of desperation, but still acted ethically, even when a group of miners ransacked the company stores, distributed the goods to the various families, and in some cases, set the stores on fire. I am left to wonder: does the end justify the means? Although the miners' material gains were relatively minor, one retired miner, recorded in the video, viewed the end of the long period of strikes in a more positive light: "The strike in itself was beneficial to the people of Cape Breton [...] It broke the absolute control of a person's individual destiny." In that sense, some of the gains to Cape Breton's inhabitants were of an intangible nature. They were able to break free from the control that BESCO held over their lives in ways that went beyond employment (lodgings, food, supplies, power, utilities), and feel a sense of independence and autonomy.
Click here to watch.
This film is narrated by director Kipping, and gives us an image of life in Cape Breton's industrial towns through photos, newspaper illustrations and clippings, accompanied by folkloric songs and interview soundbites provided in voice-over. Kipping seems to lean toward the perspective of the miners whom she lets relate how life was like in these worker communities. BESCO, she explains, structured the lives of their employees and that of their families: company stores, power, electricity, row homes, water distribution were all provided by the corporation. Roy Wolvin bought all the steel and coal companies in 1920. The film also sheds light on how women and children lived during this period: although they didn't have much money, they had pride and ensured that their children went to school and that the clothes they had were washed and pressed every week. Little details like this give the viewer an impression that miners were fighting to maintain this humble and comfortable, but by no means extravagant, lifestyle. By contrast, BESCO is cast as a kind of villain, depriving miners of their ability to maintain this standard of life.
Kipping defends the demands of the miners and accuses the government of reacting savagely by ordering the police and army to act against them, as though the miners were "foreign enemies." She explains: "All they wanted was to earn a decent wage, and to live like free people." Most of the witnesses to the strikes that are interviewed persist in thinking that the miners, may have acted out of desperation, but still acted ethically, even when a group of miners ransacked the company stores, distributed the goods to the various families, and in some cases, set the stores on fire. I am left to wonder: does the end justify the means? Although the miners' material gains were relatively minor, one retired miner, recorded in the video, viewed the end of the long period of strikes in a more positive light: "The strike in itself was beneficial to the people of Cape Breton [...] It broke the absolute control of a person's individual destiny." In that sense, some of the gains to Cape Breton's inhabitants were of an intangible nature. They were able to break free from the control that BESCO held over their lives in ways that went beyond employment (lodgings, food, supplies, power, utilities), and feel a sense of independence and autonomy.