Ringing in the common love of good : the United Farmers of Ontario, 1914-1926 / Kerry A. Badgley.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Badgley, Kerry, 1962-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• United Farmers of Ontario--History.
• United Farmers of Ontario.
• Politics and government.
• History.
• Ontario--Politics and government--1919-1923.
• Ontario.

Physical Description:

xii, 301 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2000]

Summary:

• Founded in 1914, the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) became a significant force in the province, winning the most seats in the 1919 provincial election and forming a governing coalition with the Independent Labour Party. The UFO and its companion organizations, the United Farmers Cooperative Company (UFCC) and the United Farm Women of Ontario (UFWO), flourished, achieving much of their success by challenging those who controlled the economic, political, and social structures in Ontario and advancing an alternative vision of democracy that sought to maximize citizen participation in the decision-making process.
• By the mid-1920s the UFO had gone into a period of decline from which it never recovered. The promise of equality hoped for by UFWO members never materialized and the UFCC, once a key component in the development of an alternative vision, began to focus more on profits than on politics.
• Focusing on the Ontario counties of Lambton, Simcoe, and Lanark, Kerry Badgley challenges the liberal-capitalist interpretation that the movement was nothing more than a group of impatient Liberals, as well as the Marxist view that the UFO consisted of self-interested independent commodity producers. He argues that as the UFO broke free from hegemonic forces it developed alternative economic, political, and social visions, but that it was these same forces, combined with internal struggles and a conservative leadership, that ultimately resulted in the decline of the movement as a vehicle for democratic change in Ontario.

Contents:

• 2 Historical and Statistical Profiles of Lambton, Simcoe, and Lanark Counties 21
• 3 Ringing Out the Narrowing Lust of Gold and Ringing in the Common Love of Good: The Rise of the UFO 51
• 4 "Sane and Careful Administration": The UFO Movement in Decline 81
• 5 "Citizens Instead of Wards": The United Farm Women of Ontario in Lambton, Simcoe and Lanark Counties 114
• 6 "To Defeat the Capitalist and Profiteer Is Simple": Agricultural Cooperatives in Lambton, Simcoe, and Lanark Counties 142.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0773518959

OCLC:

42009537