Why read The Little Immigrants?

Book cover of The Little Immigrants: The Orphans Who Came to Canada

Book description

The Little Immigrants is a tale of compassion and courage and a vivid account of a deep and moving part of Canadian heritage. In the early years after Confederation, the rising nation needed workers that could take advantage of the abundant resources. Until the time of the Depression, 100,000 impoverished…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Little Immigrants as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Valerie Knowles

Author

Journalist, author, and retired United Church minister, Kenneth Bagnell has written a vivid account of the thousands of slum children (not all of them were orphans) who were dispatched to Canada from 1869 to the late 1930s by well-meaning philanthropists, philanthropic rescue homes, and parish workhouse schools. At the time, this seemed to be the ideal solution to a two-pronged problem: what to do with the tens of thousands of children from the slums of Britain who faced a bleak future there and how to meet the soaring demand for cheap labour on Canadian farms.

From Valerie's list on The best books to capture Canada’s colourful immigration history.