Protest Song and Verse in Cape Breton Island

Abstract

On Cape Breton Island, where coal mining and steel making were once an essential part of the region’s culture and economy, protest song and verse are found in abundance. This article explores some previously unexamined protest songs and verses of Cape Breton Island. The body of songs is culled largely from the Maritime Labour Herald, a newspaper of the 1920s that included both locally and internationally composed works. Some earlier folklorists ignored protest songs because their paradigms did not permit them to view these forms as authentic cultural expressions. Their approach raises complex issues of how authenticity is constructed and by whom. My intent is to show that a well-developed protest song tradition was alive and well, and played an important role in the labour struggles of the 1920s. Indeed, these vernacular materials were used for solidarity during times of upheaval and change in Cape Breton Island.Sur l’île du Cap-Breton, où les mines de charbon et les aciéries constituaient autrefois une composante essentielle de la culture et de l’économie de la région, la chanson et le poème de contestation sont très courants. Cet article explore certains chansons et poèmes de contestation de l’île du Cap-Breton qui n’avaient jusque-là pas été étudiés. Le corpus de chansons provient pour la plupart du Maritime Labour Herald, un quotidien des années 1920 qui incluait des oeuvres composées sur place et ailleurs dans le monde. Dans le passé, certains ethnologues ont écarté les chansons de contestation car leurs paradigmes ne leur permettaient pas d’appréhender ces dernières comme des modes d’expression culturels authentiques. Leur approche soulève des questions complexes sur comment et par qui se construit l’authenticité. Mon propos ici est de démontrer qu’une tradition de chansons de contestation très évoluée a bien et bel existé et a joué un rôle important dans les luttes travaillistes des années 1920. En effet, ces documents vernaculaires affermirent la solidarité au cours des moments de bouleversement et de changement à l’île du Cap-Breton

Travelling in Time to Cape Breton Island in the 1920s: Protest Songs, Murals and Island Identity

“…Many protest songs and poems of local composition were sung and recited throughout the industrial communities; some were published in the Maritime Labour Herald throughout the 1920s. 2 These compositions focus on local events, personalities and places, tragedies such as mine accidents, the industrial conflicts of the 1920s, and the attitudes of workers toward management. These songs are often tinged with satire and witty analysis of workingclass life.…”

Residual Radicalism

“…Until this point, industrial song and verse were largely characterized by themes of resistance and solidarity in response to malevolent outside action, oftentimes by the employer or strikebreakers. Workers and working-class community members who have had direct experiences of industry, as was the case with John "Slim" McInnis and Charlie MacKinnon, were the most frequent authors of these songs and poems (MacKinnon, 2008).…”

“…These traditions combined with industrial experiences to inform "emergent" cultural traditions (1986: 22). Emergent working-class structures of feeling are revealed in many traditional practices, such as nicknames, songs, poems, May Day parades, and labour commemorations (Davey and MacKinnon 2001;MacKinnon 2008;Fraser 1992Fraser [1926; MacGillivray 1991; Heron and Penfold 2005;MacKinnon 2013). The re-imagining of pre-industrial 2.…”

“…www.erudit.org reflections of working-class life reveal the processes of economic divestment and capital mobility which continue to affect industrial communities around the globe. Our work is an outgrowth of the "Protest Song Project" at Cape Breton University (www.protestsongs.ca), which has identified more than 75 protest songs and poems that were written between 1910and 1930(MacKinnon 2008. The majority of these songs deal with the coal industry and, as Donald MacGillivray notes, "the substantial amount of verse and song which came out of the working class struggles of industrial Cape Breton ... have concentrated little on the situation of the Sydney steelworkers (1991: 273-74).…”