During the language debates of the 1960s, Montreal's Italian community found itself in the middle of a conflict between Anglophones and Francophones. Forced to chose, the Italian community aligned itself with Anglophones. / The portrait which has been cast by numerous authors evokes the image of an Italian immigrant used as a pawn in a fight which generally was not his and which he could not understand. / An examination of the Italian press gives us a different image. St. Leonard represented more than a fight over the language issue. It was as much a dispute over the status of ethnic minorities in Quebec as it was over the language question. This study examines the immigrant's "Italianita" and how it helped shape his response to the ethnic tensions in St. Leonard.

This work examines the effects of the Second World War on Verdun, Quebec, an urban, working-class community with a 1941 population of 67,000. Verdun was the third-largest city in Quebec and the thirteenth-largest in Canada. This study assesses the military, civilian and industrial contribution of this community to the national war effort. No comprehensive study of Canada's 'home front' war has ever been approached from the perspective of a community study. / Verdun's population was 58% English speaking and 42% French speaking. Nearly one-third of Verdun's English-speakers were born in the British Isles. Verdun's exceptional British character and its linguistic mix remain sub-themes throughout this work, which concludes that French-Canadian participation in the war effort at the local level was significantly greater than the historiography has suggested. / Verdunites of both language groups exhibited an exceptionally strong sense of community identification and civic pride and the city's wartime responses were influenced by this shared feeling of local identity. Some of the characteristics of wartime life in Verdun followed national trends; a detailed examination of these themes provides new insight into the wider Canadian home front experience. / This study intends to provide an innovative addition to the literature of Canada's participation in the Second World War and to enhance existing knowledge of Canadian and Quebec social and cultural dynamics existing at that time.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Gabriel Christie (1722-1799), a British military officer, acquired a vast estate in Quebec after the Seven Years war, including five timber-rich seigneuries in the Upper Richelieu Valley, our study area. These were inherited by two of his sons in succession: Napier Christie Burton (1758-1835) and William Plenderleath Christie (1780-1845). An examination of the available deeds of concession for our study area shows the legal framework of the tenure and the seigneurs' survey and land granting policies. Seigneurial rents increased between 1785 and 1820, but it was the accumulation of seigneurial arrears, followed by strict collection practices after 1835, which contributed most to social stratification and unrest. A seigneurial monopoly on mill construction and the use of water power was decentralized after 1815 so that manufactures were established by entrepreneurs with capital who acquired a share of the seigneur's rights through patronage. The seigneur's role in regional development--the rise of villages, settlement, and industrial growth--was significant particularly as a system of clientage which helped shape the social structure.