I think Lousia May Alcott’s father was a co-founder of one of these. A good portion of her childhood was spent in one. I remember quite clearly reading in her autobiography of how brutal and full of hardships their years were there.
Could very well be. As I understand it a great many farmers who had embraced socialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries left to Canada where they saw more opportunity to spread the message.
Between 1898 and 1915, over one million farmers came to Canada from America, moving mostly to the western provinces. Many of these farmers were enamored and associated with socialist groups in the United States. They were wheat farmers and felt slighted by the railroads and banks, feeling that the market was working against them. For roughly two decades they organized into a rabble of splintered groups comprised of farmers, socialist intellectuals, labour leaders, and union organizers.