The 1919 Winnipeg
Strike Revisited
Guy Hansen, Public Relations Chair
H
arriet Zaidman wrote a book about the 1919
Winnipeg Strike. It’s about the North End and
the cultural mosaic centred around old Selkirk
Avenue. It’s about the Sitner family, a brother Jack
and his sister Nellie, a hungry family trying to get
by as they lived through the strike days. Jack sold
newspapers on the very corner where the police
charge against the protesters and workers would
occur on Bloody Saturday. Jack actually saw what
was really happening, but the headlines of his
newspapers seemingly told a different story, not his
story, a story he had troubles reconciling.
So what was Jack’s world really like?
When the men went to seek out work: “I go for job,
but foreman say no work. Is all of us. Is not my fault
I not born here.”
In German, Polish, Ukrainian, and Yiddish, all
the languages mixed together, the women in the
North End Market discussed rising food costs and
shortages. Everyone knew a strike was coming, and
there was not enough money to stock up on food.
“Francis Simmons is me, Fanny Sitner. It’s the
name I use at work. If I didn’t change my name, I
wouldn’t have that job.”
As ominously reported in the Manitoba Free
Press 10 days before Bloody Saturday, CPR ENGINE
#965 REACHED THE CITY, LOADED WITH MACHINE
GUNS, YESTERDAY.
The soldiers, returned from the Great War
(WWI) disillusioned, facing no jobs, terrible living
conditions in the North End, where many returned
to, and NO JOBS.
All this same time the Committee of 1000 (actually
the group was only about 50 people) took it upon
themselves to ‘protect the rights’ of the Winnipeg
business class. The Committee blatantly refused to
negotiate with the workers and actively engaged
in putting down the strike. Those same committee
members lived south of the Assiniboine River
24 n RTAM KIT Winter 2019
in fine houses and in a much different world to
that of the workers who lived in dreadful living
and working conditions, with inadequate and
unreasonable wages.
Harriet Zaidman’s family was Jewish. Her
paternal grandfather, Harry, was at that Bloody
Saturday. The Northwest Mounted Police, armed
with wagon wheel spokes, charged into and
hammered on the crowd. Harry had tried to pull an
NWMP rider from his horse. Pandemonium! Harry
then fled and hid in his root cellar.
As a retired teacher-librarian, an author, and a
granddaughter, how could Harriet not write this
book?
I was indeed fortunate to see Harriet’s
presentation and slide show firsthand during the
RTAM Board meeting’s lunchtime. Her presentation
was specifically for the Public Relations and
Political Advocacy Committees, but other
committee and board members were invited as
well. In October, Harriet presented at the SAGE
Conference (formerly SAG) and has been invited
to speak at a number of Winnipeg schools. If I had
a grandchild, early to mid-teens, this book would
certainly be a Christmas present.
Thanks, Harriet. Thanks for your awareness and
determination. Thanks for smiling so graciously
when we presented you with our RTAM pen, even
though you already have a room full them.
Harriet’s book is titled CITY ON STRIKE.