Catharine Anne Wilson's Books

Being Neighbours

Cooperative Work and Rural Culture, 1830–1960

By: Catharine Anne Wilson

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Being Neighbours

Cooperative Work and Rural Culture, 1830–1960

By: Catharine Anne Wilson

Throughout history, farm families have shared work and equipment with their neighbours to complete labour-intensive, time-sensitive, and time-consuming tasks. They benefitted materially and socially from these voluntary, flexible, loosely structured networks of reciprocal assistance, making neighbourliness a vital but overlooked aspect of agricultural change. Being Neighbours takes us into the heart of neighbourhood – the set of people near and surrounding the family – through an examination of work bees in southern Ontario from 1830 to 1960. The bee was a special event where people gathered to work on a neighbour’s farm like bees in a hive for a wide variety of purposes, including barn raising, logging, threshing, quilting, turkey plucking, and apple paring. Drawing on the diaries of over one hundred men and women, Catharine Wilson takes readers into families’ daily lives, the intricacies of their labour exchange, and their workways, feasts, and hospitality. Through the prism of the bee and a close reading of the diaries, she uncovers the subtle social politics of mutual dependency, the expectations neighbours had of each other, and their ways of managing conflict and crisis. This book adds to the literature on cooperative work that focuses on evaluating its economic efficiency and complicates histories of capitalism that place communal values at odds with market orientation. Beautifully written, engaging, and richly detailed and illustrated, Being Neighbours reveals the visceral textures of rural life.

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Page Count

273

Publisher

McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published Date

ISBN 10

022801588X

ISBN 13

9780228015888

Tenants in Time

Family Strategies, Land, and Liberalism in Upper Canada, 1799-1871

By: Catharine Anne Wilson

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Tenants in Time

Family Strategies, Land, and Liberalism in Upper Canada, 1799-1871

By: Catharine Anne Wilson

The freeholding pioneer is a powerful image in settlement history - Tenants in Time tells a different story. Tenancy, though relegated to the periphery by the liberal idealization of ownership, was a common and vital part of the economy and society. Against a background of international land agitation and using an inter-disciplinary approach, Catharine Wilson looks at life as a tenant farmer, providing new insights into family strategies, land markets, and the growth of liberalism. Using evidence from across Upper Canada she shows how tenancy transformed the landscape and tied old and new settlers together in a continuum of mutual dependence that was essential to settlement, capital creation, and social mobility. Her analysis of customary rights reveals a landlord-tenant relationship - and a concept of ownership - more complex and flexible than previously understood. Landlords, from ordinary farmers to absentee aristocrats, are also part of the story and the much-criticized clergy reserves take a positive role. An intimate exploration of Cramahe Township follows tenants over the generations as they supported their families and combined liberal ideas with household-centered ways. From aggregate statistics to individual human dramas, Tenants in Time unravels the life of the tenant farmer in a wonderfully documented, engaging, and compelling argument.

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Page Count

681

Publisher

McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published Date

ISBN 10

0773578277

ISBN 13

9780773578272

New Lease on Life

Landlords, Tenants, and Immigrants in Ireland and Canada

By: Catharine Anne Wilson

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New Lease on Life

Landlords, Tenants, and Immigrants in Ireland and Canada

By: Catharine Anne Wilson

A New Lease on Life is a study of two sets of individuals - landlords and tenants - whose aspirations, opportunities, and destinies spanned the Atlantic. In this richly detailed history of migration and adaptation in the nineteenth century, Catharine Wi

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