Book dossier

Escape Hatch

by Gerhard P. Bassler

"This is the first in-depth account of how and why the Newfoundland Government acquired 17 so-called New Industries, 13 from Germany, one from Austria, one from Latvia, one from England, and one from Newfoundland, as well as of the immigrants who accompanied and followed them from the 1950s to 1970. After Newfoundland had joined Canada in 1949, Premier J.R. Smallwood believed that industrialization would prevent a mass exodus from the economically backward island to mainland Canada in search of employment. The book traces Smallwood's recruitment of each individual industry from the Newfoundland Government's and the foreign industrialists' perspectives. It examines the conditions under which each of these industries operated and the reasons for their successes and failures."--