The Occupation of the Carnegie Remembered

1/11 Unemployment relief camps were created by the federal government to provide work and housing for single, homeless men during the Great Depression. Source: unknown.

2/11 Relief workers were members of various covert unions throughout the province that converged in Vancouver to protest camp conditions in 1935. Source: On to Ottawa Historical Society.

3/11 Vancouver's relief camp union headquarters was located at 52 West Cordova St. On average, the workers earned 20 cents a day, the equivalent purchasing power of two packs of cigarettes or three (illegal) condoms. Source: On to Ottawa Historical Society.

4/11 Workers demanded wages of 40 cents an hour, a seven hour day and a five day work week. Source: On to Ottawa Historical Society.

5/11 One of the first worker demonstrations occurred in Vancouver's Victory Square, but dispersed quickly after Mayor McGeer arrived to read the Riot Act. Source: On to Ottawa Historical Society.

6/11 It was fitting that one of the major rallies occurred in Stanley Park on Mother's Day, 1935. Some of the workers had been commissioned to build the park seawall. Source: On to Ottawa Historical Society.

7/11 On May 18, 1935, the striking workers took over an otherwise peaceful Carnegie Library. Source: On to Ottawa Historical Society.

8/11 The simple slogan shared by the Carnegie invaders drew thousands to their cause. Photo credit: R. Jackson Papers, SFU.

9/11 Though the occupation only lasted eight hours, supporters sent up coffee, tea, sandwiches and cigarettes to the third floor headquarters by way of hanging basket pulley. Source: On to Ottawa Historical Society.

10/11 The Occupation of Carnegie inspired the larger-scale On to Ottawa protest. On June 3, 1935, hundreds of relief camp workers boarded freight cars in Vancouver, and more would join in Calgary. They planned to take their demands for better wages to the federal government. Source: National Archives of Canada.

11/11 Though they were stopped by RCMP in Regina, the protesters demands were heard. That fall, the newly elected Liberal government shut down the work camps. Source: On to Ottawa Historical Society.

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On May 18, 1935, 250 young men stormed the Carnegie Library in Vancouver's downtown core and politely asked the staff to leave. The contingent then set up headquarters in the museum on the third floor, waving and yelling through the windows to the thousands of supporters gathering below. The occupation was the culmination of a slew of protests by workers striking against the country's unemployment relief camps, which began under prime minister R. W. Bennett in the early thirties. All told, it was siege of the milder sorts. The occupation lasted a mere eight hours, ending after the city offered a bit of cash to each of the men and promised not to press charges.

At 2 p.m. today, May 18, 2010, staff and friends of Vancouver's Carnegie Centre will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the occupation of the Carnegie.

Located at the corner of Main St. and Hastings St., the old library now serves as a community centre and is often called the living room of the Downtown Eastside.

Despite its anticlimactic resolution, many remember the library takeover as the impetus for the 'On to Ottawa' trek. Hundreds of strikers boarded railway freight cars en route to the capital with plans to force the federal government to shut down relief work camps.

Upon arrival in Regina, they were stopped by RCMP armed with revolvers, gas grenades, spare batons and handcuffs. Despite the abrupt end to the trek, the workers' demands were heard, and the camps were shut down by the new Liberal government elected later that year.

"That the workers chose the Carnegie as the rallying point for this important protest is significant," wrote University of Alberta professor Ann Curry, in an essay about the building.

"Although tattered with age and suffering from neglect, the Grand Old Sandstone Lady was a still public building that symbolized pride and justice, and the perfect platform from which to launch a political protest."

The Tyee thanks Ann Curry, Mark Leier, and the On to Ottawa Historical Society for their help assembling this article.