This dissertation represents the first major examination of the depiction of the working class in the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) films between 1939 and 1946. It is also the first to focus on studying class as it relates to Canadian cinema. In search of the formative roots of the Board's early discourse on labour and the working class, we first look at the historical development of early Canadian cinematic culture, Canadian working class political and cultural discourse and the NFB's own political and working dynamics. We then examine the films and point out connections between their discourse and the views forwarded at the time by supporters of the Popular Front. The survey of the films is contextualized within three phases marking the rise, the solidification and the eventual descendance of this discourse. / By the late 1930s, the policies of the Communist Party based Popular Front had already assumed a prominent position within Canadian working class politics. This thesis argues that, during a short period after its establishment, the NFB produced a body of film which introduced a new cinematic discourse on the role and the politics of labour and the working class. It concludes that this discourse was closely affected by the developments that influenced the rise and the decline of the counter-hegemonic movement that was instigated by the Popular Front.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1982. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 400-413). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1982. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 400-413).

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-79).