The Industrial Verse of 'Slim' McInnis

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

Protest Song and Verse in Cape Breton Island

MacKinnon

2009

Residual Radicalism

MacKinnon

MacKinnon²

2014

The making of songs is an important, yet under-explored tradition amongst steel workers throughout North America. Steel making has been an essential part of Cape Breton Island’s economy and landscape since the mid-nineteenth century. The first steel mill was constructed in Sydney Mines in the 1870s; a larger mill was built in the newly emerging city of Sydney, the island’s largest centre, by 1901. Distinctive traditions of work and leisure began to emerge amidst the grid-patterned streets and company-owned homes of workers and managers. In the early years of the twentieth century, a close-knit working-class consciousness had taken root in the steel making centre of Sydney, Cape Breton Island. Songs explore topics such as the harsh conditions of work in the steel plant, personalities and places, tragedies, the industrial conflicts of the 1920s, and the attitudes of workers toward management. Many are often tinged with satire and witty analysis of working-class life. Sydney, as with many communities in North America, has profoundly experienced the process of deindustrialization in the latter part of the twentieth century. The last operating coal mines closed in Cape Breton the 1990s and the Sydney Steel plant shut its doors in 2000. This paper explores the questions: what role did songs about steel play in the development of class consciousness during the development of the steel industry in Sydney? Do songs play an equally significant role in the latter part of the twentieth century when the community was undergoing the process of deindustrialization? What types of songs about steel making and the steel mill are found in each of these significant periods in Sydney’s history? An exploration of some of these songs reveal much about how human beings respond to the processes of industrialization and deindustrialization.

Crime and Punishment in the Cape Breton Songs Contest

Brodie

2020

Dishpan Parade, a morning women’s entertainment program, was a production of Sydney, Nova Scotia’s CJCB Radio from 1948 to 1952. Early in its run the hosts created a local song contest, rewarding lyrics on a Cape Breton theme set to known melodies. Many entrants took the opportunity to satirize current events, protected by the implied triviality of light verse. This article places two such songs—“Bootleg Coal,” set to “The Blue-Tail Fly,” and “Go Away (The County Jail)” to “Polly Waddle Doodle” — within the specific history that occasioned them and suggests the expressive and subtle subversiveness of mid-century Cape Breton women.