The Little Immigrants: The Orphans Who Came to Canada

Notes: Joint review of two titles: 'Labouring Children' by Joy Parr and 'The Little Immigrants' by Keith Bagnell. "Between 1868 and 1925 eighty thousand waifs from the slums of England were sent across the ocean to serve as labourers and servants in rural Canada. It was a curious episode in the history of emigration to Canada, and even then the debate swirled around the fate of the children. Historians of religion may find the study of child emigration especially interesting because it dramatizes the relationship of religious ideas and motivation to reality. In both books under review, the motives, myths and expectations of the child emigrant promoters are contrasted with the sad and often painful reality of the children's experiences in Canada. These are of course very different books. 'The Little Immigrants' is a fine piece of popular history, and Bagnell spins a good story. Serious scholars and students will want to turn to Joy Parr's excellent monograph, 'Labouring Children'" (p. 37). "This awesome gap between the ideal and the reality of child emigration is really the focal point of 'Labouring Children'. In a far more impressionistic and chatty way, it is Bagnell's message as well" (p. 38).

Subjects: Children - Canada - History - Book reviews; Canada - Emigration and immigration - History - Book reviews; Great Britain - Emigration and immigration - History - Book reviews