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The Cultural Effects of Population Changes in the Eastern Townships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Aileen D. Ross
Aileen D. Ross*
Affiliation:
The University of Toronto
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Extract

This paper presents the first or exploratory phase of research in a study of the effect of invasion on the morale of a community. Although many studies have been made of spacial succession, and some of changes in social attitudes, there has been little attempt to investigate the relationship between these two phenomena, in other words, to show whether, or how, the solidarity of a group is affected by an ecological succession. The process of invasion has been described in connection with different areas of a city. The invasion of one section of a city by an outside ethnic group is a common phenomenon. The general pattern is that, with its first indication, the morale of the resident group strengthens, but eventually one point breaks, that is, someone sells out to one of the invaders. Then another gains a foothold—a house or a shop—and, once the area is well penetrated, both the invasion and exodus gather momentum.

This is a study of a large rural area in which the invasion has taken place over so long a period of time, and over such an extensive region, that the invaded population as a whole has taken longer to realize its significance. In this situation it is much easier to trace and observe the psychological effect of invasion on the invaded group.

The field of research chosen for this study was made up of the four counties of Compton, Richmond, Sherbrooke, and Stanstead in the Eastern Townships of the Province of Quebec. Interviews, practically all indirect, were obtained from the different sections—industrial towns, county towns, summer resorts, villages, and rural areas.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , November 1943 , pp. 447 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1943

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References

1 Cf. Professor Dawson's discussion on ecological tension-making factors ( Dawson, C. A. and Gettys, W. E., An Introduction to Sociology, New York, 1937, pp. 325 ff.).Google Scholar

2 This problem has been studied in Cincinnati with reference to the Negro invasion. Cf. Quinn, J. A., “Community Studies in Cincinnati” (Publications of the American Sociological Society, vol. XXV, p. 143).Google Scholar

3 Hunter, Jean, “The French Canadian Invasion of the Eastern Townships” (unpublished M.A. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, McGill University, 08, 1939), p. 1.Google Scholar

4 There is some dispute as to the actual boundary of the area originally included in the Townships, but it is usually supposed to include twelve counties which are divided into ninety-one townships. Ibid., p. 4.

5 Innis, M. Q., An Economic History of Canada (Toronto, 1935), p. 138.Google Scholar

6 Blanchard, Raoul, “Les Cantons de l'est” (Revue de géographie alpine, tome XXV, 1937, p. 194)Google Scholar: “Il n'y a aucun doute que des prêtres canadiens aient prêche l'invasion des Cantons, suscité et aidé quelques compagnies de colonisation; mais la faim de terres, la nécessité de trouver un exitoire à une population en accroissement rapide ont été plus éfficaces que leurs exhortations. Le succés de l'invasion français dans les Cantons de l'est s'apparente au jeu de grandes forces naturelles.”

7 Hunter, , “French Canadian Invasion,” p. 37.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 38.

9 Ibid., p. 141.

10 Hughes, E. C., “Position and Status in a Quebec Industrial Town” (American Sociological Review, vol. III, 10, 1938, p. 710).Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 713.

12 Hughes, E. C., “Industry and the Rural System in Quebec” (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. IV, 08, 1938), p. 349 Google Scholar: “But in all [the industrial towns of Quebec] the same general pattern prevails. Labour is largely native; the management is alien to the native culture. The source of the industrial population is to be found in the rural situation. …”

13 Hunter, , “French Canadian Invasion,” p. 176.Google Scholar See also Hughes, , “Industry and the Rural System in Quebec,” p. 347 Google Scholar, for a description of the effect of industrialization on a town in the Eastern Townships. Between 1911 and 1937 the population increased from 2,605 to 19,424, or about 750 per cent. Analysis of this increased population showed that it was native to the vicinity and of country and village birth.

14 Ibid., p. 346. Also in his article, “Position and Status in a Quebec Industrial Town,” p. 709. Also, Hunter, , “French Canadian Invasion,” p. 96 Google Scholar: “On the whole, then, the numerical growth of both the total and the French population, over the period 1861-1931, has been determined by the degree of urban development in each township. … Most of this growth has apparently consisted of French population. In other words, the surplus French population which was being produced not only in fee old French parishes… but in the Eastern Townships itself… was being absorbed, in part at least, by the growing towns in the Eastern Townships.”

15 Ibid., p. 142: “The French Canadians entered a competitive system without the skills and attitudes necessary for competition on an equal footing.”

16 Personal interview: “The English are graduating to a higher standard of living and so leaving the Townships. The French are coming in at the standard of living which the English are at here.”

17 Hunter, , “French Canadian Invasion,” p. 141.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 142. Also, Hughes, E. C., “Position and Status in a Quebec Industrial Town,” p. 173 Google Scholar: “… the higher ambitions … are pointed toward the church, liberal professions and politics. Hence, technical and managerial success has no symbolic value.” Many interviews, such as the following, showed this lack of ambition, on the part of the French: “The French don't seem to have any ambition, they don't want to get on, they seem quite content to get just enough to exist on.” “The French will work for anything, and so they keep the wages down.”

19 Miner, Horace, St. Denis (Chicago, 1939), p. 86 Google Scholar: “The whole social system and the family system upon which it is dependent are based upon large families and the eventual establishment of all the children, save one, outside the paternal home. To function properly there must be a continual outlet for this surplus.… During the first two centuries after the French came to Canada, there was always unopened land on which the noninheriting sons could establish themselves. When these lands in Quebec were taken up, there were industrial opportunities in Quebec and New England to absorb the surplus.”

20 Hunter, , “French Canadian Invasion,” p. 176.Google Scholar

21 Pope, A. U., “The Importance of Morale” (Journal of Educational Sociology, 12, 1941)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “The factors that make for high morale or destroy it are numerous and of varying degrees of efficacy highly complicated in their relations. Many of these factors are not clearly known and their relations especially need to be investigated.”

22 Young, Kimball, Social Psychology (New York, 1938), p. 655.Google Scholar

23 Cf. Miller, D. C., “Economic Factors in the Morale of College Trained Adults” (American Journal of Sociology, 09, 1941)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bateson, G. and Mead, Margaret, “Principles of Morale Building” (Journal of Educational Sociology, 12, 1941, p. 206)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wirth, Louis, “Morale and Minority Groups” (American Journal of Sociology, 11 1941, p. 415).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Young, Kimball, Social Psychology, p. 461 Google Scholar: “We cannot understand any social behaviour without taking into account two factors—individual capacity, attitudes and ideas on the one hand, and cultural, historical forces on the other.…”

25 Personal interview: “You know there's something psychological about their attitude to the coming of the French. It isn't purely a question of economics, it's a question of attitude. The English are discouraged, they're giving up. They all feel that they're going to have to sell out eventually, and so they think that they might as well sell now, when they can get a good price. I tell you it's not the French who have taken the country around here, it's the English who have given it up because of their indifference and ignorance. They're just handing the country over to the French.”

26 Hughes, E. C., “French Canadian Communities” (Publications of the Society for Social Research, University of Chicago, 06, 1936, p. 1).Google Scholar Also, Jamieson, S. M., “French and English in the Institutional Structure of Montreal” (unpublished M.A. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, McGill University, 1938), p. 8 Google Scholar: “The Roman Catholic Church has come to be the most important institution in French Canada, as its clergy has steadily extended and consolidated its supervision and control over social activity.” Also ibid., p. 22.

27 Durant, Henry, “Morale and Its Measurement” (American Journal of Sociology, 11, 1941, p. 406)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “The greater the homogeneity of the group and the closer the identity of the leader with the led, the fewer will be the problems encountered in maintaining high morale.”

28 Sanderson, D., Rural Sociology and Rural Social Organization (New York, 1942), pp. 321 ff.Google Scholar, shows that in a study of 140 rural village communities chosen from different parts of the United States, that between 1924 and 1936 church attendance declined by 20 per cent. He also describes the competition that comes to a community when it is “over-churched.” This also showed in interviews; “G is riddled with religious dissension.” “They have no loyalty or attachment for the Church here.” “It's terrible the way the Churches here refuse to work together.”

29 Kolb, J. H. and Brunner, E. de S., A Study of Rural Society (Boston, 1940), pp. 56–9Google Scholar, point out that the solidarity of the neighbourhood is maintained longer when it is inhabited by a homogeneous religious group.

30 Sanderson, D. and Polson, R. A., Rural Community Organization (New York, 1939), p. vi.Google Scholar

31 Landis, P. H., Rural Life in Process (New York, 1940), chaps, XI, XII.Google Scholar

32 In this discussion of the morale of the English communities, cf. Rural Life Studies (United States Department of Agriculture, 04, 1942).Google Scholar

33 Dollard, John, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (London, 1938), p. 287.Google Scholar

34 Miller, H. A., Races, Nations, Classes (Philadelphia, 1924), p. 37 Google Scholar, shows that language is one of the compensatory forms of defence against aggression.

35 Ibid., pp. 59 ff.