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The Winnipeg General Strike The Winnipeg General Strike

Demanding rights for the working class

By Travis Tomchuk Published: May 13, 2019

• Collective rights

Photo: Archives of Manitoba, Winnipeg Strike 25 (N12313)

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Thirty‐five thousand workers off the job. Massive protests in streets and parks. A dismissed police force replaced by baton‐wielding vigilantes. A streetcar nearly tipped over and set aflame. Mounties opening fire on crowds of unarmed men, women and children.

It all happened in Winnipeg, Manitoba 100 years ago in one of the most well‐known and significant labour strikes in Canadian history: the Winnipeg General Strike.

Proclamation by Winnipeg Mayor Charles Gray banning parades and public gatherings, June 5, 1919. Despite this warning, silent parades and gatherings continued.

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Winnipeggers picnicking at a lake around 1914. Winnipeg’s business elite increased their wealth during times of economic growth and prosperity. 

Winnipeg mansion, 1924. Wealthy Winnipeggers built lavish homes south of the city’s downtown.

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Winnipeg enters the 20th century.

A family at home in Winnipeg, around 1915. In stark contrast to the mansions of Winnipeg’s business elites, working class Winnipeggers often lived in crowded housing.

Veterans returning from the First World War came home to find that their families were in worse economic and social conditions than before they had enlisted.

Skilled building and metal workers, who had spent many years specializing in their respective trades, were in the midst of negotiating new contracts for wages and working conditions with their employers. The workers wanted their employers to negotiate with a trade council representing workers across their industry. But employers thought it was advantageous to continue negotiating separately with the unions for smaller sub‐sections within each industry. When employers refused to negotiate collectively with the trade councils, the Winnipeg General Strike began.

Members of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen at the Canadian National Railway Transcona Shops, around 1915. Skilled workers like these had organized into unions to better negotiate with their employers to improve working conditions.

Women factory workers, around 1920. Unlike skilled workers, women who worked in factories like this garment production facility labored under sweatshop conditions that included long hours, low pay, and poor lighting and ventilation.

At 11 a.m. on May 15, 1919, Winnipeg workers from the city’s building and metal trades put down their tools and walked off the job. They were joined by unionized workers from other occupations. But incredibly, thousands of non‐unionized workers also left their jobs to join the general strike. Roughly 35,000 workers were on strike to protest their low pay and poor working conditions as well as their employers’ refusal to negotiate any of these issues. These workers were supported by thousands of pro‐strike war veterans. A group of striking workers formed the Strike Committee to oversee the strike and ensure that the basic needs of citizens and the city were met. Winnipeg was now under worker control.

The whole working class feels that in the past it has suffered and conditions have been against it.

Labour MLA Fred Dixon, May 23, 1919

War veteran Roger E. Bray addressing a crowd of strikers at Victoria Park, June 13, 1919. Mass meetings were an important way to keep strikers informed and maintain morale.

Winnipeg’s business elite were not happy with this dramatic turn of events. They quickly formed the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand to fight the strike. They did this by lobbying all three levels of government – civic, provincial, and federal – to crush the strike by any means necessary. They also published their own newspaper that painted the general strike as a Bolshevik revolution 1 led by foreign agitators who needed to be deported. Their message was heard far and wide, with The New York Times even proclaiming, "BOLSHEVISM IN WINNIPEG." Although the strike was portrayed as a plot to overthrow the government, this was not the case.

As the Committee of One Thousand tried to paint strikers as dangerous radicals intent on assuming power, workers in cities across Canada showed their solidarity with Winnipeg workers by holding sympathy strikes.

Many striking workers were given ultimatums by their employers: disavow the strike and return to work or lose your job. Yet, at a mass meeting at Victoria Park, strikers rejected these threats. The city’s police also wanted to join the strike though they stayed on duty at the behest of the Strike Committee. A few weeks after the strike began, however, Mayor Charles Gray fired the police because they were sympathetic to the strikers. The Committee of One Thousand began recruiting “Special Police” to replace the dismissed police officers. The Special Police tended to be returned war veterans who were against the strike. They wore armbands and badges as identification and were armed with clubs. Their appearance on the streets of Winnipeg created a new tension.

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“Special Police” on the march in downtown Winnipeg, June 10, 1919. The appearance of the Special Police made violence between them and the strikers inevitable.

“Special Police” ride into a crowd on horseback, June 10, 1919. The Special Police swung batons at the crowd to clear the streets of strikers. The crowd fought back, and a riot ensued.

“Special Police” being sworn in, June 5, 1919. The Committee of One Thousand recruited a vigilante police force after Winnipeg Mayor Charles Gray fired the city’s existing police officers for supporting the strikers.

The first clash between strikers and the Special Police occurred on June 10 at Main Street and Portage Avenue. Strikers pelted the Special Police with rocks while the Special Police swung their clubs indiscriminately. Many were hurt on both sides, but after Mayor Charles Gray called off the Special Police, calm returned to the area.

I wish to avoid the use of sterner methods if possible, but will use whatever methods are necessary to enforce law and order.

Mayor Charles Gray, June 11, 1919

A week later, members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP) raided the homes of the Strike Committee leaders and placed them under arrest. Recent changes to the federal Immigration Act meant that these men were under threat of deportation for treason if found guilty.

Arrested strike leaders at the Vaughan Street Jail in Winnipeg, 1920. Back row from left to right: Roger E. Bray, George Armstrong, Alderman John Queen, R.B. Russell, R.J. Johns and Bill Pritchard. Front row from left to right: Reverend William Ivens and Alderman A.A. Heaps.

“Bloody Saturday”

Everything came to a head when pro‐strike war veterans held a silent march on Saturday, June 21 to protest the arrest of strike leaders. Demonstrations of this kind had been banned by Mayor Charles Gray earlier that month but the veterans would not be deterred.

When a streetcar driven by a member of the Committee of One Thousand made its way south on Main Street towards City Hall, the strikers saw this act as a direct provocation. They surrounded the streetcar and tried unsuccessfully to tip it over. Undeterred, they set the streetcar on fire.

Crowd tipping streetcar on “Bloody Saturday,” June 21, 1919. On this day, strikers learned how far the city’s business elite and government were willing to go to end the strike.

The RNWMP arrived on the scene to restore order. As they passed by City Hall, strikers hit them with rocks and bottles. Mayor Gray read the Riot Act 2  and told the crowds to leave the area within 30 minutes. By then, the RNWMP had turned with clubs and revolvers drawn, and began driving the crowds of strikers and bystanders off the street. Shots were fired into the crowd and one man was killed. Strikers and bystanders began fleeing down side streets and through alleys only to run into Special Police lying in wait with batons at the ready. The local militia was called and they patrolled Winnipeg’s city centre alongside the RNWMP and Special Police. This day became known as "Bloody Saturday."

Hoping to avoid more violence, the Strike Committee met with Manitoba Premier T.C. Norris. The committee stated it would end the strike if the premier agreed to have a Royal Commission examine the root causes of the strike. With both parties successfully negotiating a deal, the strike was officially called off on June 26, 1919.

Winnipeg workers walked off the job to protest low wages, long working hours and other poor working conditions, as well as their employers’ unwillingness to negotiate. In response, they were met with clubs and bullets, a vigilante police force, the RNWMP and militia. Many strikers lost their jobs. But even though the demands that led to the Winnipeg General Strike did not materialize for striking workers, they did not view the strike as a complete failure. Instead, they looked for other ways to improve the working and social conditions of Winnipeg’s working class.

The creation of new political parties was one way to further workers’ rights. The Independent Labour Party and, later, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation – a precursor to the New Democratic Party – resulted in former strikers and strike leaders being elected to City Hall, the Manitoba Legislature, and even the House of Commons.

The formation of new unions and collective bargaining was another result of the strike. Politicians and labour activists continued to advocate for protections and better wages for workers, and had their voices heard. Since the general strike, workers have successfully fought for many important human rights initiatives including universal healthcare, minimum wage legislation, employment insurance and anti‐discrimination in the workplace. And progress continues to be made, as more and more Canadians expand the discussion on labour rights to include groups and topics that were once overlooked, like disability rights or environmental rights. The hard‐fought gains workers made over the last 100 years must still be protected. A central goal of labour rights activities today is to focus on the need to value people and to ensure fair wages and safe working environments for all. The guarantees workers have today will only remain if people continue to speak out against injustice. And so, the struggle continues.

Travis Tomchuk is Curator, Canadian human rights history. He has been developing content and exhibitions at the Museum on a wide range of human rights subjects since 2012.

Further Readings

• Bercuson, David J. Confrontation at Winnipeg: Labour, Industrial Relations, and the General Strike . Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990.
• Epp‐Koop, Stefan. We’re Going to Run this City: Winnipeg’s Political Left after the General Strike . Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2015.
• Dupuis, Michael. Winnipeg’s General Strike: Reports from the Front Line . Charleston: The History Press, 2014.
• Kramer, Reinhold, and Tom Mitchell. When the State Trembled: How A.J. Andrews and the Citizens’ Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
• 1 The Bolshevik Party led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew Russia’s provisional government in October 1917. The Bolsheviks were a left‐wing revolutionary group that later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The CPSU ruled Russia until 1991.
• 2 The Riot Act gave Mayor Gray, as an elected official, the authority to order the crowds of strikers to disperse or face the legal consequences of their actions.

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Suggested citation : Travis Tomchuk. “The Winnipeg General Strike.” Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Published May 13, 2019. https://humanrights.ca/story/winnipeg-general-strike

'Moment of awakening': The impact of the Winnipeg General Strike on Canada's labour movement

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On May 15th, 1919, the country — and the world — watched in astonishment as tens of thousands of workers walked off the job in Winnipeg. They demanded higher pay, better working conditions and the right to bargain collectively. Some 35,000 workers took over the running of Canada's third-largest city for six weeks.

The Winnipeg General Strike was one of the most important labour events in Canadian history.

• What today's labour movement can learn from the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike
• The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike: 100 years later

It began months after the end of the Great War, which had demanded profound sacrifices. Husbands, sons and siblings died; soldiers returned from the front with profound physical and psychological scars. Back at home, unemployment and inflation were rampant.  

"The whole world was in ferment," said Ian McKay, L.R. Wilson Chair in Canadian History at McMaster University and the author of Reasoning Otherwise, Leftists and the Peoples Enlightenment in Canada, 1890 to 1920.

"It was a very exciting but worrying time to be alive. The fall of the Czar was pivotal."

The legacy of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike

"It was the era of revolution in Russia and Germany. There were many large strikes going on the United States — the Seattle General Strike, hundreds of thousands of coal miners, steel workers — it was erupting all around … not just in Winnipeg, it's actually across Canada. We have sympathetic strikes from Emerald, Nova Scotia to Victoria, B.C.," said Linda Kealey, professor emerita at the University of New Brunswick and author of Enlisting Women for the Cause: Women, Labour, and the Left in Canada, 1890 - 1920.

Throughout the strike, men and women walked picket lines and attended educational workshops. They set up soup kitchens to feed thousands of strikers who would otherwise have gone hungry. The strike committee made sure that milk and bread deliveries continued throughout the city.

Those who downed tools were standing up for their rights, but they were also hoping to build a new world for the working classes.

Who were the leaders?

Many of the strike leaders were British Canadians, and many were ministers with booming voices and the ability to move crowds of people with their oratory.

"Christians were very prominent in the Winnipeg movement," said McKay. "They said, if you're a true Christian, you have to stand up for the oppressed. There's a huge revulsion against the war, against militarism, against greed. They want a peaceful way in which the entire social system can be transformed from top to bottom. It was a revolutionary sensibility."

• Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 shook the ruling class, planted roots for modern workers' rights
• Desperate times: How harsh conditions drove 30,000 workers to rebel in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919

Despite those lofty aims, the strike in Winnipeg didn't turn out well for the workers. On June 21st, 1919, on what has become known as Bloody Saturday, police on horseback charged a crowd of strikers and supporters, with fatal consequences.

One of the strikers remembered, "I saw the mounted police coming down from Broadway and they were all carrying baseball bats, swinging them. They ran down, they charged the crowd, roared through." 

Two men were killed, many were injured and the city was in shock. Four days later, the strikers went back to work.

Kealey points to sentiments that were in the air just two years after the Russian revolution, to explain in part why the strike failed.

"I think we also need to remember that the Citizens Committee of 1000 , which was the committee of businessmen, lawyers, and politicians who opposed the strike, fanned the flames and accused the strikers of being communists or Bolsheviks or whatever."

McKay added: "Skeptics about the strike will say none of their demands were met and it failed as completely as anything will ever fail. And I think in the immediate term you can say there's a case to be made for that position."

However, he points out that the ideas generated during the strike live on, in the strike leaders such as J.S. Woodsworth, who went on to found the CCF, the forerunner of the NDP.

Role of women

Ten of the strike leaders went to jail. And among them was a woman, Helen Jury Armstrong, an activist who championed the rights of women. She played a significant role in the strike, and as McKay observes, women "were going through a transformative moment in Winnipeg. They've been involved in left wing and progressive movements before this, but often in an auxiliary capacity."

According to Winnipeg filmmaker, Paula Kelly, and director of the documentary, The Notorious Mrs. Armstrong:  "While all the workers risked so much to go on strike, single working women were particularly vulnerable. So, if they made the choice to go on strike, they immediately lost their jobs because they were barely making ends meet, eking out an existence week to week."

Helen Armstrong was "a rabble rouser, and she was fearless during the strike." After the strike she traveled to several centres in Canada, including Toronto, to talk about its impact and the outcome.  

Winnipeg's so-called "revolution on the Red River" made headlines around the world, and set the stage for Canadian labour activism in the future.

• Helen Jury Armstrong: The Canadian activist who fought for equal wages for women. In 1919.
• 'Wild Woman of the West': Labour leader Helen Armstrong fought with courage and compassion during 1919 strike

"Even calling it a strike is kind of minimizing it," said McKay.

"It was more like a general moment of awakening. Thousands of people were immersed in a collective teach-in about the realities of life in their society. That is what is genuinely exciting about the strike. At the end of the day, it transformed the lives of thousands of people."

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• FULL EPISODE: The Sunday Edition for May 19, 2019

Winnipeg General Strike Digital Exhibit

Interested in exploring the Winnipeg General Strike further? There is a wealth of information available locally (in Manitoba), and/or online. The resources listed below includes information on and access to primary sources, secondary sources, and research guides related to the strike.

For information on how to search for, deconstruct and integrate resources into your research, click here .

Primary Sources

Primary sources on the strike include records from various libraries and archives. Where records, or descriptions of records, are available online, researchers can access a given resource by clicking on the underlined linked description. To learn more about the records, or to set-up an appointment to access them, contact information for each of the institutions below is available on the Contact page.

Charles F. Gray fonds

Records of Mayor Charles Gray, including those related to the Winnipeg General Strike.

Charles Ross Francis fonds

The fonds includes a signed Special Police card issued to Charles Ross Francis from Mayor Gray.

Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand Collection

Pamphlets and addresses by the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand.

Exhibits and other records related to the Winnipeg General Strike trials Records documenting the trials of strike leaders.

Frederick George Thompson fonds

Frederick George Thompson was the creator of the Loyalist Returned Soldiers Association – an anti-strike organization for veterans. Records include minutes, and resolutions by the association, as well as correspondence related to the strike.

Helen Armstrong fonds Records documenting Helen Armstrong’s work for the Women’s Labor League, as well as her arrests during the Winnipeg General Strike.

Isaac Pitblado fonds Records of Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand member and prosecutor for the trials of the strike leaders Isaac Pitblado. It includes records from the strike trials.

L.B. Foote fonds Many of the photographs we see from the strike were taken by photographer L.B. Foote. In fact, these photographs were reproduced widely and today, these reproductions exist in archives and museums across Canada. However, the original photographs taken by L.B. Foote reside at the Archives of Manitoba.

Mary Jordan fonds Records of Mary Jordan, secretary for the Winnipeg Labor Council and One Big Union. The fonds includes records related to both organizations, as well as information on the strike and R.B. Russell.

One Big Union fonds Records of the OBU, including correspondence referring to the Winnipeg General Strike.

Records of the Royal Commission to Enquire into and Report upon the Causes and Effects of the General Strike which Recently Existed in the City of Winnipeg for a Period of Six Weeks, Including the Methods of Calling and Carrying on Such Strike Records related to the Royal Commission, also known as the Robson Commission, investigating the strike, including questionnaires, exhibits, constitutions, strike ballots, statements, by-laws, etc.

Robert Boyd Russell fonds Records of strike leader R.B. Russell, including issues of the Winnipeg Citizen and Western Labor News , as well as minutes of the Central Strike Committee and records related to the strike trials.

Robert Maxwell Dennistoun Family fonds Includes photographs of the Winnipeg General Strike.

Robert W. Dodman memoir In 1919, Robert W. Dodman worked as a constable for the Royal Northwest Mounted Police in Vancouver, where the events of the Winnipeg General Strike and looming threats of further sympathetic strikes across Canada were front of mind for authorities. The memoir describes in part his experiences during this time.

William Ivens fonds Records documenting the life of strike leader William Ivens following the Winnipeg General Strike, mainly between 1921 and 1953.

Winnipeg Past and Present Oral History Project

Includes oral histories referring to the strike, including those of Mr. George Christopher Leckie, Mrs. Hurst, and Norman Brook.

Open meeting with William Pritchard and Norman Penner

A 1973 interview with strike leader W.A. Pritchard.

Council Communications

• Civic Strike of 1918 [File 11507]
• Resolutions of the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand [File 11893]
• City Clerk to Mayor and Council regarding filling positions left vacant by strike [File 11908]
• Resolution of Stonewall (Man.) regarding anti-strike legislation [File 11912]
• Request by Union of Canadian Municipalities that Mayor Gray attend their conference [File 11914]
• House of Commons Committee to Mayor Gray regarding the prices of food, clothing, and fuel [File 11918]
• C.H. Burgess to Mayor and Council about who was to blame for the strike [File 11928]
• Petition by residents of Ward 5 to release Aldermen John Queen and A.A. Heaps [File 11983]
• Replacing Alderman A.A. Heaps on the Social Welfare Commission [File 12305]

Committee on Finance Communications

• Supply of Special Constable badges (not the Special Police) [File F189]
• Payment of overtime to men on monthly salary working during the strike [File F198]
• Applications for the appointment of staff [File F206]
• Payment of overtime to employees operating utilities during the Strike [File F224]
• Re-engaging men to remove garbage during the strike [File F230]
• Employees whose holidays overlapped with the strike [File F239]
• List of volunteer helpers during strike [File F253]
• Gratuities for employees of the Health Department for distribution of milk and ice [File F268]
• Payment of wages to R. Murdock, absent on account of injuries received during strike [File F273]
• Food stuffs destroyed from May 15 to July 31, 1919 [File F288]
• Offer to sell to City motion pictures of the 1919 Strike [File F291]
• Request from the One Big Union that a band be provided for a Labour Day event [File F301]
• Pension scheme for civic employees [File F375]
• Payment to Winnipeg Public School Board for services rendered during General Strike [F402]
• Civic employees pension fund [File F466(14)]
• Pension dispute with former Police Chief Donald MacPherson [File F810]
• By-law regarding pension fund for City employees (and those who went on strike) [File 10589]

City Surveyor

• Employees’ agreement regarding employment (Slave Pact) [File 330(3)]

Committee on Public Health and Welfare Communication

• Scavenging and Crematory report for May 1919 [File A0585-1887]
• Applications for positions [File A585-1894]
• Report of the Division of Communicable Diseases for June, 1919 [File A585-1899]
• Report on Dairy Inspection for June, 1919 [File A585-1901]
• Health Inspector’s commendations for those who worked during the strike [File A585-1919]

Mayor’s Office

• General Strike, 1919 [File 1441]
• Mayoral Portraits

Board of Parks and Recreation Communications

• Letter Book [File A1239-1]

Special Food Committee

• Records of the Special Food Committee [File A1249-9]

Special Publicity Committee

• Correspondence related to the City’s image after the General Strike

Special Committee on Investigation of the Fire Department

• Statements of fire fighters who were let go during the General Strike [File A560-30]

Council Minutes

• City of Winnipeg Council Minutes
• City of St. Boniface Council Minutes
• RM of Assiniboia Council Minutes
• Town of Transcona Council Minutes

Police Museum Collection

• Correspondences related to police staffing and loyalty during General Strike [File PM1-PM12]
• Excerpts from minutes of the Board of Police Commissioners during the General Strike [File PM13]
• Excerpts from Sargent’s Arrest Log during the General Strike [File PM14]

City of Winnipeg Archives Art Collection

• Winnipeg City Council in 1921 (includes Aldermen Heaps, Queen, Sparling, Fowler, Simpson, and Fisher, and Mayor Parnell) [File AW01068]

Parks and Recreation Photograph Collection

• Strikers gathered at Victoria Park [File A67-15-1]

City of Winnipeg Archives Photograph Collection

• Winnipeg riot – June 10 [P53-27/ P27-1 / P27-2 / P1-24 / P1-22 / P44-16]
• Winnipeg riot – June 21 [P1-25 / P1-26 / P44-16]
• Alfred J. Andrews [P1-42]

Ethel Johns Collection

Though not directly records about the strike, the Ethel Johns Collection includes records and photographs relating to nurse Ethel Johns, who was forced to resign from her position at the Children’s Hospital in Winnipeg during the strike.

Harry Gale fonds:

The fonds includes records of Strike Committee member Harry Gale, who performed many responsibilities for the committee, including public speaking, research, and writing.

Rare film footage of the strike is available through Library and Archives Canada’s Youtube channel  here .

More information about strike-related film footage is available in Michael Dupuis’ article, “Jean Arsin’s Winnipeg General Strike Film”, available on the  Manitoba Historical Society website.

J.S. Woodsworth fonds

Records include an account of J.S. Woodsworth’s time in incarceration during the Winnipeg General Strike.

The activities and organization of the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand in connection with the Winnipeg strike, May-June 1919. Winnipeg: Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand, 1920.

Dixon’s Address to the Jury: An argument for Liberty of Opinion. Winnipeg: Defence Committee, 1920.

The King vs. J.S. Woodsworth: Indictment for Publishing Seditious Libels, Six Counts, and Speaking Seditious Words. Winnipeg: Defense Committee, 1920.

Royal Commission to enquire into and report upon the causes and effects of the General Strike which recently existed in the City of Winnipeg for a period of six weeks, including the methods of calling and carrying on such strike (Robson Commission). Winnipeg: Government of Manitoba, 1919.

A. Pritchard’s Address to the Jury. Winnipeg: Defense Committee, 1920.

The Winnipeg General Sympathetic Strike, May-June 1919. Winnipeg: Defense Committee, 1919.

All content from Peel’s Prairie Provinces can be searched here .

The Winnipeg General Strike Digital Collection

The Winnipeg General Strike Digital Collection contains digitized documents from the  Charles F. Gray Family fonds    and includes  letters between Mayor Gray and private citizens and businessmen of Winnipeg, politicians in civic, provincial and federal governments, and other public agencies involved in the strike, handwritten and typed notes and reports compiled by the mayor and others during the strike, telegrams, speeches and proclamations from the mayor, court documents from judicial proceedings following the strike, newspaper clippings from several local newspapers, some issues of the strike newspaper, and some photographs of the crowds and the mayor on the streets of Winnipeg. As well as portraits of him and his wife, Edith, the collection contains some documents relating to his mayoral election campaign in 1918.

Canadian Immigration by William Ivens, 1909

University of Manitoba Master’s thesis by strike leader William Ivens.

Czas (The Times)

As the oldest Polish language newspaper weekly in Canada, Czas, established in 1914, announced the upcoming strike in a May 14, 1919 issue. It would not print again until June 25, one day before the strike officially ended.

The Enlightener

The June 25-26 issues of The Enlightener , edited by Fred Dixon following the publication ban on the Western Labor News and The Western Star in 1919.

Greek Poetry by Travers Sweatman, 1904

University of Manitoba Master’s thesis by Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand member Travers Sweatman.

One Big Union Bulletin A special strike edition published by the Winnipeg Central Labor Council of the One Big Union on August 30, 1919.

Strikers’ Defense Bulletin A digitized issue of the Strikers’ Defense Bulletin . The original issue, which is held at the Legislative Library, was published to present the case of the strikers who were arrested.

The Voice was published by the Trades and Labor Council and edited by Arthur Puttee until it dissolved in 1918. The paper was then reorganized as the Western Labor News .

Western Labor News Western Labor News was published by the Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council, which called the Winnipeg General Strike. During the strike, special editions were released to keep strikers up to date on events and developments. Issues of Western Labor News from 1919 are available online through the University of Manitoba Libraries’ UM Digital Collections website.

The Western Star

The Western Star was published on June 24, 1919 following a publication ban on the Western Labor News . It was quickly replaced by The Enlightener on June 25, 1919.

Winnipeg Citizen The Winnipeg Citizen was a daily newspaper published by the Citizen’s Committee of 1,000. The paper was published daily starting on May 19, 1919 and ending on June 20 of the same year. Digital issues are available through the University of Manitoba Libraries’ Digital Collections website.

Winnipeg Telegram Strike Editions

Strike editions of the daily Winnipeg Telegram were published from May 28 to June 28, 1919.

Winnipeg Tribune

The Winnipeg Tribune was a daily newspaper published between 1890 and 1980. The Tribune covered the events of the strike and its aftermath, with the exception of the period from May 16-May 23, 1919, inclusively, when its printing was interrupted by the strike.

University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections [UMASC]

Charles William Gordon (Ralph Conor) fonds

The Labour and Industry series documents, in part, Charles William Gordon’s work as Chairman for the Joint Council of Industry of Manitoba, a body created by the government of Manitoba following the Winnipeg General Strike. The fonds further includes copies of the indictment of J.S. Woodsworth for seditious libel (Box 13, folder 2). Under the name Ralph Connor, Charles Gordon further wrote a novel based on the strike. A book review of To Him That Hath is included in his records (box 53, folder 3).

Danny Schur fonds

The fonds consists of a playbill from Strike! The Musical , signed by Danny Schur. The published material contains biographical information on those involved in the production, as well as the itinerary for the opening night of the play on May 26, 2005. In addition, a pamphlet from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union (IATSE Local 63) is included.

Gerald Friesen fonds

The fonds consists of research material providing contextual information on the strike, including: reproductions of records from the Winnipeg Board of Trade, and biographical information on people involved in the Strike, such as Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand member Travers Sweatman.

H.C. Pentland fonds

The fonds includes articles about the strike, including “The Winnipeg General Strike Revisited” and “Fifty Years After: The Winnipeg General Strike” (Box 19, folder 7)

Hiebert Brown Family fonds

The fonds includes the recollections of Wallace Brown – a Special Policeman during the strike who was injured on Bloody Saturday.

History Stone fonds

The fonds consists of a photo album which includes photographs of T. Eaton Company during Winnipeg General Strike. A finding aid is not currently available.

Edgar Rea fonds

Rea is the author of  The Winnipeg General Strike (1973) and his fonds includes research material such as interview transcripts with Winnipeg political, labour and social leaders, some of which refer to the events of 1919. The fonds also includes student papers related to the Strike.

Lewis St. George Stubbs fonds

The fonds includes information related to members of the Strike committee. It includes correspondence between Lewis St. George Stubbs and friend and strike leader, Fred Dixon, as well as biographical information on Dixon (Box 1, folder 14). During the Strike trials, Lewis St. George Stubbs assisted Dixon in preparing for his defence. The fonds also includes a pamphlet on R.B. Russell’s trial (Box 27, folder 4).

The Manitoban

As a University of Manitoba publication,  The Manitoban  was not published between the spring and fall semesters of 1919, when the strike occurred. However, the newspaper does provide retrospective articles on the Strike, as well as some information on the trials that followed.

Peter Warren fonds

The fonds includes a recording of an interview with Nick Zalozetsky, an employee of the Ukrainian Voice newspaper, who went to the silent parade as an observer on Bloody Saturday. Soon after his arrival, the riot act was read and in the midst of the riot, Mr. Zalozetsky recalls narrowly missing a bullet, one that knocked his hat off his head (Box 5, tape 6).

Pitblado Family fonds

The fonds includes correspondence, posters, news clippings, articles, and pamphlets related to the Winnipeg General Strike (MSS 48, box 20), as well as photographs (PC 58, box 3, folder 8), and biographical information on Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand member Isaac Pitblado.

Pugh Family fonds

Records include newspaper clippings related to the Winnipeg General Strike.

Western Labor News

Western Labor News was published by the Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council, which called the Winnipeg General Strike. During the strike, special editions were released to keep strikers up to date on events and developments. The archives holds 4 issues of the newspaper:

• May 19, 1919
• May 22, 1919
• July 4, 1919
• August 22, 1919

Winnipeg Citizen

The Winnipeg Citizen was a daily newspaper published by the Citizens’ Committee of 1,000. The paper was published daily starting on May 19, 1919 and ending on June 20 of the same year. The archives hold physical copies of the newspaper, including issues from 1948, when the paper reappeared in response to a strike by the typographical union against many Winnipeg-based newspapers.

Winnipeg General Strike Collection

The Winnipeg General Strike Collection consists of a scrapbook holdings strike-related newspaper clippings from the  Winnipeg Tribune , and the  Manitoba Free Press .

The Winnipeg Tribune fonds

The Winnipeg Tribune fonds includes photographs, newspaper clippings, and personality files related to the Winnipeg General Strike.

• Photographs : The Winnipeg Tribune photographs include reproductions of images taken by L.B. Foote during the strike. A selection of these photographs are available online through the Winnipeg Tribune Photo Collection Database .
• Personality Files : The Winnipeg Tribune personality files document various local and Canadian personalities. The Tribune’s personalities include files on strike leaders, such as John Queen, J.S. Woodsworth, and A.A. Heaps, Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand members Isaac Pitblado and E.K. Williams, politicians, including T.C. Norris, Charles Gray, and Arthur Meighen, and more. The personality files can be accessed in person at the University of Manitoba Libraries’ Archives & Special Collections department but a full list can be downloaded here .
• Subject clippings : The Winnipeg Tribune  subject clippings include a Winnipeg General Strike file compiling newspaper clippings about the events of 1919. 

Western Canada Pictorial Index

A collection of over 70,000 images reproduced from a number of collections and gathered as part of a 1970 centennial project. The collection includes reproductions of many strike-related photographs, including scenes from the June 10 and 21 riots and images of the strike’s aftermath, mainly the incarceration of the strike leaders and a banquet attended by members of the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand.

Winnipeg General Strike microfilm collection

A collection of published material related to the strike available on microfilm, including:

• Winnipeg 1919: the strikers’ own history of the Winnipeg General Strike (edited by Norman Penner, 1973)
• Royal Commission to enquire into and report upon the causes and effects of the General Strike which recently existed in the City of Winnipeg for a period of six weeks, including the methods of calling and carrying on such strike (H.A. Robson)
• The Winnipeg General Strike as an aspect of the Red Scare (Curtis Nordman, 1970)
• The Winnipeg General Strike (Balawyder Aloysius, 1967)
• Winnipeg General Strike (Beatrice Magder, 1972)
• The Winnipeg Strike (David J. Bercuson and Kenneth McNaught, 1974)
• The Winnipeg General Strike (Donald C. Masters, 1973)
• The Winnipeg General Strike (J.E. Rea, 1973)

Secondary Sources

• Balawyder, Aloysius. The Winnipeg General Strike . Vancouver: Copp-Clark Publishing, 1967.
• Bercuson, David Jay. Confrontation at Winnipeg: Labour, Industrial Relations, and the General Strike . Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990.
• Berkowskiw, Gerry, and Nolan Reilly. 1919 The Winnipeg General Strike: A Driving and Walking Tour . Manitoba: Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Recreation, 1985.
• Bumsted, J. M. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919: an Illustrated History . Winnipeg: Watson & Dwyer, 1994.
• Dupuis, Michael. Winnipeg General Strike: Ordinary Men and Women Under Extraordinary Circumstances . 2019.
• Dupuis, Michael. Winnipeg’s General Strike: Reports from the Front Lines . Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014.
• Epp-Koop, Stefan. We’re Going to Run This City : Winnipeg’s Political Left after the General Strike . Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press, 2015.
• Francis, Daniel, Michael Puttonen, Seeing reds: The Red Scare of 1918-1919, Canada’s First War on Terror. New Westminster, B.C.: Post Hypnotic Press, 2013.
• Graphic History Collective and David Lester.  1919 A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike . Toronto: Between the Lines, 2019.
• Graphic History Collective with Althea Balmes, Cord Hill Orion Keresztwsi, and David Lester.  Direct Action Gets the Goods: A Graphic History of the Strike in Canada.  Toronto: Between the Lines, 2019.
• Gutkin, Harry, and Gutkin, Mildred. Profiles in Dissent: the Shaping of Radical Thought in the Canadian West. Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1997.
• Heron, Craig. The Workers’ Revolt in Canada, 1917-1925 . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.
• Jackson, Paul. History of the General Strike, Winnipeg, 1919 : 60th Anniversary . Montreal: Red Flag Publications, 1979.
• Johnson, Albert Ernest. “The strikes in Winnipeg in May 1918: the prelude to 1919?” Master’s Thesis, University of Manitoba, 1978.
• Kehler, Ken, and Esau, Alvin A. J. Famous Manitoba Trials: the Winnipeg General Strike Trials: Research Sources . Winnipeg: Legal Research Institute, University of Manitoba, 1990.
• Kramer, Reinhold, and Mitchell, Tom. When the State Trembled: How A.J. Andrews and the Citizens’ Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
• Lewycky, Dennis.  Magnificent Fight: The Winnipeg General Strike. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2019.
• Magder, Beatrice Rain. Winnipeg General Strike : a Legacy of Problems. Toronto: Learning Materials Dept., Maclean-Hunter, 1972.
• Masters, Donald C. The Winnipeg General Strike . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950.
• Mathieu, Sarah-Jane.  North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955 . Chapel hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
• McNaught, Kenneth, and David Bercuson.  The Winnipeg Strike, 1919. Ontario: Longman Canada, 1974.
• Muir, James. The Demand for British Justice – Protest and Culture During the Winnipeg General Strike Trials. Winnipeg: Faculty of Law, Robson Hall, University of Manitoba, 1993.
• Penner, Norman. Winnipeg 1919: The strikers’ own history of the Winnipeg General Strike . Winnipeg Defence Committee, 1975.
• Rea, J. E. The Winnipeg General Strike . Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1973.
• Reilly, Nolan, and Sharon Reilly.  1919 The Winnipeg General Strike: A Driving and Walking Tour . Manitoba: Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Recreation, 2019.
• Walker, Jack, and Fraser, Duncan A. The Great Canadian Sedition Trials: the Courts and the Winnipeg General Strike 1919-1920 . Winnipeg: Published as a joint project by Legal Research Institute of the University of Manitoba and the Canadian Legal History Project, 2004.

Articles by the Manitoba Historical Society

• The Manitoba Historical Society website includes various biographies and historical information related to the Strike, including:
• “A.J. Andrews to Arthur Meighen: Winnipeg General Strike Correspondence,” by Tom Mitchell, 1992
• “Central Strike Committee,” revised on November 2, 2009
• “Citizens’ Committee of 1000”, revised on August 29, 2009
• “Jean Arsin’s Winnipeg General Strike Film,” by Michael Dupuis, 2010
• “Notable Trials from Manitoba’s Legal History Including Sedition Trials from the Winnipeg General Strike,” compiled and edited by Norm Larsen, 2015
• “Politics in the Park: Winnipeg’s Victoria Park During the General Strike,” by Anna Penner, 2000-2001
• “The Strike Bulletin of the Western Labour News,” revised August 27, 2009
• “ The Third Force: Returned Soldiers in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919,” by Uduak Idiong, 1997
• “The Toronto Star and the Winnipeg General Strike,” by Michael Dupuis, 2005
• “The Western Labour News,” revised on August 27, 2009.
• “ Women and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919,” by Mary Horodyski, 1986
• “ Young Historians: Suppressing the Winnipeg General Strike: Paranoia or Preserving the Peace?” by Murph Berzish, 2010

Research Guides

Manitoba Archival Information Network: Winnipeg General Strike Guide

The MAIN Strike guide provides users with information on how to search for records related to the Winnipeg General Strike and how to gain access to those records through the MAIN online database. 

United Way Winnipeg: 1919 Working Stronger Together

An historical exhibit to commemorate the centennial of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike and celebrate the United Way Winnipeg’s (then known as Community Chest) long-standing solidarity with Labour and our shared communities.

The Winnipeg General Strike: A Guide to Research at the City of Winnipeg Archives

A research guide to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Winnipeg General Strike and facilitate strike-related research at the City of Winnipeg Archives.

The Winnipeg General Strike Recommended Reading List (Winnipeg Public Library)

A reading list produced by the Winnipeg Public Library including works of non-fiction and fiction for all ages related to the Winnipeg General Strike.

Differing Perspectives on the Winnipeg General Strike

In this activity, students will analyze multiple accounts of the Winnipeg General Strike, noting important similarities and differences in the points of view they represent.

Created by Canada’s History

This activity is based on the article “ Winnipeg on Strike ” in the Canada at Work issue of Kayak: Canada’s History for Kids .

Students will analyze multiple accounts of the Winnipeg General Strike, noting important similarities and differences in the points of view they represent. They will use photographs and newspaper articles to determine who was responsible for the violence on Bloody Saturday. Through this activity, they will be confronted with the question, “what happens when primary sources disagree with one another?”

In this activity, students will use primary source evidence to analyze cause and consequence and to consider historical perspectives. To learn more about the six historical concepts, check out the Historical Thinking Project  or consider attending the Historical Thinking Summer Institute .

Background:

The Winnipeg General Strike, held from May 15 to June 25, 1919, was the biggest general strike in Canadian history. It was also one of the most influential strikes, creating a platform for future labour demonstrations.

As explained in Kayak , “The strike may not have been seen as a clear success at the time, but it brought change that shapes Canada to this day. Canadian workers and those who had come from Britain stood beside those from other countries who had often been looked down on.

Strikes took place all over the country in support of the Winnipeg workers, bringing their ideas and demands more respect. When the men who had been arrested went on trial, most were convicted, their fates decided by juries who had been chosen ahead of time to ensure they were not sympathetic to the strikers.

But the convictions backfired when several of the men were voted into office in provincial, federal and city elections, even while some were still in jail. Many leaders of the strike helped from the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which eventually became the New Democratic Part of today.”

1. In preparation for the activity, students should be familiar with the following key terms:

• Bloody Saturday
• Collective bargaining
• Labor unrest
• Returned men

2. As a class, read the Kayak article to provide contextual information on the Winnipeg General Strike.

3. Primary Source Analysis

Divide your students into small groups to analyze the primary sources . Randomly assign each group three of the five documents, ensuring there is a mix between images and newspaper articles. Working together, students will assess the documents using the Evaluating Historical Sources chart to try and answer the question, “who was responsible for the violence on Bloody Saturday?”

4. Group Discussion

Bring your class together for a group discussion. Begin by asking your students to answer the inquiry question, “Who was responsible for the violence on Bloody Saturday?”

Use their answers to delve into some of the following questions:

• What happened according to each source?  How are their accounts similar? How are they different?
• Why are they similar or different?
• How reliable are these accounts?
• What would you have thought if you only looked at one of these documents?
• How could we find more information to decide which interpretation to accept?
• Do we have enough evidence to reach a conclusion? If not, identify what other kinds of sources you need to be more certain of your answer.
• Who’s perspective is missing in these documents?

5. Assessment

Have students fill out the What Happened on Bloody Saturday worksheet .

Students fill out the T-Chart to compare the different versions of what happened on Bloody Saturday. In the left column, they note the key details according to those who supported the strike. In the right column, they write down the key details according to those who opposed the strike.

Ask students to write a paragraph in their own words that describe what happened on Bloody Saturday. Remind them to support their ideas with evidence from the primary sources.

Themes associated with this article

• Arts, Culture & Society
• Business & Industry
• Peace & Conflict
• Politics & Law
• Industry, Invention & Technology
• Media & Communications
• National Politics

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Winnipeg General Strike of 1919

Article by J. Nolan Reilly

Updated by Julia Skikavich; Nathan Baker; Jessica Poulin

Published Online February 7, 2006

Last Edited November 28, 2023

The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 was the largest strike in Canadian history ( see Strikes and Lockouts ). Between 15 May and 25 June 1919, more than 30,000 workers left their jobs ( see Work ). Factories, shops, transit and city services shut down. The strike resulted in arrests, injuries and the deaths of two protestors. It did not immediately succeed in empowering workers and improving job conditions. But the strike did help unite the working class in Canada ( see Labour Organization ). Some of its participants helped establish what is now the New Democratic Party .

Click here for definitions of key terms used in this article.

This is the full-length entry about the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. For a plain-language summary, please see Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 (Plain-language Summary) .

After the First World War , many Canadian workers struggled to make ends meet while employers prospered. Unemployment was high, and there were few jobs for veterans returning from war. Due to inflation , housing and food were hard to afford. Among the hardest hit in Winnipeg were working-class immigrants .

Workers elsewhere in the world were fighting for better treatment. There had been strikes before the successful Russian Revolution in 1917. A growing international workers’ movement called syndicalism sought to bring down capitalism . It inspired western Canadian labour leaders to meet in Calgary in March 1919. There, they discussed the creation of the One Big Union .

Take the quiz! Test your knowledge of Labour History in Canada by taking this quiz, offered by the Citizenship Challenge! A program of Historica Canada, the Citizenship Challenge invites Canadians to test their national knowledge by taking a mock citizenship exam , as well as other themed quizzes.

Winnipeg General Strike

In Winnipeg , Manitoba , workers in the building and metal trades negotiated with their managers for job improvements. They wanted the right to collective bargaining , better wages and better working conditions. Workers staged several strikes in early May 1919. On 15 May, the Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council (WTLC) called a general strike after talks broke down ( see also Labour Mediation ).

Within hours, almost 30,000 men and women left their jobs. This shut down the city’s privately owned factories, shops and trains. Public employees joined them in solidarity. These included police , firemen, postal workers, telephone and telegraph operators and utilities workers.

The Central Strike Committee co-ordinated the strike. Its members were elected from each of the unions linked to the WTLC. The strike committee bargained with employers on behalf of the workers. It also ensured that essential services continued in Winnipeg.

Did you know? Labour activist Helen Armstrong , nicknamed “Ma,” was one of only two women among some 50 men on the Central Strike Committee. During the strike, she established the Labour Café, which provided women strikers with three free meals a day. This was an essential service for those who lost wages due to the strike. The cafe also welcomed men but encouraged them to pay or make a donation. It reportedly served 1,200 to 1,500 meals a day.

The Citizens’ Committee of 1,000 quickly formed to organize opposition to the strike . It included Winnipeg ’s most influential business leaders and politicians. This committee did not seriously consider the strikers’ demands. It called the strike a revolutionary plot led by a small group of “alien scum.” Winnipeg’s leading newspapers took this view, too. In reality, there was little evidence that the strike was started by Bolsheviks and immigrants from eastern Europe. But the Citizens’ Committee used these unproven charges to block any efforts to appease workers.

Government Response

Photo of mounted troops galloping around a bend in the road at Main Street and Market Avenue on Bloody Saturday, 21 June 1919.

The federal government decided to step in. It was afraid the strike would spark conflicts in other cities . Soon after the strike began, two Cabinet ministers met with the Citizens’ Committee in Winnipeg. These officials were Senator Gideon Robertson, minister of labour, and Arthur Meighen , minister of the interior and acting minister of justice. Robertson and Meighen refused to meet with the Central Strike Committee.

On the Citizens’ Committee’s advice, the federal government swiftly supported the employers. It threatened to fire federal workers unless they returned to work immediately. Parliament changed the Immigration Act so that British-born immigrants could be deported. It also broadened the Criminal Code ’s definition of sedition ( see Criminal Code, Section 98 ).

On 17 June, the government arrested 10 leaders of the Central Strike Committee and two members of the One Big Union . Four days later, strikers held a silent parade in support of the arrested leaders. At City Hall, the crowd began to vandalize a streetcar . The Royal North-West Mounted Police charged at the protestors, beating them with clubs and firing bullets. The violence injured about 30 people and killed two. Known as Bloody Saturday, the day ended with federal troops occupying the city’s streets.

Police released six of the labour leaders. However, they arrested Fred Dixon and J.S. Woodsworth , editors of the daily Strike Bulletin .

The combined power of the government and employers crushed the strike. On 25 June, the strike committee announced a return to work and set the strike’s official end for the next morning.

Seven strike leaders were eventually convicted of planning to topple the government. They received jail terms of six months to two years. The charges against Woodsworth were dropped.

In the short term, the Winnipeg General Strike did not achieve gains for workers. It left a legacy of bitterness and controversy among organized labour groups across Canada. But in uniting workers around common goals, it also helped bridge divides between them. In Winnipeg , for example, Canadian-born workers walked out with immigrants from Britain and mainland Europe.

Did you know? After the First World War , immigrants from central, southern and eastern Europe were often viewed with suspicion. In the early 1920s, the Canadian government labelled them a “non-preferred” category. ( See also Prejudice and Discrimination ; Immigration Policy in Canada .)

The general strike sparked more unionism and activism. Workers in cities from Amherst , Nova Scotia to Victoria , British Columbia , walked out in support of the Winnipeg strikers. Some strike leaders, including J.S. Woodsworth, were elected to government. Woodsworth and other former strikers helped found the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation . This socialist labour party later became the New Democratic Party .

It took three decades after the Winnipeg General Strike for employers to recognize Canadian workers’ unions and grant collective bargaining rights.

Key Terms: Winnipeg General Strike

Bolshevik originally meant a radical member of the Russian socialist party that took power in the Russian Revolution of 1917. However, it came to mean any revolutionary socialist.

An economic system in which private owners (rather than the state ) control industries and collect profits.

Collective bargaining

The negotiation of wages and other working conditions by a labour union on behalf of a group of employees.

General strike

A protest in which workers in all or most industries walk off the job.

A general increase in prices and a decrease in the value of money.

Generally, labour means work. But in this article, it stands for workers (especially manual labourers) as a class or political power.

Labour union

A group of workers that forms to protect its members’ rights and to seek better pay, benefits and conditions. The term is often shortened to union .

Acting or speaking in a way that moves people to rebel against the government .

Syndicalism

An international attempt to organize all workers into unions and workers’ councils. The goal of syndicalism was to bring down capitalism and give workers the means of production. To achieve this, it supported actions such as general strikes. The movement was active in the first half of the 20th century.

• working class

One Big Union

Further reading.

David J. Bercuson, Confrontation at Winnipeg (1974); A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries (1977).

External Links

Winnipeg General Strike Timeline

Read an excellent timeline of the strike from Kayak magazine.

“Boom / Bust”: Episode 7 of Canada: The Story of Us

This episode of the CBC series on Canadian history covers the Winnipeg General Strike, including the role of women in the strike. Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Recommended

Rand formula.

Working-Class History

Labour organization, robert boyd russell, revolutionary industrial unionism, helen (ma) armstrong, james shaver woodsworth, strikes and lockouts, winnipeg general strike of 1919 (plain-language summary), labour history in canada, economy and labour.

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The Winnipeg General Strike marks 100 years

Nearly 300 strike-related records are now digitized and accessible

May 15, 2019

May 15, 1919 marks a pivotal moment in Winnipeg’s history. At 11 a.m. that day, between 25,000 and 35,000 workers walked off the job and essentially brought the City of Winnipeg to a standstill.

“The Winnipeg General Strike began as a disagreement between metal workers and their employers,” said Sarah Ramsden, Senior Archivist at the City of Winnipeg.

The strike spanned roughly six weeks and saw several strike leaders, including two City Council aldermen, arrested. This prompted what started out as a silent march on June 21.

That march turned violent as people in the crowd set a streetcar on fire. The Royal Northwest Mounted Police charged into the crowd. Two people were killed and several others injured as a result of the riot.

“Seven of the nine strike leaders put on trial were convicted, and served between six months and two years in prison,” said Ramsden.

The City of Winnipeg Archives has marked the centennial anniversary of the strike by digitizing nearly 300 records related to the strike.

“These records document the role of the City and its employees before, during, and after this important event,” said Ramsden.

The records can be easily accessed through the Winnipeg in Focus website. Archives has also compiled a research guide which explores the significance of the Winnipeg General Strike.

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Manitoba History : When the City Stood Still: The Iconography of Dissent in the Winnipeg General Strike

by Wayne Chan University of Manitoba

Number 90, Fall 2019

This article was published originally in by the on the above date. We make this online version available as a free, public service. As an historical document, the article may contain language and views that are no longer in common use and may be culturally sensitive in nature. Please direct all inquiries to . All cities have an internal rhythm of sound and motion—the periodic ebb and flow of traffic, the regular movement of public transit and daily deliveries, and the streams of people going to and from work. Underlying that rhythm is a motor powered by the kinetic energy of the city’s residents. Like the rising and setting of the sun, it is a reassuring rhythm—one that only has its modulations in the day of week and the forces of nature on occasion. As the clock struck eleven on Thursday, the fifteenth of May 1919, the daily rhythm of Winnipeg faltered, stuttered, and then stopped. The motor of the city had ground to a halt. In the hours, days, and weeks to come, the streetcars halted, the telephones stopped ringing, the elevators ceased running, and the printing presses went silent, as men and women throughout the city walked away from their jobs. In the spirit of Thoreau, the strike committee advocated non-violent civil disobedience, knowing full well that any violence on the part of the strikers would be used as a pretext by the authorities to break the strike by force.[ 1 ] The committee instructed the protesters to “keep quiet, do nothing, keep out of trouble”, and not to carry weapons. “Leave that to your enemies”, the committee advised. “Continue to prove that you are the friends of law and order.”[ 2 ] And remarkably, they largely managed to do so. However, into the powder keg that was Winnipeg in the spring of 1919 came thousands of soldiers, who returned from the war to face unemployment rather than a heroes’ welcome. The soldiers were restless and refused to “do nothing,” which added a volatile element to an already tense situation. Both pro- and anti-strike veterans’ groups began organizing marches at the end of May, and continued to hold them in spite of a ban on 5 June. These demonstrations came to a head on 21 June, now called “Bloody Saturday,” a day in which two strikers were killed and scores injured when the Royal North-West Mounted Police charged into the crowd and fired on the protesters.[ 3 ] The most iconic image of the general strike—that of a streetcar being overturned by a mob on Bloody Saturday— is ironically, the least representative of the strike. As Dennis Lewycky states in The Magnificent Fight : In this case, however, a photo is not ‘worth a thousand words,’ as the adage goes. This photo does not reflect what the presence of the streetcar meant to the demonstrators and what led to the situation. The confrontation that characterizes the Strike for so many people today was not representative of the Strike. The strikers were not responsible for the demonstration that day and the streetcar action … Street marches and demonstrations were not organized by the GSC [General Strike Committee], but by the veterans. The mobilization of June 21, 1919, was planned to be a silent protest by the veterans. The streetcar incident and image therefore represent what the veterans contributed to the Strike and the political events of June 1919.[ 4 ] Many of the existing images of the strike were taken by commercial photographer L. B. Foote (1873–1957), and are found in nearly every article, book, and video of the event. The most frequently shown of Foote’s photographs are likely of the overturned streetcar on Bloody Saturday and the police actions on that day and in an earlier riot on 10 June. These were the two days in which clashes occurred between strikers and police. An iconic photograph of dissent, of a crowd overturning a streetcar on 21 June 1919, was taken by Lewis Foote.[ 5 ] Foote’s images carry tremendous weight in the historical narrative of the strike. According to University of Manitoba historian Esyllt Jones, Foote’s most iconic photographs have “accumulated multiple, evolving meanings” over the decades, which have been influenced by their long usage in different media. These intertwined meanings have “both enriched and limited our sense of the past.”[ 6 ] This limiting aspect of iconic imagery can arise through its overuse, which may lead to a reductive oversimplification of complex events such as the general strike.[ 7 ] There is no question that Bloody Saturday was a pivotal event that precipitated the end of the strike on 26 June. The scenes from 10 June and 21 June are dynamic and actionladen, which helps to explain their popularity. Nevertheless, the focus on the iconography of one or two days diminishes what happened during the strike as a whole. A counterbalancing image is one taken on 25 May by Sigrid Bjornson, showing a nearly deserted Portage Avenue without any streetcars, which was unusual even for the Sunday morning on which the picture was taken.[ 8 ] This absence of activity is what the strike leaders wanted, and what occurred for most of the strike. Portage Avenue on the morning of 25 May 1919 was eerily empty because of the absence of streetcars.[ 8 ] Both the overturned streetcar and the image of a deserted thoroughfare portray forms of civil protest—one violent, one non-violent. The former image represents two days of the strike; the latter represents the other days in which strikers tried to stay off the streets. The Winnipeg General Strike was dissent writ large—a dissent that continues to echo today. It was formed by thirty thousand voices, of men and women who said “enough” to the status quo, and who said “enough” to low wages, unfair practices, and poor working conditions. The strike was born of the frustration and realization that one voice, or ten, or even a hundred voices could be ignored, but a hundred times a hundred voices, trebled, were a force to be reckoned with. Thoreau once said that in the face of injustice you should “let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.”[ 9 ] For forty-two days in the spring of 1919, thousands of ordinary Winnipeggers rose up and acted as counter-friction—as grit—in the machine and did what neither storm nor flood could do: they stopped the motor of the city. 1. D. C. Masters. The Winnipeg General Strike . University of Toronto, 1950, p. 48. 2. Strikers Hold Your Horses. Western Labor News , 6 June 1919, p. 1. 3. Kenneth McNaught and David J. Bercuson. The Winnipeg Strike: 1919 , Longman, 1974, pp. 90–91. 4. Dennis Lewycky. The Magnificent Fight: The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, Fernwood, 2019, p. 39. 5. Archives of Manitoba. R. v. Ivens et al. exhibits 986-1001, 1003 and 1005-1008, G 7494 file 3, Exhibit 998 (front), 1919. 6. Esyllt W. Jones. Imagining Winnipeg: History through the Photographs of L. B. Foote . University of Manitoba, 2012, p. xi. 7. Lewis Bush. “What is an iconic photograph: Iconography and iconoclasm.” http://www.disphotic.com/iconography-andiconoclasm , 9 December 2013. [accessed 28 May 2019]. 8. Archives of Manitoba. Sigrid Bjornson photographs, P8232/9, Photo 115, 1919. 9. Henry David Thoreau. Walden and Civil Disobedience . Signet, 1980, p. 229. We thank S. Goldsborough for assistance in preparing the online version of this article. Page revised: 4 June 2021 City of Winnipeg Archives Collections People and Organizations Digital objects Into the Archives Video Library Research Help 1919 Winnipeg General Strike On May 15, 1919, tens of thousands of workers throughout the City of Winnipeg walked off the job in solidarity with striking building and metal trades workers. At issue was the right to unionize and bargain collectively. The strike brought the City to a standstill for six weeks. After a number of strike leaders were arrested – including two City Aldermen – and the Northwest Mounted Police killed one man and mortally wounded another when they charged a crowd on “Bloody Saturday”, strike leaders called off the General Strike on June 25. It officially ended the following day. The General Strike of 1919 was a pivotal moment in Winnipeg's history. To mark its centennial anniversary, the City of Winnipeg Archives has digitized and made accessible nearly 300 records that document the role of the City and its employees before, during, and after this important event. Included are records of the 1918 Civic Strike – which laid a foundation for the strike of 1919 – as well as digitized records from the Winnipeg Police Museum. Browse All Records | Browse Documents | Browse Photos | General Strike Research Guide See also: Unbreakable: The Spirit of the Strike , a collaborative project between the University of Manitoba Libraries, the City of Winnipeg Archives, the University of Winnipeg Archives, the University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections, and the Association for Manitoba Archives. Fact-based journalism that sparks the Canadian conversation What the Winnipeg General Strike Can Teach Us about Class, Capitalism, and Greed In 1919, 35,000 workers ground winnipeg to a halt. we may never again see another strike like it. O ne of the last standing landmarks of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 is the Ukrainian Labour Temple in the north end of the city, at Pritchard Avenue and McGregor. The lintel over the front door reads, “Workers of the world unite.” Listen to an audio version of this story Inside, it looks like a theatre without seats, with a fire curtain hanging over the stage. The temple holds 1,000 people, and during the strike, according to local lore, men and women filled it from floor to balcony. The space was brand new when 35,000 workers halted the city’s factories, trains and streetcars for six weeks, starting in May 1919. The reasons were ­local and global: disputes over wages and living conditions, of course, but also, as James Naylor at Manitoba’s Brandon University says, there was the “vast unfairness of everything”—a war had just ended, one in which working people were killed in the millions while “a handful of people were becoming fantastically rich, ­honestly or dishonestly.” People had had enough. Class ­divisions in Canada had never been sharper. Walmart Has Everything—Except Unions Inside the Toronto Star’s Bold Plan to Save Itself The Other Worst President Almost every other landmark from the period—from the strike headquarters to old city hall to Victoria Park, where thousands met to hear speakers—has been levelled, except some of the strikers’ houses in the north end, which haven’t changed much. The north end resists gentrification if only because developers aren’t interested in developing it: too much crime, they say, too many drugs, too many of the wrong people, unfriendly to commerce. Historically, Winnipeg’s north end has been seen as a place that gets capitalism wrong on purpose. There used to be a sign on the roof of Nepon Auto Body, visible from the Slaw Rebchuk Bridge when crossing over the CP tracks. It said, “Welcome to the North End. People before Profits.” It became a motto, a point of pride for a neighbourhood poor in opportunities. “Wherever there are broken things,” writes Métis author Katherena Vermette of the north end, where she grew up, “there are people who are struggling and fighting and succeeding every day fixing them.” So much about the Winnipeg strike is stuck in a historical ­moment. Thirty-five thousand workers coming together? It seems like a fantasy. Now the reality is outsourcing and automation. Work by contract, remote, or part time. Eighty-four percent of private-sector jobs in Canada are non­unionized. Labour is seen as a raw material to be acquired for a competitive price (meaning it’s low wage). But history decides which ­stories persist, and the arc of our narrative is bending again, toward the ­values behind the Winnipeg General Strike. “Class is back on the agenda,” says Naylor, who points to precarious employment and stagnant wages over the last few decades as the reasons why young workers are looking to examples like the 1919 strike for answers. “They are ­collectively nervous,” he says of his own students, “about economic threats and environ­mental threats. They see these things as ­connected, and they see the same enemy, the one percent,” as did the 35,000 workers in Winnipeg. The legacy of the strike isn’t settled here, and it likely never will be. But what’s odd is how fresh the story feels. The rich industrial owners of the south end against the poor immigrant workers of the north end. The accusations that “alien scum” were behind the strike and that, for the sake of king and ­Canada, it had to stop. On bad days, we still argue about workers’ rights and about foreigners in our midst. On good days, student walkouts and Green New Deal activism in the US give the Winnipeg strike of 1919 new relevance. A ttached to the temple is the archives, its floor stained rust red from a leaking air conditioner. Lily Stearns, a volunteer, shows me bound newspapers going back to 1919, photographs, and shelves of translated novels and plays. Around the time of the strike, she says, the temple ­hosted a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the story of a totali­tarian leader, fresh from a military victory, getting his well-earned comeuppance. Meanwhile, in the real world, the Great War had just ended. But, for returning soldiers, the celebrations were short lived. Winnipeg, a busy, industrial railway hub, had little to offer them: jobs were scarce, wages low, inflation high. There was anger directed at rich factory owners in the south end, who had made a fortune during the war, and at the new immigrants who had, as some of the soldiers saw it, taken their jobs. For the immigrants, which included Hungarians and Ukrainians, living conditions were desperate. So, when the building- and metal-trades workers went on strike on May 1, the local Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council rolled the dice: Were people angry enough to support a general sympathy strike in support of the tradespeople? There had been talk in the west of forming the near-­mythical One Big Union, of bringing workers of all stripes together under one banner, as a bargaining force. After all, workers had just taken over an entire country, Russia. In Winnipeg, the council took a vote. Ninety-four unions polled their members: boilermakers, railway clerks, firemen, police, electrical workers, flour-mill workers, pipe fitters, plumbers, upholsterers, bakers, confectioners. On May 6, 11,000 workers voted for a sympathy strike. Within a week, 12,000 unionized workers had walked off the job, and then, to the shock of the strike organizers, the numbers swelled to 35,000, among them nonunionized immigrant workers who’d learned about class solidarity in the old country. Many of the returning veterans set aside their beef with the new immigrants and chose to put the question to the factory owners and city elite: Is this what we fought a war for? To have no say in our own futures? They joined the strike too. “In Germany,” one returning soldier wrote, “I fed on grass and rats. I would prefer going back to eating grass than give up the freedom for which I fought so hard.” Why Winnipeg? General strikes had previously been discussed elsewhere in Canada and the United States. If the ­social, political, and economic tinder was dry and flammable, why not a strike in Toronto or Montreal or Halifax? In the east, the union ­leadership was more conservative: when times are desperate, hold a meeting. In Winnipeg, meanwhile, the leadership was young and brash: A. A. Heaps, J. S. Woodsworth, William Pritchard, William Ivens, Helen Armstrong, most coming from Britain, where labour activism was comparatively more radical. The city elite decided to confront that radicalism head on. They formed what they called a Citizens’ Committee of 1,000, a group whose battle plan to end the strike was to frame it not as an exercise in industrial relations but as the seed of a global catastrophe. “If we submit to it now, we shall have to submit to it again and again,” they wrote in a May 30 newspaper ad. “Don’t be misled— KILL IT NOW. ” The enemy, as always, was the Eastern European immigrant. “The idea behind the One Big Union,” wrote John Dafoe, editor of the Manitoba Free Press , “is to employ these masses of rough, uneducated foreigners, who know nothing of our customs and our civilization.” The committee was led by A. J. Andrews, “hatless, with a wilted collar,” wrote the Toronto Star , who committed himself to “drawing up charges, directing raids, supervising ­arrests.” City council approved the hiring of a “special” police force to replace striking constables, mostly returned soldiers paid six dollars a day. They were issued wooden clubs—wagon spokes with a hole bored through the top end into which ran a piece of rope that fit over your wrist. Hank Scott, a former special constable, told the CBC fifty years later: “You went down the street and you had this confounding thing, about two feet long.” Its purpose was unambiguous and presaged the strike’s bloody conclusion. In June, strike leaders were arrested. On the twenty-first, a parade was organized on Main Street by soldiers, in support of the arrested leaders. The City called in troops from the Fort Osborne barracks, the special constables, and the ­Royal North-West Mounted Police. At 2:30 in the afternoon, armed police and the crowds met face to face near city hall. A ­streetcar ­approached, manned by strike breakers, and the crowd ­responded, throwing bricks through the windows and tipping it off the tracks. Then, Chekhov’s rule: if a pistol ­appears in act one, it must be fired by act three. And, as is often the case in protests, only one side was armed. “When the shooting started there was a double movement,” writes former Canadian Press reporter Fred Livesay in his autobiography. “As if reaped by a scythe, the old soldiers lay down, while the rest, men, women and children, streamed like quicksilver into the neighboring courts and alleys.” Livesay continues: “In a moment the square was quiet. Even the troops had passed on, and I stood alone . . . a dead man lay before me.” This would come to be known as Bloody Saturday. Two dead. It was the end of the Winnipeg General Strike. A century later , it’s worth asking: What was achieved? Many of the measures that labour unions were able to take in the decades after the strike to minimize social inequality have been eroded. The business class, the forces of capitalism, the elite—however you want to characterize the modern incarnation of the Citizens’ Committee of 1,000—waged, and arguably won, the rhetorical war against labour rights. Workplace flexibility and the emancipation from the drudgery of the same soul-killing job for life: these ideas have replaced the language the union movement built up after Winnipeg. Class conflict, we’re told, is over: we are all free to pursue our dreams equally. That’s what A. J. Andrews argued in 1919, when he wasn’t busy blaming immigrants. Workers of the north end, he said, have the same chance to get ahead as the business class of Charleswood—it was a question of gumption. With this, he foreshadowed British prime minister Margaret Thatcher who, after crushing the power of the country’s trade unions, said in 1987, “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.” What the Winnipeg General Strike helped bring about, in other words, is the current mantra that collectivity is a waste of time, that the individual succeeds on their own merits. Nolan Reilly, a retired professor of history from the University of Winnipeg, marvels at the solidarity that held together the strikers. “But,” he adds, “I can’t imagine it happening in Winnipeg again unless the Jets win the Stanley Cup.” For one thing, union engagement is aging out. According to Statistics Canada, the unionization rate for workers aged fifty-five to sixty-four in 2012 was 36 percent, while it was only 28.4 percent for the twenty-five-to-thirty-four age group, and 14.8 percent for workers aged seventeen to twenty-four. Young workers, resigned to jobs without long-term contracts or security, may see unions as vestiges of another time. How do you organize in a gig economy ­anyway? There is no equivalent of a Ukrainian Labour Temple to bring together Uber drivers, web developers, and bike couriers. But then the lesson of history is that, just when things seem settled, there will come the Damascene moment: a flash of something unexpected. In February, 3,000 teachers in Oakland, California, won an 11 percent salary raise after a seven-day strike. The counterargument, as usual: they should be happy to have jobs in this economy. But the teachers withdrew their labour, and it worked. When Donald Trump shut down the US government in late 2018, it lasted thirty-five days until air-traffic controllers called in sick, and the American flight-attendants union used language infrequently heard in the mainstream since 1919: it called for a general strike. It was an off-script moment—that’s not the way it’s ­supposed to go now that labour strength and collectivity are at an ebb. But commerce sometimes forgets what happens when it backs people into a corner, as it did in 1919, when workers got their act together and shut down a city. Related Posts Breaking: The Meeting House Closes Its Doors September 3, 2024 September 4, 2024 Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era August 30, 2024 August 31, 2024 Conservatives Poised to Dominate in British Columbia August 27, 2024 August 27, 2024 The Walrus uses cookies for personalization, to customize its online advertisements, and for other purposes. Learn more or change your cookie preferences. Fund the journalism that helps you make informed decisions. Fund The Walrus. Before you go, did you know that The Walrus is a registered charity? We rely on donations and support from readers like you to keep our journalism independent and freely available online. Read more… When you donate to The Walrus, you’re helping writers, editors, and artists produce stories like the ones you’ve just read. 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At 11 a.m. that day, between 25,000 and 35,000 workers walked off the job and essentially brought the City of Winnipeg to a standstill. “The  Winnipeg General Strike  began as a disagreement between metal workers and their employers,” said Sarah Ramsden, Senior Archivist at the City of Winnipeg. The strike spanned roughly six weeks and saw several strike leaders, including two City Council aldermen, arrested. This prompted what started out as a silent march on June 21. That march turned violent as people in the crowd set a streetcar on fire. The Royal Northwest Mounted Police charged into the crowd. Two people were killed and several others injured as a result of the riot. “Seven of the nine strike leaders put on trial were convicted, and served between six months and two years in prison,” said Ramsden. The City of Winnipeg Archives  has marked the centennial anniversary of the strike by digitizing nearly  300 records  related to the strike. “These records document the role of the City and its employees before, during, and after this important event,” said Ramsden. The records can be easily accessed through the  Winnipeg in Focus  website. Archives has also compiled  a research guide  which explores the significance of the Winnipeg General Strike. Other City information How can we make this web page better? Information collected will be used to improve our website. Do not use this form to submit a request for service or information because it will not be forwarded to departments for response. To submit a request for service or information, contact 311 . Explore the true heart of Winnipeg: 111 Places in Winnipeg That You Must Not Miss Touring 1919 General Strike History in Winnipeg, Canada A number of attractions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada offers visitors the opportunity to explore the history and stories of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike (Last updated May 2023) For six weeks in 1919, the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada was gripped by a bitter labour dispute that paralyzed and polarized the city. The strike was a big news story at the time dominating local papers and bringing reporters from across the country to Winnipeg. The strike remains a significant point in Winnipeg’s history and in Canada’s labour history. 2019 marked the 100 th anniversary of the 1919 General Strike. Scheduled events commemorating the strike included talks, presentations, a parade, a concert, staging of the play Strike! The Musical, and the release of a movie version of that play. Beyond specifically scheduled events, there were a number of places tourists and locals can visit to learn more about the strike and its legacy. Those sites are highlighted in the remainder of this article. Although the year of commemoration is now over, these sites can still be visited to gain a better appreciation of the strike and its impact. Table of Contents 1919 Winnipeg General Strike Overview 1919 Marquee – A Monument Exchange District Strike Walking Tours Urban Gallery at Manitoba Museum Dalnavert House Museum Winnipeg Police Museum Canadian Museum for Human Rights Bloody Saturday Public Artwork Labour Movement Mural 1919 Winnipeg General Strike Overview First, a brief recap of the strike to set context. 1919 was a time of tumult and anxiety. The 1917 Russian Revolution created a fear of Bolshevism taking over the world. World War I had just ended in November 1918. A Spanish influenza outbreak in the winter and spring of 1918-1919 killed more than 800 people in Manitoba. The post-war economy was struggling. There was rampant inflation. Some factories shut down. Workers were denied raises and working conditions were dismal. Traumatized returning veterans found their jobs no longer existed or had been filled by the large immigrant population. A general strike, called to support building and metal workers already on strike for two weeks, officially began at 11:00 am May 15, 1919 when between 25,000 and 30,000 workers walked off their jobs. Unofficially, it began several hours earlier when the provincial telephone operators, known as Hello Girls, didn’t show up for their shifts. Stores and factories closed. Milk, bread, and ice deliveries stopped. Even the streetcars stopped running for a time. Shortly after the strike began, the Strike Committee issued special permits to allow certain businesses to remain open. Businessmen and the city’s elite formed the Citizens’ Committee of 1000 to fight the strike. They blamed the strike on Bolsheviks and foreign agitators and claimed the real aim of the strike was revolution. The city’s three daily newspapers were shut down for about a week at the beginning of the strike. They became part of the strike battleground when they resumed printing with largely anti-strike biases. Two new dailies emerged, one supporting the strikers and one against them. As the strike progressed, the once peaceful demonstrations began to see more and more confrontation, culminating in the events of Bloody Saturday. On June 21, 1919, thousands of strikers and their sympathizers gathered in downtown Winnipeg in a silent parade to protest the arrest of strike leaders. Crowds and police clashed. In the confrontation that followed, two people were killed and at least 30 injured. Angry protesters turned over a street car in front of City Hall and set it on fire. Fighting spilled into a nearby side street, which became known as Hell’s Alley after a ten-minute conflict resulted in twenty-seven casualties. During the strike, as many as 35,000 workers walked off their jobs. The city’s population at the time was about 175,000. On June 26, 1919, fearing more violence, strike leaders called off the strike. After forty-two days on strike, strikers returned to work without gaining additional rights or improved working conditions. Some lost their jobs. Seven strike leaders received jail sentences. What must have felt like a failure at the time is now credited with laying the seeds of the modern Canadian labour movement. A provincial inquiry deemed that the strike did not have revolutionary motives, but was indeed a protest against poor working conditions and wages. Some strike leaders went on to take elected office in government. I haven’t covered all of the events of the strike and there are many topics that could be explored more deeply and indeed have been in the numerous books and papers written about the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. Topics like the political atmosphere, the impact on everyone in the city, conspiracy theories, the divide between the rich and the poor, the fear of foreigners, the role of the press, the strike’s legacy, and the labour movement in general. The following sites will provide more information and insight into some of the events, the human stories, and the issues. 1919 Marquee- A Monument to the Winnipeg Strike In November 2017, a monument commemorating the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike sits on the corner of Market Avenue and Lily Street in the East Exchange District. The billboard style art piece of weathering steel has an industrial look that seems fitting for a labour event marker. The location is significant because it is next to what was once Hell’s Alley and close to other key strike locations. A smaller board beside the one in the photo features a capsule description of the strike and a map of relevant strike locations in the surrounding area. The map highlights how this section of the city was at the heart of the strike, but I don’t think it’s a good guide to use to explore the locations unless you know strike history and are somewhat familiar with the nearby streets. The map is crude. The significance of some locations is not explained and there is nothing to indicate which landmarks still exist. A guided walking tour may be a better way to explore. Exchange District Walking Tours The Winnipeg Exchange District BIZ offers a variety of historical guided walking tours from May through August. One of those tours focuses on the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. The Winnipeg Exchange District is a National Historic Site featuring North America’s largest and best-preserved collection of heritage buildings built between 1880 and 1920. This was the heart of the city in 1919 and the scene of significant strike events. Walking through the district is like taking a step back in time. Today the Exchange District contains galleries, studios, unique shops, and over 50 restaurants.  In addition to the historical walking tours, the Exchange District BIZ offers food tours in July and August. Winnipeg Exchange District historical walking tours run May through August. The regular hour-long Strike-themed tour takes you to sites of significant strike events. The ninety-minute extended tour takes you to those same locations and provides information of what life was like in Winnipeg leading up to the strike and what happened in the years that followed. The Manitoba Museum The Manitoba Museum , located in the East Exchange District, near what was once the James Street Labor Temple, headquarters of the 1919 Strike Committee, showcases natural and human history in the varied landscapes of Manitoba. The Urban Gallery, which typically depicted Winnipeg in 1920 was moved back in time one year for the exhibition Strike 1919: Divided City , which ran from March 2019 to early 2021. Here are a few highlights of that exhibition, which is no longer running. Other information about the strike can still be found at the museum in its Winnipeg gallery. Information about the strike is provided through text and images on placards augmented with authentic strike artifacts Conversations between “talking” mannequins, whose recorded “voices” can be activated by the push of a button, provide insight into the divisions within the city. In one of those conversations, a dentist’s wife and her maid politely discuss the strike from differing perspectives. Another conversation takes place between an immigrant striker and a veteran about to join the Special Constables fighting the strike. They are staying in adjacent rooms of the same hotel. The exhibit, like the strike itself, poses social questions Check the Manitoba Museum website for open hours, which vary by season. Dalnavert House Museum Dalnavert Museum is a Victorian house, built in 1895 for Sir Hugh John Macdonald, who was a Manitoba Premier, a Police Magistrate, a lawyer, and son of Canada’s first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald. The house has been renovated and decorated with period furnishing to create a sense of “a day in the life.” From May 3, 2019 to September 29, 2019, Dalnavert ran a special exhibition STRIKE 1919: Our Cause is Just . Although that exhibition is no longer running, touring the house may give you an idea of how one side of the divided city lived. As police magistrate and member of the Board of Police Commissioners, Macdonald was concerned by attempts to unionize Winnipeg’s police force. He saw the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike as a revolutionary movement bent on instilling a soviet-style government. He believed foreigners were responsible. On June 6, he moved that the police commission hire 3,000 special policemen and equip them with batons. The STRIKE 1919:Our Cause is Just exhibit featured information about the strike, period clothing provided by the Costume Museum of Canada , a few artifacts from Dalnavert’s collection, and panels with information and thought-provoking questions about present-day struggles and protests. Dalnavert is open Wednesdays to Sundays from noon to 4 pm. Winnipeg Police Museum Exhibits at the Winnipeg Police Museum tell the history of the Winnipeg police force, policing in general, and of the city. One of the exhibits featuring both Winnipeg and police history is on the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. Members of the Winnipeg Police force had voted in favour of the strike, but remained on duty when it started at the request of the Strike Committee. On June 9, most of the Winnipeg Police force were fired for refusing to sign a loyalty agreement prohibiting participation in any union or sympathetic strike. The City called on the North West Mounted Police, military troops, and approximately 1,400 “Special Constables” to patrol the streets. The Winnipeg Police Museum is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 am to 3 pm. Admission is free. Canadian Museum for Human Rights One of the exhibits in the Canadian Journeys gallery at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) is about the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. The exhibit is not large and is just one of many stories in the gallery, but it includes an overview of the strike, a few strike artifacts, and a video presentation about the strike. The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike is not likely to be the main focus on a visit to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, but the strike story, other stories in the Canadian Journeys gallery, and the exhibits in other galleries make the museum well worth visiting. CMHR is at the top of lists of things to see in Winnipeg. Bloody Saturday Public Artwork A photograph of a street car being tipped in front of City Hall on Bloody Saturday is one of the most recognizable images of the 1919 strike. The streetcar, run by replacement workers, approached City Hall where strikers and supporters had gathered to protest the arrest of strike leaders. The angry crowd surrounded the streetcar, rocked it side to side, smashed windows, and set it on fire. No one was in the streetcar when it was set on fire, but subsequent violence when police and special constables arrived resulted in two deaths and ultimately led to strike leaders calling off the strike. On June 21, 2019, the hundredth anniversary of Bloody Saturday, a tilted streetcar sculpture was installed in Pantages Plaza on Main Street near the site where the streetcar incident occurred. The Winnipeg Arts Council commissioned the artwork. Artist and filmmaker Noam Gonick collaborated with sculptor Bernie Miller on the project. Miller died in 2017, shortly after the design had been completed. Titled Bloody Saturday , the sculpture is built from steel and glass and is illuminated from within at night. Labour Movement Mural In July 2020, a mural representing the history of Manitoba’s labour movement from the 1919 General Strike to present day was unveiled on the side of the Union Centre building on Broadway at the corner of Smith. The mural stands several stories tall and was created by mural artist Charlie Johnston. Never miss a story.  Sign up for Destinations Detours and Dreams free monthly e-newsletter and receive behind-the-scenes information and sneak peaks ahead. PIN FOR LATER Similar Posts Marvels of the Panama Canal at Miraflores Locks Journey Through Western Canadian History at Heritage Park Bankers and Brokers Tour of London’s City History Dressing Up – Celebrating Canada’s New Years Through the Decades Visiting Salt Spring Island Indigenous Art And Heritage On Display At Manitoba Indigenous Cultural Education Centre Leave a comment cancel reply. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed . Excellent post, Donna. I’m sending the link to a half dozen international visitors we’re hosting in Winnipeg this summer to give them some background on this watershed time in Winnipeg. Thanks Deb. With all the things going on to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the strike, visitors this summer are likely to encounter more strike history and events related to it than in other years. Found the story of the general strike really interesting. Love the fact that the “hello girls” got it rolling. Filmmakers take note. Ken, a musical play about the strike called Strike! The Musical premiered in 2005. It used a love story between a Ukrainian-Canadian labourer and his Jewish neighbour to tell the larger social justice story. A movie version called Stand! was filmed in Winnipeg last year and is scheduled for release this fall. But there are so many stories within the overall strike story that would make great films, including that of the “hello girls.” Pardon Our Interruption As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen: You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser. You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed. You've disabled cookies in your web browser. A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article . To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page. 332 COMMENTS The Winnipeg General Strike Strike! At 11 a.m. on May 15, 1919, Winnipeg workers from the city's building and metal trades put down their tools and walked off the job. They were joined by unionized workers from other occupations. But incredibly, thousands of non‐unionized workers also left their jobs to join the general strike. 'Moment of awakening': The impact of the Winnipeg General Strike on Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 shook the ruling class, planted roots for modern workers' rights; Desperate times: How harsh conditions drove 30,000 workers to rebel in the Winnipeg General Strike ... Resources The Winnipeg General Strike Digital Collection. The Winnipeg General Strike Digital Collection contains digitized documents from the Charles F. Gray Family fonds and includes letters between Mayor Gray and private citizens and businessmen of Winnipeg, politicians in civic, provincial and federal governments, and other public agencies involved in the strike, handwritten and typed notes and ... Winnipeg general strike The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 was one of the most famous and influential strikes in Canadian history. [1] For six weeks, May 15 to June 26, more than 30,000 strikers brought economic activity to a standstill in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which at the time was Canada's third largest city.In the short term, the strike ended in arrests, bloodshed and defeat, but in the long run it contributed to ... Differing Perspectives on the Winnipeg General Strike The Winnipeg General Strike, held from May 15 to June 25, 1919, was the biggest general strike in Canadian history. It was also one of the most influential strikes, creating a platform for future labour demonstrations. As explained in Kayak, "The strike may not have been seen as a clear success at the time, but it brought change that shapes ... Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 Last Edited November 28, 2023. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 was the largest strike in Canadian history (see Strikes and Lockouts). Between 15 May and 25 June 1919, more than 30,000 workers left their jobs (see Work). Factories, shops, transit and city services shut down. The strike resulted in arrests, injuries and the deaths of two ... The Winnipeg General Strike marks 100 years May 15, 2019. May 15, 1919 marks a pivotal moment in Winnipeg's history. At 11 a.m. that day, between 25,000 and 35,000 workers walked off the job and essentially brought the City of Winnipeg to a standstill. "The Winnipeg General Strike began as a disagreement between metal workers and their employers," said Sarah Ramsden, Senior ... Manitoba History: When the City Stood Still: The Iconography of Dissent The Winnipeg General Strike was dissent writ large—a dissent that continues to echo today. It was formed by thirty thousand voices, of men and women who said "enough" to the status quo, and who said "enough" to low wages, unfair practices, and poor working conditions. The strike was born of the frustration and realization that one ... PDF THE WINNIPEG The Winnipeg General Strike began with 11,000 unionized workers, but the number of strikers soon swelled to 35,000 as thousands of non-unionized workers also walked off the job. Many of them were women and recent immigrants living in the city's North End. As the city ground to a halt, as the phones went silent, the streetcars 1919 Winnipeg General Strike 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. On May 15, 1919, tens of thousands of workers throughout the City of Winnipeg walked off the job in solidarity with striking building and metal trades workers. At issue was the right to unionize and bargain collectively. The strike brought the City to a standstill for six weeks. The winnipeg general strike The Winnipeg General Strike was a major labor strike that took place in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1919. The strike began on May 15, 1919, and lasted for six weeks, until June 26, 1919. It was one of the largest and most significant strikes in Canadian history, involving approximately 30,000 workers. Winnipeg General Strike Flashcards Explain the significance of the Winnipeg GS for Canada -biggest strike in Canadian history -more work days lost to strikes in 1919 than in any year since -turning point in Canada's labour relations: many leaders went on to found Canadian socialism aka roots of NDP Reflections on the Winnipeg General Strike and the future of workers The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 was a local working-class revolt that challenged the hegemony of capital in a moment of crisis for the ruling class in Canada. Although its particular scenario is unlikely to be repeated, the trajectories and consequences of capital accumulation and ecological crisis make a different historically-specific ... PDF Remembering 1919: The Winnipeg General Strike 6.obert Kell's Winnipeg General Strike series of paintings debuted in Winnipeg in 1985. R Sharon Reilly, "Robert Kell and the Art of the Winnipeg General Strike," Labour/Le Travail . 20 (Fall 1987): 185-192. 7.ee interviews recorded in 1969 in the David Jay Bercuson fonds, MG31-B7, R719-0-8-E, S Library and Archives Canada (hereafter lac What the Winnipeg General Strike Can Teach Us about Class, Capitalism Strikers overturn a streetcar in Winnipeg, June 21, 1919. Photograph courtesy of the Archives of Manitoba. One of the last standing landmarks of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 is the Ukrainian Labour Temple in the north end of the city, at Pritchard Avenue and McGregor. The lintel over the front door reads, "Workers of the world unite.". Winnipeg General Strike Looking at the Documents below we are going to learn about the Winnipeg General Strike. The reasons behind it, the labour union's, and the events of the strike. We will start with a video from "Canada: A People's History", which will go with the first document of questions. The documents after will work with pulling ideas from readings and the ... PDF The Winnipeg General Strike newspaper report (125-150 words) detailing the Winnipeg General Strike. Use the information collected from the video and handouts as a basis for your story. 1. You will need to include the following items in your report as outlined on the fodey website. a. Name of the Newspaper b. Date c. Headline d. ... PDF The Winnipeg General Strike The Winnipeg General Strike. Your Task: You are a reporter asked to summarize the events of the Winnipeg general strike for citizens of Canada. Your job is to file a report on the events leading up to, during and at the conclusion of the strike. You are asked to do this in 250-500 words. The Winnipeg General Strike marks 100 years May 15, 2019. May 15, 1919 marks a pivotal moment in Winnipeg's history. At 11 a.m. that day, between 25,000 and 35,000 workers walked off the job and essentially brought the City of Winnipeg to a standstill. "The Winnipeg General Strike began as a disagreement between metal workers and their employers," said Sarah Ramsden, Senior ... Solved The Winnipeg General Strike 1. Explain what the OBU This was started on June 4, 1919, in Calgary but most of its members left it by the year 1922. In 1956, it …. The Winnipeg General Strike 1. Explain what the OBU is and what is its purpose. 2. Explain 3 reasons for why workers in Winnipeg go on strike in 1919. 3. Touring 1919 General Strike History in Winnipeg, Canada The Winnipeg Exchange District BIZ offers a variety of historical guided walking tours from May through August. One of those tours focuses on the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. The Winnipeg Exchange District is a National Historic Site featuring North America's largest and best-preserved collection of heritage buildings built between 1880 and ... The Winnipeg General Strike: Causes, Events, and Aftermath History document from Red River College, 2 pages, Name: Course: HUMR 2069- Labour Relations Assignment 1: The Winnipeg General Strike "Bloody Saturday" Due date: Jan 19th, 2023 1. When did the Wpg General Strike take place (months & year)? The Wpg General Strike took place in May 15th, 1919. 2. How many essay homework paper phd project resume review speech study thesis