Showdown! Making Modern Unions by Rob Kristofferson and Simon Orpana Copyright © The Ontario Historical Society, 2017 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ Document généré le 5 avr. 2021 20:52 Ontario History Showdown! Making Modern Unions by Rob Kristofferson and Simon Orpana David Tough Volume 109, numéro 1, spring 2017 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1039209ar DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1039209ar Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) The Ontario Historical Society ISSN 0030-2953 (imprimé) 2371-4654 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer ce compte rendu Tough, D. (2017). Compte rendu de [Showdown! Making Modern Unions by Rob Kristofferson and Simon Orpana]. Ontario History, 109(1), 151–152. https://doi.org/10.7202/1039209ar https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/onhistory/ https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1039209ar https://doi.org/10.7202/1039209ar https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/onhistory/2017-v109-n1-onhistory02993/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/onhistory/ ���book reviews Hamilton has long enjoyed a starring role in Canadian labour history. From Bryan Palmer’s A Culture in Conflict: Skilled Workers and Industrial Capitalism in Ham- ilton, Ontario, 1860-1914 (1979) to Craig Heron’s Lunch Bucket Lives: Remaking the Workers’ City (2015), the city of steel has provided rich fodder for scholars looking to analyze the development of an industrial working class. Now comes Showdown: Mak- ing Modern Unions, an effective graphic his- tory of one very important story, the struggle for recognition of the first industrial union at the Stelco plant, the United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1005, in 1946. A lot of the effectiveness of the book is owed to Simon Orpana’s lively and loose il- lustration style which looks not unlike as if some classic noir comics (Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy panels, maybe) were being re- drawn in haste by a fan. Figures look a bit shaky on their feet, their limbs a bit jelly- like, their faces a few mere squiggles, but they have an undeniable élan about them, even when they’re standing around talking, that suggests the kinetic, uncertain pace of political activism. (Compare, for example, Chester Brown’s justly celebrated Louis Riel graphic novel, an important milestone in the historical comic book genre, but one which uses a style so static and repetitive that even dramatic confrontations read like awkward monologues.) The illustration style fits well with the story-telling, which is loosely episodic, cre- ating a verisimilitude of daily life during the strike by interjecting anecdotes and side stories around the main action. The central narrative is told through characters in panels speaking in speech balloons, but interview- ees pop up in the margins to tell their version of the story, which is offset by transcripts of radio broadcasts and press commentaries, giving a wonderful scrapbook quality to the book. The sources of the story, and the role of archives, photos, and even funders in the production of the book are all given a place in the story, a decision which is very effec- tive and entirely apt in a story about how things are made and by whom. At the end of the book, the historical struggle is connected to current political issues–not just labour issues, but Idle No More and Black Lives Matter. This is effec- tive, and I found it quite moving, but it felt a bit rushed, a bit perfunctory; the connec- tions could have been deeper. For example, the book touches briefly on the prejudice experienced by Eastern and Southern Euro- pean immigrants in the mid-20th century. Could that have been developed further Showdown! Making Modern Unions by Rob Kristofferson and Simon Orpana Toronto: Between the Lines, 2016. 144 pages. $29.95 paperback. ISBN 9781771132725 (www.btlbooks.com) Spring 2017 inside pages.indd 151 2017-03-04 12:23:50 AM ��2 ONTARIO HISTORY in a coda that linked historical to current racism? In any case, discussing in detail the actual resonances between historical and contemporary iterations of one movement or problem would have been more effective and instructive than the quick and general gestures, however powerful they are as soli- darity gestures. If there’s a criticism that can be levelled at the book, it’s that its institutional focus, its attention to unions specifically as op- posed to the wider working class culture of Hamilton in the period, feels a bit limited, a bit old-fashioned as labour history. There is some discussion of food, fun, and music, but it’s all pretty much connected to the success of the strike. Labour history is about more than unions, and while the story of how unions were made is important, changes in working class culture are probably more im- portant to understanding the current politi- cal and social moment. And the institutional focus raises the further question of whether comic readers are being condescended to: like undergraduates presented with all-kill- er-no-filler course options, are they assumed to only hunger for action? Will they only gain insight by stealth? It’s notable, in this respect, that the current issue the book draws attention to in connection with labour politics is the Harper government’s attacks on unions, bills C-377 and C-525. The Harper agen- da was destructive without a doubt, but it does little to explain the decline in effec- tiveness and energ y on the part of unions over the last many decades. Strikes like the one described in Showdown are highly un- likely now because of changes in the cul- ture of class, to say nothing of the state and the economy, not because of laws that af- fect unions, most of which are unchanged. Ignoring culture, in fact, drives a teleologi- cal current in the book (signalled in the subtitle Making Modern Unions) that un- derlines what we have that the people in the story lacked, rather than what we lack and they had: strong and effective bonds of class solidarity. David Tough Trent University Donald Creighton never forgave “the giggling bow-tied bastard,” later con- fessing to a journalist, “I feel positive hatred towards that man.” According to Creight- on’s historical calculus, Lester Pearson had abandoned Great Britain during the Suez Crisis and later severed Canada’s symbolic connection to what used to be called its mother country when he insisted on the Maple Leaf over the Red Ensign. Even Mike: The Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Lester B. Pearson, vols. I-III by Lester B. Pearson Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015. Volume I, 326 pages. $32.95 paper, ISBN 9781442615649. $32.95 ebook (EPUB format) ISBN 9781442668645. Volume II, 372 pages. $32.95 paper, ISBN 9781442615656. $32.95 ebook (EPUB format) ISBN 9781442668669. Volume III, 366 pages. $32.95 paper, ISBN 9781442615663. $32.95 ebook (EPUB format) ISBN 9781442668683. worse, Canada’s fourteenth prime minister accepted the premise of bilingualism when he appointed the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. It cut both ways because Pearson didn’t think much of Creighton. When Frank Underhill sent him an offprint, he thanked him “for reduc- ing some of Donald Creighton’s views to historical perspective and accuracy,” adding that he intended “to borrow from it shame- Spring 2017 inside pages.indd 152 2017-03-04 12:23:50 AM