Peddling, Politics and Winnipeg’s Jews, 1891-1895: The Political Acculturation of an Urban Immigrant Community
Authors
Henry Trachtenberg
Abstract
Peddlers, a largely Jewish marginal socio-economic group in Canada, played a
particular role in the political acculturation of an urban immigrant community, the
Jews of Winnipeg, in the late nineteenth century. Winnipeg Jewry was in a state of
continuous anxiety in the early 1890s, mainly because of the attitudes and policies
of Winnipeg municipal politicians, especially increases in peddlers’ fees and the
enforcement of early closing and other municipal bylaws. Seeking to guarantee their
well-being, the city’s Jews turned to political activity as a defence mechanism to
avert enmity from the larger society and to gain its approval.
