Collection search - Blugerman, James -- Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Blugerman, James -- Interview

Item number (ISN):

379721

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-06-19/1974-06-26

Item number (ISN):

379721

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

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Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

THE GREAT WAR AND CANADIAN SOCIETY PROJECT

Accession:

1975-0098

Media:

Sound

Part:

3 of 3

Production date:

1974-06-19/1974-06-26

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Production credit:

interviewer, Pauline Pytka

Description:

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Interview of James Blugerman, who was born near the town of Kerson, Ukraine in 1886 or 1887 and came to Canada in 1908. There was a Jewish community in Kerson and his family were farmers. He learned to speak Yiddish, Ukrainian and Russian. He talks about: life in Ukraine; the Jewish communities; harmonious relations between the Jewish inhabitants, the Ukrainians and the Russians; moving to Odessa where there was a large Jewish population and better educational opportunities; the Jewish community in Odessa; his high school education there; going to a secret meeting in a forest, where he learned about a secret revolutionary group to create a constitutional monarchy in Russia and gain more liberty for the people; his job making furniture and cabinets because he could not afford to go to university; his involvement in the Social Democratic Party in Russia in 1903-1904; attending secret meetings; the crowd being dispersed by Cossacks; becoming anti-capitalist and anti-czarist because of oppression; Lenin and Trotsky; Bolsheviks and Mensheviks; support for the revolutionaries by the liberal bourgeoisie; strikes and protests in 1905 which shook the entire country; getting more rights such as parliamentary representation; the protest aboard the Battleship Potempkin ; his eye witnessing a pogrom against the Jewish ghetto by a group of students and workers called the Black Hundred; how the Jewish community felt betrayed when the secret police and the Cossacks protected the Black Hundred; finding out about mass arrests of revolutionary students, the liberal elite and workers in Odessa, Kiev, Petrograd, Moscow and other cities; despair among students and workers in 1906-1907; his mother’s fear that he would be killed; his uncle Hyman Chekhov sending tickets for James and his older brother to moved to Canada where Chekhov worked as a cabinet maker in Toronto; residing with his uncle who got him a job as a cabinet maker and his brother a job in a machine shop; getting a job with a tailor and working as an under presser at Eaton’s; organizing a small Jewish club with other immigrants from Russia and Poland; members of the club such as Sam Easer, Getal Soren, Ben Leitman and Morris Rosenthal, who were revolutionary-inspired socialists and constituted the first Jewish socialist movement in Canada; their joining unions, such as Sam Easer and Joe Blugerman joining an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor; Ben Leitman joining the printers’ union and his (James) joining the United Garment Workers of America; organizing the first branch in Toronto of the Mutual Benefit Society, to get sick benefits, medical care, funeral assistance and cultural activities for workers; organizing a school for Jewish children called Peretz Schulem; joining the first affiliate of the Socialist Party of America; trade union local organized by immigrants from Finland and the Ukraine; trade unions in other places such as Winnipeg; Italian socialists; the garment industry in Toronto; the needle trade as a centre for Jewish employment and the centre for political and trade union activity; the role of British immigrants such as printer James Simpson in the socialist movement in Canada; the organization of the Socialist Party of Canada; trade union experience brought to Canada by immigrants from Britain, the U.S. and Germany; Socialist Party of Canada publications such as the Cotton Weekly; a split in the international socialist movement when the First World War broke out because some socialists felt that the war had been organized, provoked and promoted by imperialists and was not in the interest of working people, and other socialists were patriotic supporters of the war; activities of the Socialist Labor Party of America in Toronto, including bringing in speakers; and a small anarchist group in Toronto which also brought in speakers. ~Blugerman also talks about: attending public lectures by speakers such as Emma Goldman; sports activities for young people involved in socialist and communist clubs details of the postwar splits in the socialist movement, particularly in American unions and how this impacted on Canada; details of the role of the Jewish community in the socialist movement in Toronto; Blugerman’s role in the movement; the Communist Party in Canada; the socialist movement today in Canada and how it is helping pensioners; Jewish immigration to Canada to escape anti-Semitism; the Doukhobors; his going back to Russia in the 1920s to help people who could not get out of the country; the Jewish community in Toronto; conscription; arrests of socialists who were opposed to the war; Canada as the factory of Europe, making munitions and soldiers’ uniforms; wartime work by women; the postwar economic depression; the depression which began in 1929; the Winnipeg General Strike; women in the trade union movement; the Workers’ Defence League organized to defend workers throughout Canada who were arrested; strikes and demonstrations in the 1930s and 1940s; the Stratford strike; A.E. Smith and the Communist Party; the effect of the Russian revolution on the world; labour unrest between 1917 and 1920; a general strike by needle workers in Toronto in 1912; his role in various strikes; the impact of the First World War on the Canadian population, such as steady employment; postwar unemployment; and immigrants working together in Canada.

Language:

English

Notes:

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1. The interviews took place in 1974 and resulted in the publication of a book entitled "The Great War and Canadian Society" edited by Daphne Read - copyright 1978 - New Hogtown Press, Toronto.~2. Release forms, data sheets, and summary analysis/transcripts are available in binders labelled Opportunities for Youth - War and Canadian Society in VSA's audio-visual section.~3. Part of a series of recorded interviews with elderly citizens who lived in Canada during the period of World War I. The interview material consists of their opinions and observations about the war, the war years, and the effect on Canadian society during and after WWI.~4. The interviewee signed an agreement giving consent for a recording of this interview to be placed in the Public Archives of Canada for the purposes of historical research and also signed a publication agreement allowing any transcribed portions of the interview to be used in the book under the condition that no full names, addresses or phone numbers would be published.~5. Subject description is based on information found in the fact sheet, deposit agreement, publication agreement and summary analysis.~6. The documentation gives both 1886 and 1887 as his year of birth.

Detailed holdings information:

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Vault ISN:

436880

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C01432

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

436881

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C01433

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

436937

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C01434

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

737109

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

1975-0098/153
1975-0098/154
1975-0098/155
1975-0098/156
1975-0098/157

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

5

Kind of sound:

CASSETTE

Made from:

DEPOSIT

Status:

ORIG
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

Restrictions on consultation:

No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

Reproduction access:

With written permission of Copyright Owner / Avec la permission écrite du détenteur des droits d'auteur

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