Success Stories

The Cradle of Collective Bargaining: History of Labour and Technology in Hamilton District

Digitizing the McMaster University Labour Studies archive

The Cradle of Collective Bargaining web site describes the birth of collective bargaining in Canada and focuses on Hamilton's rise towards a modern industrial economy.

Produced by five McMaster University students, the site contains essays, a searchable database of archived material, teaching aids for K-12 educators and a photo collection spanning over 20 years of Hamilton's labour history with emphasis on the World War II period.

Despite their busy class schedules, the team members delivered an excellent project, rich in historical information and enhanced by new Internet possibilities. The team worked closely with Wayne Lewchuk, Labour Studies Professor at McMaster University and project director. As well, they collaborated with the Humanities Communications Centre who assisted them in technical matters and with the McMaster University Library who provided the archived documents and photographs.

The project was conducted under a contract with Industry Canada and the Digital Collections program. The Digital Collections program, funded by the federal Youth Employment Strategy, has enabled over 1400 young Canadians (ages 15-30) to gain valuable work experience in the multimedia sector. By converting significant Canadian content for display on the Information Highway, Canadian youth have not only gained skills for knowledge-based employment but have provided greater access to Canadian holdings located in archives, libraries, museums, associations and other sources.

The project allowed the young team to learn multimedia skills that are important in today's work force. Mr. Lewchuk was very pleased with the project's outcome which provided a high quality product. "We were lucky to have an excellent project co-ordinator who made things run smoothly, including training our people to use the new technology" he says. The students learned how to digitize documents, collect material in the archives, combine visual material and text material and build a searchable database. Finally, they combined their skills and ideas to merge the information into an organized and comprehensive web site. In addition to valuable Web design experience, the students also benefited from the project in a different manner. They all gained a new respect for history. "One [student] pointed out that she found history quite boring until she worked on this project," explains Mr. Lewchuk, "The [Internet] made history come alive."

The team of students included: Alex Stevens, Tracy Aitchison, John Adams, Linda Burn and Dan Ciaverella. At this time, the students are either continuing their studies at McMaster University or have continued to work in the computer field, for instance, one of the students has taught short courses on Web design.

As for Mr. Lewchuck, he believes that everyone involved in the project came out a winner. "I found this experience both useful and great fun. For myself, it has allowed me to make available [to all Canadians] a great collection of photos, which were very difficult to access. For the students it gave them practical experience ... and it brought to life the subject of history in a way which taking courses never can."

Visit the SchoolNet Digital Collections World Wide Web Site at http://collections.ic.gc.ca