Jeunesse

1934 · 7014 — N.P. Ontario: Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Co-operative Commonwealth Youth Movement N.D. Circa 1934. First Printing. Hardcover. pp. 2 1-37. Slim Oblong 8vo. measuring 8 3/4" x 7" tall. Thirty-nine mimeographed type-script leaves issued in loose-leaf format "to allow for changes and additions from time to time". Printed on rectos only housed within thick plain boards with a utilitarian green cloth backstrip secured with metal clasps. Divided into four sections the handbook would serve as a detailed instrument for political organization offering a range of practical advice on the formation and administration of C.C.F. youth branches across the nation. The text is prefaced with a broad historical background of the C.C.F. movement outlining its origins structure purposes political activities and its social political and chiefly its economic goals. Sections II-IV offer detailed guidance on the rudimentary principles and components of political organization including the necessary requirements for the establishment of C.C.F.-affiliated youth branches in a given region; suggested membership structure; election composition and functions of the executive leadership board members secretaries etc.; formation and function of the various committees comprising each branch educational publicity social finance cultural industrial political et al.; how-to's of conducting and recording meetings; suggested public outreach methods and cultural activities; financial record-keeping etc. While the authors explicitly reference the Ontario section of the C.C.Y.M. it is very likely that the handbook was compiled to be replicated and to serve as a guide for use nationally. Light age-toning to the margins of the boards faint offset from the metal claps to the verso of boards leaves entirely without blemish with firm binding; fine. Exceptionally rare. Unrecorded in OCLC no similar titles located amongst the holdings at LAC/BAC Peel Fisher. Not found in Weinrich. <br/><br/>¶ A foundational document of the enormously consequential Canadian co-operative movement and Canadian socialism at-large. Compiled and published during the infancy of the movement following a meeting of a "representative group of young members of the C.C.F. from Quebec Ontario and each of the four Western provinces" as held in Winnipeg in 1934 a mere two years following the founding of the party in 1932 and only one year following the adoption of the Regina Manifesto which explicitly called for "a planned and socialized economy". The meeting would coincide with the third national convention of the C.C.F. during which the membership resolved to formalize the establishment of a youth wing with the stated objective of interesting "young farmers workers and students in socialism" in order to "to unite them into a strong enlightened organization to work for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of the Co-operation Commonwealth". The party would subsequently make history by forming the first social-democratic government in North America when it was elected to form the provincial government in Saskatchewan in 1944. [Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, Co-operative Commonwealth Youth Movement] hardcover