J. S. Woodsworth - Early Social Activism

Early Social Activism

As a Mission worker, Woodsworth had the opportunity to see first hand the appalling circumstances in which many of his fellow citizens lived, and began writing the first of several books decrying the failure to provide workers with a living wage and arguing for the need to create a more egalitarian and compassionate state. In 1909, his Strangers Within Our Gates was published, followed in 1911 by My Neighbour. Both of these books remain basic reading in the history of social practice and reform in Canada. Woodsworth established The People's Forum in 1910, a twice-each-Sunday series of lectures, concerts, and discussions presented by various of Winnipeg's ethnic groups. This series ran for seven years.

Woodsworth left All People's in 1913 to accept an appointment as Secretary of the Canadian Welfare League. During this time he travelled extensively throughout the three Canadian prairie provinces, investigating social conditions, and writing and presenting lectures on his findings. By 1914, he had become a socialist and an admirer of the British Labour Party.

In 1916, during World War I, he was asked to support the National Services Registration, better known as "conscription". As church ministers were being asked to preach about the duty of men to serve in the military, Woodsworth decided to publish his objections. As a pacifist, he was morally opposed to the Church being used as a vehicle of recruitment, and was fired from his position with the Bureau of Social Research, where he was working at the time. In 1917, he received his final pastoral posting to Gibson's Landing, British Columbia. Woodsworth resigned from the Church in 1918 because of its support of the war. "I thought that as a Christian minister, I was a messenger of the Prince of Peace," he is quoted as saying. His resignation was accepted.