• Information Technology
  • Human Resources
  • Careers
  • Giving
  • Library
  • Bookstore
  • Active Living
  • Continuing Education
  • Go Dinos
  • UCalgary Maps
  • UCalgary Directory
  • Academic Calendar
My UCalgary
Webmail
D2L
ARCHIBUS
IRISS
  • Faculty of Arts
  • Cumming School of Medicine
  • Faculty of Environmental Design
  • Faculty of Graduate Studies
  • Haskayne School of Business
  • Faculty of Kinesiology
  • Faculty of Law
  • Faculty of Nursing
  • Faculty of Nursing (Qatar)
  • Schulich School of Engineering
  • Faculty of Science
  • Faculty of Social Work
  • Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
  • Werklund School of Education
  • Information TechnologiesIT
  • Human ResourcesHR
  • Careers
  • Giving
  • Library
  • Bookstore
  • Active Living
  • Continuing Education
  • Go Dinos
  • UCalgary Maps
  • UCalgary Directory
  • Academic Calendar
  • Libraries and Cultural Resources
View Item 
  •   PRISM Home
  • Graduate Studies
  • The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations
  • View Item
  •   PRISM Home
  • Graduate Studies
  • The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Grass Roots Connections: The Northern Plains Borderlands during the Great Depression

Thumbnail
Download
ucalgary_2014_bye_cristine.pdf (1.884Mb)
Advisor
Marshall, David
Author
Bye, Cristine Georgina
Accessioned
2014-07-03T15:14:37Z
Available
2014-11-17T08:00:34Z
Issued
2014-07-03
Submitted
2014
Other
borderlands
cross-border
Canadian-American border
northern Great Plains
grass roots history
Canadian-American West
Great Depression
Subject
Economics--History
Type
Thesis
Metadata
Show full item record

Abstract
Writers and scholars who have studied the northern Great Plains borderlands argue that the region possessed a unique, cross-border community in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This dissertation argues that this community persisted beyond the settlement era, well into the 1930s. This is significant because powerful forces threatened to divide Canadian and American borderlanders during this period. National authorities effectively closed the border in late 1929 in response to the economic disaster that afflicted both countries. Steep tariffs limited cross-border trade, and strict immigration rules restricted migration from one country to the other. Border crossers were under increased scrutiny from border officials and lawmakers. But none of this stopped Americans and Canadians who lived near the forty-ninth parallel from intermingling on the northern Plains. Indeed, the sense that they belonged to a special community only intensified. This dissertation is a grass roots social history of the northern Great Plains borderlands. It makes a contribution by exploring the significance of the border in ordinary borderlanders’ lives. It shows that borderlanders’ relationship with the border came to shape their identity. People who lived near the forty-ninth parallel had more in common with each other than with their fellow countrymen and women. They asserted their borderlands identity alongside or over and above their respective national identities. Newspapers, memoirs, letters, government records, local histories, and interviews with people who lived in the Plains borderlands in the 1930s show that borderlanders’ many transborder interactions helped them juggle multiple identities and transcend national, ethnic, and cultural differences. Canadian and American borderlanders of different backgrounds regularly crossed the border and participated with each other in national, social, business, and other events. They took a keen interest in each other’s lives. They saw each other as people experiencing similar hardships and they looked to each other for ideas, resources, companionship, and inspiration. Borderlanders felt their cross-border ties set them apart from non-borderlanders. Maintaining their community was very important to them. Long after the border was established and settlers filled the borderlands, grass roots connections continued to unite people on both sides of the line.
Corporate
University of Calgary
Faculty
Graduate Studies
Doi
http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/26319
Uri
http://hdl.handle.net/11023/1597
Collections
  • The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Browse

All of PRISMCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

LoginRegister

Statistics

Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

  • Email
  • SMS
  • 403.220.8895
  • Live Chat

Energize: The Campaign for Eyes High

Privacy Policy
Website feedback

University of Calgary
2500 University Drive NW
Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
CANADA

Copyright © 2017