Canada’s largest and most famous example of class conflict, the Winnipeg General Strike, redefined local, national, and international conversations around class, politics, region, ethnicity, and gender. The Strike’s centenary occasioned a re-examination of this critical moment in working-class history, when 300 social justice activists, organizers, scholars, trade unionists, artists, and labour rights advocates gathered in Winnipeg in 2019.

Probing the meaning of the General Strike in new and innovative ways, For a Better World includes a selection of contributions from the conference as well as others’ explorations of the character of class confrontation in the aftermath of the First World War. Editors Naylor, Hinther, and Mochoruk depict key events of 1919, detailing the dynamic and complex historiography of the Strike and the larger Workers’ Revolt that reverberated around the world and shaped the century following the war. The chapters delve into intersections of race, class, and gender. Settler colonialism’s impact on the conflict is also examined. Placing the struggle in Winnipeg within a broader national and international context, several contributors explore parallel strikes in Edmonton, Crowsnest Pass, Montreal, Kansas City, and Seattle.

For a Better World interrogates types of commemoration and remembrance, current legacies of the Strike, and its ongoing influence. Together, the essays in this collection demonstrate that the Winnipeg General Strike continues to mobilize—revealing our radical past and helping us to think imaginatively about collective action in the future.

James Naylor is the author of The Fate of Labour Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Dream of a Working-Class Future (2016). He is a professor of history at Brandon University.

James Naylor's profile page

Rhonda L. Hinther is an Associate Professor of History at Brandon University and an active public historian. Prior to joining BU, Hinther served as Director of Research and Curation at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and, before that, as Curator of Western Canadian History at the Canadian Museum of History. Her most recent book, a 2019 Wilson Prize Finalist, is entitled Perogies and Politics: Canada’s Ukrainian Left, 1891-1991 (2018).

Rhonda L. Hinther's profile page

Jim Mochoruk has taught at the University of North Dakota since 1993. His books include The People’s Co-op: The Life and Times of a North End Institution (2000) and “Formidable Heritage:” Manitoba’s North and the Cost of Development, 1870 to 1930 (2004). Originally from Winnipeg, Jim is currently working on a book-length study concerning the social and economic history of Winnipeg—and its many real and imagined communities—in the inter-war period.

Jim Mochoruk's profile page

• Nominated, Manitoba Day Award, Association of Manitoba Archives
• Short-listed, Margaret McWilliams Book Award for Scholarly History, Manitoba Historical Society
• Short-listed, Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, Manitoba Book Awards

"For a Better World is an important and useful collection to scholars of Canadian history, of the Canadian and American labour movements, and of the broader revolutionary moment of the second and third decades of the 20th century."

JACANZS

"An important advance in scholarship on the Winnipeg strike and broader labour unrest in the late 1910s, For a Better World is also an example of how the diverse approaches and perspectives that often characterize edited collections can be a strength."

Prairie History

"This diverse collection of essays… effectively complicates the historical record, adding the stories of Indigenous peoples, soldiers, Jews, popular memories and local unrest to the literature. [For a Better World] highlight[s] issues that should continue to animate discussions and debates about social change more than 100 years later. It is an excellent read."

Alberta Views

"The editors have skilfully woven together historical inquiries that move beyond the superficial analysis of what happened [during the conflict of 1919], and why, to a more critical look at who has been left out of the historical conversation, what has changed (if anything) and how local struggles for social justice don’t occur in political vacuums. For a Better World asks the reader to contemplate on what it might take to make a more just society."

Winnipeg Free Press

"For a Better World is notable for its chapters on other disputes that took place around the same time as Winnipeg's. Various authors describe events in Seattle, Kansas City, Montreal, and Edmonton, showing strong parallels in grievances and militancy among workers, despite their geographic separation."

Canada's History