Antigonish Movement

Historical Context

StFX originated as a small rural college in 1853 and was largely staffed by Roman Catholic clergy in its early years. Parish priests regularly witnessed and documented the effects of poverty, unfair labour practices and rural out-migration that were widespread in Nova Scotia's farming and fishing communities at the time. A number of leaders at the college and in the parishes emerged to advocate for greater efforts to address the desperate conditions faced by the communities. These conditions, often described as feudal, led to calls for improved education and opportunities for people to control their own lives. Fr Michael Gillis, a parish priest in Cape Breton, actively promoted education in rural areas and agricultural modernization to improve farm sustainability. He championed the idea of creating a university Extension Department to support rural development. He was also a strong advocate of the Church's role in active participation for social justice, a belief promoted elsewhere at the time through the social gospel influence of adult education programmes such as Chautauqua in New York and Grundtvig's folk school model, which also inspired the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.

Dr James T. ‘Father Jimmy’ Tompkins, a professor at StFX, believed that democratic renewal through education was paramount as societies emerged from the carnage of the First World War and as women were gaining the right to direct democratic participation. He was greatly inspired by the methods of people's education by the Workers Education Associations in England and the Danish folk schools and by the success of the University of Wisconsin's Extension programme. Tompkins' treatise, Knowledge for the People (1921), highlighted these models and called upon StFX to promote the university as an institution for all people, not just the privileged classes. The ideas of co-operative economic development from Rochdale, England, and the caisse populaires (‘credit unions') led by Alphonse Desjardins in Quebec were also gaining attention, particularly the central role education played in these movements for economic democracy. In 1928, StFX responded by creating the Extension Department and naming Rev. Dr Moses Coady as its first director. Coady put these ideas of adult education and economic co-operation into action.

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