First published 2003
Montreal transforms into an industrial powerhouse between the 1860s and 1890s, and working families must adapt or perish. Wage labor replaces older forms of survival, creating fresh opportunities alongside brutal new pressures. Men, young people, and children join the workforce while women manage households, stretch meager earnings, tend gardens, and raise livestock to supplement family income. When husbands lose employment, fall sick, spend wages on drink, abandon their families, or die, wives must find ways to keep their households alive. Bradbury follows these families through their daily struggles, showing how industrial capitalism reshapes intimate relationships and family bonds. The expansion of wage work offers escape from old constraints but demands new sacrifices from every family member.
Genres: family-life, historical-fiction, 20th-century, canadian-literature, 19th-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-dynamics, social-change
Setting: Montreal
Period: 1860s-1890s
310 pages · Paperback · University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division