Identity area
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Title
Date(s)
- 1996-2014 (Creation)
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Fonds
Extent and medium
13 cm of textual records
43 audio cassettes
116 digital audio recordings.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Janis Lee Thiessen was born in 1971 to Frank Thiessen (1925-2005) and Margret Loewen (1933-) of Winnipeg, Manitoba. She completed her B.Sc. in 1992 and her education degree in 1994 and became a teacher at Westgate Mennonite Collegiate in Winnipeg, Manitoba where she has taught chemistry, social studies and Mennonite history. She received her M.A. from the Universities of Winnipeg and Manitoba in 1997, during which time she worked on the Metropolis project, Winnipeg's Immigration History Research Group. She took two years leave from Westgate to work on Ph.D. studies at the University of New Brunswick, which she successfully completed with the defense of her thesis entitled "Faith and Factory: Russian Mennonite Workers in Twentieth Century Manitoba" on November 9, 2005.
Her research focused on three factories in Manitoba owned by Mennonites, namely Friesens Corporation of Altona, Loewen Windows of Steinbach, and Palliser Furniture of Winnipeg. Each of these businesses had primarily a Mennonite workforce at their founding and they each became one of the largest employers in their communities.
The interviews and thesis explored themes such as immigration, unions, assimilation, urbanization, class differences, worker – employer relationships, and religious values.
Since 1994 some of her research on Canadian Mennonite labour history has been appeared in publications such as Studies in Religion, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, Mennonite Quarterly Review and Journal of Mennonite Studies. She has also given several presentations on the same topic since 1995.
Repository
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Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Janis Thiessen
Content and structure area
Scope and content
This fonds contains oral interviews gathered on the subject of labour history from the view of Mennonite business owners and Mennonite employees and well as the history of Westgate Mennonite Collegiate in Winnipeg. The workers were selected from different gender and social classes. The content formed the basis for Thiessen's thesis on labour history of Russian Mennonites, a book on unions, and history of the private Mennonite high school, Westgate.
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Some restrictions apply (See MHA staff)
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Publication note
- Thiessen, Janis. "Faith and Factory: Russian Mennonite Workers in Twentieth Century Manitoba." Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Brunswick, 2005. (CMU library).
- Thiessen, Janis. "Manufacturing Mennonites : work and religion in post-war Manitoba." Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.
- Thiessen, Janis. "Not talking union : an oral history of North American Mennonites and labour." London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016.
- Thiessen, Janis. "Necessary idealism : a history of Westgate Mennonite Collegiate." Winnipeg: CMU Press, 2018.
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By Conrad Stoesz February 7, 2007. Updates by Conrad Stoesz November 18, 2020.