Prairie Fire

Anyone familiar with the debates among historians about how best to interpret the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 will find themselves disappointed with the account of the strike given in Prairie Fire. The film is modeled on an interpretive framework that has come to be termed western exceptionalism. With little regard for challenges to that framework, the collaborative efforts of historians and film production staff have resulted in an account of the strike that fails to place it in the more general atmosphere of unrest that has been shown to have existed. Further more, inconsistencies of the western exceptionalist view make historical studies, whether books, articles, or, as is the case with Prairie Fire, films, little more than a means of justifying a present political viewpoint. What follows is a summary of the film that is intended to show that the account of the strike in Prairie Fire does

Archaeology · Geography · American History and Culture · Canadian Identity and History · History

• The Emancipatory Praxis of Ukrainian Canadians (1891-1919) and the Necessity of a Situated Critique

  Susan Dianne Brophy•Labour / Le Travail•2016

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