Amassing power : J.B. Duke and the Saguenay River, 1897-1927 / David Massell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Massell, David Perera.

Contributor:

Forest History Society.

Series:

Studies on the history of Quebec.

Studies on the history of Quebec

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Duke, James Buchanan, 1856-1925.

Duke, James Buchanan.

Hydroelectric power plants--Quebec (Province)--History.

Hydroelectric power plants.

Industrialization--Quebec (Province)--History.

Industrialization.

Saguenay River (Québec)--Power utilization--History.

Saguenay River (Québec).

Saguenay Region (Quebec)--History.

Saguenay Region (Quebec).

Québec (Province)--Politics and government.

Québec (Province).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (331 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press ; Durham, N.C. : In association with the Forest History Society, c2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The damming of the Saguenay brought industrialisation on a grand scale to rural Quebec in the form of newsprint and aluminum manufacture. Tapping into rich and diverse sources in Canada, the United States, and Europe, Massell provides an interdisciplinary, cross-border study of American capital and Canadian resources. He shows us how ever-larger amounts of capital yielded increasingly massive and sophisticated applications of hydroelectric technology. Grand industrial plans, in turn, encroached upon provincial water rights and farmers' lands, which drew the attention of the state. He examines the protracted power struggle between public and private interests - between American capitalists and the nascent bureaucracy of the province of Quebec - and describes the origins and evolution of the events that led to state control over hydraulic resources in the province. In doing so he provides vivid portraits of Duke and of Quebec politicians of the period and gives a dramatic account of the protracted battle of wits between Duke's chief engineer, William States Lee, and Quebec's chief of Hydraulic Service, Arthur Amos. Amassing Power speaks to the integration of North American economies, vividly illustrating the process by which American capital drew Canada's resource-rich North into the economic orbit of the United States.

Contents:

""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction: The Problem and Its Sources""; ""1 The River Passes into Private Hands, 1897 � 1907""; ""2 A Shift in Scale, 1909 � 1912""; ""3 J.B. Duke, Master Trader, 1912 � 1914""; ""4 The Province Attempts to Keep Pace, 1910 � 1915""; ""5 Local Politics, Big Business, and an Intransigent State: The Fiasco of 1915 � 1916""; ""6 A Lake Grant Won, 1916 � 1922""; ""7 The Balance of Power, 1923 � 1927""; ""Conclusion: The Limits to American Investment""; ""Notes""; ""Bibliography""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-282-85850-5

9786612858505

0-7735-6831-X

OCLC:

929120809