Coal Black Heart (35 page)

The Cape Breton mine quandary is noted by Allan Tupper, “Public Enterprise as Social Welfare: The Case of the Cape Breton Development Corporation,” in
Canadian Public Policy,
Autumn 1978, p. 533; on p. 16 of the report on the
1960 Royal Commission on Coal; and p. 4 of the submission by District 26 United Mine Workers of America to the same royal commission.

The quote about subventions comes from Tupper, “Public Enterprise as Social Welfare: The Case of the Cape Breton Development Corporation,” p. 531.

Dosco’s decision to import coal for the steel plant is noted by Paul MacEwan,
Miners and Steelworkers, Labour in Cape Breton,
p. 336.

The extent of Dosco’s reach is detailed in Dosco president Lionel Forsyth’s 1953 speech to the Empire Club of Canada. The quote about Dosco’s future comes from the same source.

Former Dosco public relations director Arnie Patterson pointed out the significance of Forsyth’s death in an interview with the author.

For much of the information about the nasty squabble to fill the power vacuum left by Forsyth’s death, I’m indebted to Harry Bruce,
Frank Sobey: The Man and the Empire
(Halifax: Nimbus Publishing Ltd., 1985).

The Dobson quote comes from David Orchard,
The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism
and can be viewed on the Avroland website (
http://www.avroland.ca/ccaft-105.html
).

Roe’s acquisition of 77 percent of Dosco’s shares is noted in
The New York Times,
“Roe wins Control of Dominion Steel,” Oct. 10, 1957.

The source for Dosco’s losses in the 1952-55 period is Paul MacEwan,
Miners and Steelworkers,
p. 294.

Dosco’s self-appraisal is contained in the submission to the Royal Commission on Coal (1959) by Dominion Coal Company, Ltd., pp. 21-22.

The decline of the Nova Scotia industry is noted in the Submission of the Government of the Province of Nova Scotia to the Royal Commission on Coal (1959), pp. 16-50.

My main sources for Roe’s involvement in Dosco are interviews with Arnie Patterson; Tupper,
Public Enterprise as Social Welfare: The Case of the Cape
Breton Development Corporation;
and MacEwan,
Miners and Steelworkers: Labour in Cape Breton.

The summary of coal production in Nova Scotia at this time comes from various annual reports of the Nova Scotia Department of Mines.

The quote about the future of coal mining in Cape Breton comes from J.R. MacDonald,
The Cape Breton Coal Problem
(Ottawa: National Energy Board, 1966), pp. 32-35.

The description of R.B. Cameron comes from Edward Cowan, “Volatile Nova Scotia Executive Pulls Steel Mill Out of the Red,”
The New York Times,
Dec. 16, 1968, and from interviews with those who knew him.

Most of the information on Devco’s state during this period comes from Cape Breton Development Corp., annual reports. As good a description as any of Devco’s strategy during this period comes via its former president, Tom Kent, in his paper, “Cape Breton provides pointers for the adjustment programs required by the decline of the old economy,” School of Policy Studies, Working Paper 14, February, 2001.

The appraisal of the U.S. coal industry comes from Michael C. Jensen, “King Coal’s Comeback Bid,”
The New York Times,
Oct. 15, 1972.

The British situation during the oil shock period is considered in Roy Reed, “Despite Falling Output, British Coal’s Future Looks Bright,”
The New York Times,
Aug. 2, 1977.

My source for the increase in U.S. production during the 1970s is Richard Bonskowski, William D. Watson and Fred Freme, “Coal Production in the United States—An Historical Overview,” a document prepared for the Energy Information Administration, 2006, p. 1. The document is viewable online at:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coal_production_review.pdf
.

Figures on Canadian coal production during this period come from “Canadian Production of Coal, 1867-1976,” Historical Statistics of Canada, Statistics Canada, Table Q1-5, found at
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-516-XIE/sectionq/sectionq.htm
.

The figures on population growth come from the Census of Canada from the years 1956 through 1981. Cape Breton statistics come from “Good Governance, a necessary but not sufficient condition for facilitating economic viability in a peripheral region: Cape Breton as a case study,” prepared for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality by Wade Locke and Stephen Tomblin, Oct. 2003. It is viewable online at
http://www.cbrm.ns.ca/portal/documents/GovernanceStudyReport.pdf

Cape Breton’s unemployment rate is found in the Nova Scotia Department of Finance’s Labour Market Review 2004 for Cape Breton.

The figure for Devco subsidization comes from “Ottawa Dismantling Devco,” CBC News, November, 10, 2000 (
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/1999/01/28/devcoll990128.html
). The comparable figure for Sysco comes from James Douglas Frost,
Merchant Princes: Halifax’s First Family of Finance, Ships and Steel
(Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 2003), p. 328.

I wrote about Brophy in “Letter from Sydney: A deadly legacy: The city’s infamous tarponds still await cleanup,”
Macleans,
April 16, 2001, p. 32.

Benson, John.
British Coalminers in the Nineteenth Century: A Social History.
New York: Holmes & Meier,

Brown, Richard.
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton.
London: S. Low, Marston, Low and Searle, originally published Reprinted Stellarton, Nova Scotia: Maritime Mining Record Office, 1899.

Calder, John. “Coal Age Galapagos: Joggins and the Lions of Nineteenth Century Geology,” in
Atlantic Geology,

Cameron, James.
The Pictonian Colliers.
Halifax: The Nova Scotia Museum,

Christmas, Lawrence.
Coaldust Grins: Portraits of Canadian Coal Miners.
Calgary: Cambria Publishing,

Dawson, John William.
Acadian Geology, The Geological Structure, Organic Remains and Mineral Resources of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
London: Macmillan and Co.,

Dawson, John William.
Fifty Years of Work in Canada, Scientific and Educational.
Edinburgh: Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.,

Forbes, E.R., D.A. Muise
The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press,

Frank, David.
J.B. McLachlan: A Biography: The Story of a Legendary Labour Leader and the Cape Breton Coal Miners.
Toronto: James Lorimer & Company,

Frank, David. “The Cape Breton Coal Industry and the Rise and Fall of the British Empire Steel Corp.” Acadiensis, Vol. VII, No. 1,

Frank, David. “Coal Masters and Coal Miners: The 1922 Strike and the Roots of Class Conflict in the Cape Breton Coal Industry.” master’s thesis at Dalhousie University, Halifax,

Fraser, Dawn.
Echoes from Labor’s War.
Wreck Cove, N.S.: Breton Books,

Freese, Barbara.
Coal: A Human History.
Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing,

Gray, Francis.
The Coal Fields and Coal Industry of Eastern Canada.
Ottawa: Department of Mines and Energy,

Historical Statistics of Canada, Statistics Canada. Table Q1-5, Canadian Production of Coal, 1867 to 1976. Found at
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/n–516-XIE/sectionq/sectionq.htm
.

The History of Sydney Mines,
Sydney Mines, N.S.: Princess Printing,

Hornsby, Stephen J.
Nineteenth-Century Cape Breton: A Historical Geography.
Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press,

Lawson, Thomas
W., Frenzied Finance: The Crime of Amalgamated.
New York: Greenwood Press Publishers, (originally published in 1905 by The Ridgway-Thayer Company).

Lovett, Robert W. “Rundell, Bridge and Rundell—An Early Company History” in Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, March,

MacEwan, Paul.
Miners and Steelworkers: Labour in Cape Breton.
Toronto: Hokkert,

MacGillivray, Donald. “Cape Breton in the 1920s: A community besieged,” from Essays in Cape Breton History, ed. by B.D. Tennyson. Windsor, N.S.: Lancelot Press,

MacGillivray, Donald. “Henry Melville Whitney Comes to Cape Breton: The Saga of a Gilded Age Entrepreneur” in Acadiensis, Vol. IX, Autumn

MacKay, Ian. “‘By Wisdom, Wile or War’: The Provincial Workmen’s Association and the Struggle for Working-Class Independence in Nova Scotia, 1879-97.” Labour/Le Travail, Fall

MacKay, Ian. “Strikes in the Maritimes, 1901-1914.” Acadiensis, Vol. 13,

MacKay, Ian. “The crisis of dependent development: class conflict in the Nova Scotia coalfields, 1872–1876” in Class, Gender, and Region: Essays in Canadian Historical Sociology, reprinted in a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Sociology,

MacKay, Ian. “The Realm of Uncertainty: The experience of work in the Cumberland coal mines 1873-1927.” Acadiensis, Autumn

MacKenzie, Rennie.
Blast! Cape Breton Coal Mine Disasters.
Wreck Cove, N.S.: Breton Books,

McPhee, John.
Annals of the Former World.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

McIntosh, Robert.
Boys in the Pits, Child Labour in Coal Mines.
Montreal and Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s University Press,

McIntosh, John.
The Company Store: J.B. McLachlan and the Cape Breton Coal Miners 1900-1925.
Toronto: Doubleday Canada,

Millward, Hugh. “Mine Locations and the Sequence of Coal Exploitation on the Sydney Coalfield, 1720-1980” in Cape Breton at 200, Historical essays in honor of the island’s bicentennial 1785–1985. Sydney: University College of Cape Breton Press,

Millward, Hugh. “Mine Operators and Mining Leases on Nova Scotia’s Sydney Coalfield, 1720 to the Present” in Nova Scotia Historical Review, Vol. 13, number 2,

Morgan, Robert.
Early Cape Breton from Founding to Famine.
Sydney, N.S.: Breton Books,

Muise, Del. “The Making of an Industrial Community: Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1867-1900” in Cape Breton Historical Essays (Donald MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson eds.). Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press,

Nova Scotia Mine Fatalities 1838-1992, Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management database.
http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/meninmines/fatalities.asp?Language=English
.

O’Donnell, John C.
And Now the Fields Are Green: A Collection of Coal Mining Songs in Canada.
Sydney, N.S.: Cape Breton University Press,

Patterson, Rev. George.
History of the County of Pictou.
Pictou, N.S.: Dawson Brothers,

Report of the Royal Commission Respecting the Coal Mines of the Province of Nova Scotia 1925. Halifax: Minister of Public Works and Mines,

Report of the Royal Commission Respecting the Coal Mines of Nova Scotia 1932. Halifax: Minister of Public Works and Mines,

Richard, Justice Peter.
The Westray Story: A Predictable Path to Disaster,
Report of the Westray Mine Public Inquiry. Vol. 1, November,

Samson, Daniel. “Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association, Nova Scotia, 1825-1842.” Acadiensis, Autumn

Samson, Daniel.
The Spirit of Industry and Improvement: Liberal Government and Rural-Industrial Society, Nova Scotia, 1790-1862.
Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press,

Tuttle, Carolyn. “Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution” in
EH.Net
Encyclopedia.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Library and Archives Canada:

Excerpt from
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton
by Richard Brown (S. Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1871). Reprinted with permission from Library and Archives Canada.

Quote from
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens (Harper’s, 1854). Reprinted with permission from Library and Archives Canada.

Excerpt from
The Manufacturing Population of England
by Peter Gaskell (Baldwin and Cradock, 1833). Reprinted with permission from Library and Archives Canada.

Quote from
Remarks on the Geology and Mineralogy of Nova Scotia
by Abraham Gesner (Gossip and Coade, 1836). Reprinted with permission from Library and Archives Canada.

Excerpt from
The Coal-Fields and Coal Industry of Eastern Canada, a General Survey and Description,
by Francis W. Gray (Government Printing Bureau, 1916). Reprinted with permission from Library and Archives Canada.

Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University

Excerpt from “Katy Mary,” unpublished manuscript by Florence R. MacLeod papers, in
Cape Breton from Foundling to Famine
by Robert Morgan (Breton Books, 2000). Reprinted with permission from the Beaton Institute at Cape Breton University.

Quote from
Cape Bretons Magazine
by Gordon McGregor. Reprinted with permission from Ronald Caplan.

Quote from
Cape Bretons Magazine
by Patrick McNeil. Reprinted with permission from Ronald Caplan.

Excerpt from
He Starved, He Starved, I Tell You,
by Dawn Fraser (New Hogtown Press, 1978). Reprinted with permission from Breton Books.

Excerpts from “I Work in the Pit,” “The Soreness of My Soul” and “Deep Down in the Mine,” reprinted with permission from John C. O’Donnell.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following institutions for allowing the reproduction of images from their archives and collections:

Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management

“Glace Bay, CB.” Postcard sent by Mr. Brown to his daughter in 1906.

“Miner’s home life” (Florence, Cape Breton, 1941). From the Helen Creighton Collection.

“The Springhill Colliery Explosion.” Published in
The Dominion Illustrated,
7 March 1891, F80 D71.

Nurse tending to a miner injured in the Springhill Mine Disaster, taken by Maurice Crosby, 1 November 1956. From the Maurice Crosby Collection NSARM 1997-254/005 no.33.13b.

Portrait of James B. McLachlan, circa 1930. From the Jefferson Collection NSARM 1992-304 n.124.

Museum of Industry, Stellarton, Nova Scotia

Photo of Mount Rundell, the home of the Manager of the General Mining Association, circa 1880. From the Stellarton Mining Museum Collection, no. I91.32.604. Portrait of Richard Smith, from the Stellarton Mining Museum Collection, no. I91.32.608.

Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University

“Pit pony and boy, Glace Bay,” 1905. Photograph donated by David Frank. 80-18-4198.

“Boy miners at Caledonia,” circa 1900. Photograph donated by David Frank. 80-5-4185.

“Soldiers of Dominion No. 3, Glace Bay,” 1909. Photograph donated by Hilda Day. MG 12.16 (E): 78–735-2485.

National Coal Mining Museum of England

Drawing of child trapper working in the mine from the Children’s Employment Commission Report, 1842.

Drawing of woman carrying coal from the Children’s Employment Commission Report, 1842.