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Soviet Princeton: Slim Evans and the 1932-33 Miners’ Strike (New Star $19
Pause, if you will, to consider the value of your local archives.
All over B.C. there are repositories of history that are used by researchers and authors such as long-time partners Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat who are board members of the Princeton and District Museum and Archives (PDMA).
As musicians they've released seven albums of mostly traditional Canadian heritage songs, and they have produced two books pertaining to Princeton and the Similkameen Valley.
The first was Dead Horse on the Tulameen: Settler Verse from BC's Similkameen Valley (Canadian Folk Workshop, 2011), a collection of vernacular verses from the pages of the local presses.
The second is Soviet Princeton: Slim Evans and the 1932-33 Miners' Strike (New Star $19), recalling the most turbulent period of the town's history when aggrieved coal miners brought labour organizer Slim Evans to town to help them protest a 10% pay cut during the Great Depression.
Soviet Princeton revisits the volatile winter of 1932-33 when coal miners felt they had no recourse other than to import labour organizer Arthur "Slim"; Evans from the Workers Unity League to help them unionize. When miners from two of the three coal mines in the area responded to Evans' leadership, town fathers predictably denounced "outside agitators"; and the "Communist menace."; In fact, the most menacing forces were the mounted police who charged into picket lines, members of the Ku Klux Klan in British Columbia who assaulted and threatened workers, and a gang led by the president of the Board of Trade who kidnapped Evans, and bundled him onto a train out of town.
Evans soon returned. The labour strife was heightened by the federal government's creation of a Relief Camp north of town that had also attracted organizers from the Canadian Labour Defence League. The local newspaper, The Princeton Star, predictably sided with its advertising base, the business community.
Bartlett and Ruebsaat gleaned the gist of the tense standoff between the town's establishment and the would-be unionists from the local archives that afforded access to the Depression-era issues of The Princeton Star. The strife served to strengthen the resolve of the undeniably heroic Slim Evans who led the On-to-Ottawa Trek of homeless and unemployed Canadians protesting the relief camps and their conditions.
The Princeton and District Museum and Archives started from a log cabin in 1958. The town erected the existing building as a centennial project in 1967. Livery stables and a farm implement shed were added to the museum in 1985. Its Joe Pollard Wing was built in 1999 to house 40,000 fossils and minerals. The museum boasts a First Peoples basket display, a complete Princeton newspaper collection from 1900; approximately 10,000 photographs from 1880 to present; more than 200 audiotape recordings (interviews with Princeton pioneers); historic maps, mining reports from 1858; some 83 Notman Studios glass plate photos (late 1800s-early 1900s); and an 1880s cabin which housed John Fall Allison's daughter Lily and her family.
978-1-5542010-9-9
Princeton and District Museum and Archives, at 167 Vermilion Avenue, is one of 150 locations that will be included in The Literary Map of B.C.
All over B.C. there are repositories of history that are used by researchers and authors such as long-time partners Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat who are board members of the Princeton and District Museum and Archives (PDMA).
As musicians they've released seven albums of mostly traditional Canadian heritage songs, and they have produced two books pertaining to Princeton and the Similkameen Valley.
The first was Dead Horse on the Tulameen: Settler Verse from BC's Similkameen Valley (Canadian Folk Workshop, 2011), a collection of vernacular verses from the pages of the local presses.
The second is Soviet Princeton: Slim Evans and the 1932-33 Miners' Strike (New Star $19), recalling the most turbulent period of the town's history when aggrieved coal miners brought labour organizer Slim Evans to town to help them protest a 10% pay cut during the Great Depression.
Soviet Princeton revisits the volatile winter of 1932-33 when coal miners felt they had no recourse other than to import labour organizer Arthur "Slim"; Evans from the Workers Unity League to help them unionize. When miners from two of the three coal mines in the area responded to Evans' leadership, town fathers predictably denounced "outside agitators"; and the "Communist menace."; In fact, the most menacing forces were the mounted police who charged into picket lines, members of the Ku Klux Klan in British Columbia who assaulted and threatened workers, and a gang led by the president of the Board of Trade who kidnapped Evans, and bundled him onto a train out of town.
Evans soon returned. The labour strife was heightened by the federal government's creation of a Relief Camp north of town that had also attracted organizers from the Canadian Labour Defence League. The local newspaper, The Princeton Star, predictably sided with its advertising base, the business community.
Bartlett and Ruebsaat gleaned the gist of the tense standoff between the town's establishment and the would-be unionists from the local archives that afforded access to the Depression-era issues of The Princeton Star. The strife served to strengthen the resolve of the undeniably heroic Slim Evans who led the On-to-Ottawa Trek of homeless and unemployed Canadians protesting the relief camps and their conditions.
The Princeton and District Museum and Archives started from a log cabin in 1958. The town erected the existing building as a centennial project in 1967. Livery stables and a farm implement shed were added to the museum in 1985. Its Joe Pollard Wing was built in 1999 to house 40,000 fossils and minerals. The museum boasts a First Peoples basket display, a complete Princeton newspaper collection from 1900; approximately 10,000 photographs from 1880 to present; more than 200 audiotape recordings (interviews with Princeton pioneers); historic maps, mining reports from 1858; some 83 Notman Studios glass plate photos (late 1800s-early 1900s); and an 1880s cabin which housed John Fall Allison's daughter Lily and her family.
978-1-5542010-9-9
Princeton and District Museum and Archives, at 167 Vermilion Avenue, is one of 150 locations that will be included in The Literary Map of B.C.
Submitted on August 31, 2015 in By David.
