BC’s Forgotten Labour Daily
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On May Day, 1901, District Union No. 6 of the Western Federation of Miners, began publishing the Rossland Evening World, an “advocate [of] the cause of organized labor” in the mining and smelting district of BC’s southern interior.
In the pre-Internet era, Canadian trade unions often clamored for a daily newspaper of their own to respond to negative media coverage. New research reveals that the dream of a labor daily was realized in British Columbia more than a century ago.
Ron Verzuh, author, most recently, of Smelter Wars, explores the history of this newspaper in a forthcoming piece in Labour/le Travail. In it, Verzuh documents how the World supported Rossland miners through a bitter strike in 1900-01 and managed to survive as the region’s labour daily until 1904.
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