<p><div>No other figure, historical or political, features more prominently in recent Newfoundland history than Joey Smallwood. During his long career in Newfoundland politics, Smallwood used the literary, rhetorical, and theatrical skills honed in the first five decades of his life to create a distinct and celebrated persona. He told his own story in his lively autobiography, I Chose Canada, published in 1973 only a year after he left office. Talented, venturesome, and above all resilient, he was no ordinary Joe. Smallwood was born in Gambo, Bonavista Bay, but grew up in St John's. Leaving school at fifteen, he quickly established himself as a journalist and as a publicist for Sir William Coaker's Fishermen's Protective Union. In the early 1920s Smallwood sojourned twice in New York, where he planned a Newfoundland labour party. Ambition, however, led him to support the Liberal Party of Sir Richard Squires. Defeated as a candidate in the general election of June 1932, he next promoted producer and consumer cooperatives, but with mixed results. In 1937 he edited The Book of Newfoundland and thereafter enjoyed great success on the radio as "The Barrelman." The book culminates with Smallwood's adoption of the cause of Confederation and his swearing in on 1 April 1949 as premier of the new Province of Newfoundland. There are multiple J.R. Smallwoods, but the aspiring and ambitious figure presented in this biography stands apart. Melvin Baker and Peter Neary use the largely untapped sources of Smallwood's own papers and his extensive journalistic writing to add a documentary basis to what is known or conjectured about the first five decades of Smallwood's remarkable life, both public and private.</div></p>

Joseph Roberts Smallwood: Masthead Newfoundlander, 1900-1949

Biographies & Memoirs

Baker, Melvin

Neary, Peter

Historical

McGill-Queen's University Press

The Veterans Charter and Post-World War II Canada

<p>Desmond Morton sets the scene with a survey of the experiences of veterans of the Great War, who found much to fault in Ottawa's policies; Jeff Keshen looks at the very different experience of Canada's veterans of World War II. Dean Oliver examines the organization and administration of the return of Canadian soldiers from Europe after VE-Day, and Don Ives examines the philosophy and program of the Veterans Charter. Focusing on specific benefits of the Charter, Michael Stevenson looks at issues surrounding veterans' right to reinstatement in civil employment, Peter Neary deals with educational benefits made available through the Veterans Rehabilitation Act of 1945, and Terry Copp and Mary Tremblay examine rehabilitation of veterans with psychiatric and physical disabilities. Taking a broader scope, James Struthers provides an insightful assessment of the construction of the Canadian welfare state and Doug Owram offers a revisionist appraisal of Canadian society in the postwar era. J.L. Granatstein concludes the volume with a probing reflection on the meaning for Canadians of the veteran experience and of their country's participation in World War II. The achievements of this generation of Canadian soldiers are sometimes downplayed; this collection of essays puts their achievements on the historical record and pays tribute to their memory and accomplishments.</p>

History

Granatstein

Americas

Alan Caswell Collier was one of Canada's most admired and successful landscape painters, but during the Depression he worked alongside other single, unemployed men in government-run relief camps. Labouring for twenty cents a day, he detailed camp life and politics in letters to his fiancée and depicted fellow "relief stiffs" and the BC landscape in character sketches and paintings. Incisive and candid, his letters reveal a born contrarian with a strong sense of social superiority over his fellow "twenty centers." But his letters also offer a fresh perspective on the hopes and dreams of a beloved Ontario artist and of the generation who came of age at a time of economic upheaval and class conflict.

Alan Caswell Collier, Relief Stiff: An Artist's Letters from Depression-Era British Columbia

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

UBC Press

<p>Book by Neary, Peter, O'Flaherty, Patrick</p>

Part of the Main

O'Flaherty, Patrick

Independent Pub Group

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