1. Inicio
  2. Atrás
Título: City at war : the effects of the Second World War on Verdun, Québec
Autores: Durflinger, Serge Marc.
Fecha: 1997
Publicador: McGill University - MCGILL
Fuente:
Tipo: Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
Tema: World War, 1939-1945 -- Québec (Province) -- Verdun.
Verdun (Québec) -- History -- 20th century.
Descripción: This work examines the effects of the Second World War on Verdun, Quebec, an urban, working-class community with a 1941 population of 67,000. Verdun was the third-largest city in Quebec and the thirteenth-largest in Canada. This study assesses the military, civilian and industrial contribution of this community to the national war effort. No comprehensive study of Canada's 'home front' war has ever been approached from the perspective of a community study.
Verdun's population was 58% English speaking and 42% French speaking. Nearly one-third of Verdun's English-speakers were born in the British Isles. Verdun's exceptional British character and its linguistic mix remain sub-themes throughout this work, which concludes that French-Canadian participation in the war effort at the local level was significantly greater than the historiography has suggested.
Verdunites of both language groups exhibited an exceptionally strong sense of community identification and civic pride and the city's wartime responses were influenced by this shared feeling of local identity. Some of the characteristics of wartime life in Verdun followed national trends; a detailed examination of these themes provides new insight into the wider Canadian home front experience.
This study intends to provide an innovative addition to the literature of Canada's participation in the Second World War and to enhance existing knowledge of Canadian and Quebec social and cultural dynamics existing at that time.
Idioma: en