Lumber Society on the Industrial Frontier

From the mid-to-late 19th century, the small settler population in British Columbia formed relatively isolated and highly discrete communities. One of these settlements, on Burrard Inlet, is best understood as the operation of industrial capitalism in a frontier setting. While settlement clustered around two sawmills, the power of capital — expressed through policies of managerial paternalism — was sharply curtailed by the ethnically complex, relatively transient, geographically isolated, and generally unstable nature of lumber society. As a consequence, relations between the companies and the community were much more a negotiated process than a simple exercise of managerial domination. Lumber capitalists could not escape the constraints imposed upon them by the frontier nature of their operation. Resumes A partir du milieu et jusqu'a la fin du dix-neuvieme siecle, les petites populations colonisatrices de Colombie Britannique s'organiserent en communautes isolees et distinctes. Une de ces communautes, Burrard Inlet, s'explique plus facilement en fonction du developpement du capitalisme industriel en milieu frontalier. A mesure que les populations colonisatrices s'etablirent aux environs de deux scieries, l'instabilite cree par la composition ethnique complexe, la nature transitoire et l'isolement des societes basees sur l'exploitation forestiere restreignit severement le pouvoir du capitalisme qui s'exprime par des politiques administratives paternalistes. Par consequent, les rapports entre les compagnies et la communaute se distinguerent beaucoup plus par un processus de negociation que par un simple exercice de domination administrative. Les capitalistes de l'industrie forestiere ne purent eviter les contraintes imposees par la nature frontaliere de leur entreprise

Agricultural economics · Archaeology · Economics · Frontier · Geography · Inlet · Pulp and paper industry · American Environmental and Regional History · Canadian Identity and History · Engineering · Environmental Science · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Mechanical Engineering

• The Literature on the History of Science and Technology in Canada

  Open Access•Bertrum H Macdonald, David Kaunelis•Scientia Canadensis Canadian…•1994

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