MADE IN HAMILTON
20TH CENTURY
INDUSTRIAL TRAIL

SITE 40
HAMILTON COTTON COMPANY, 1880

The numerous buildings of the Hamilton Cotton Company stood immediately behind the Malcolm & Souter plant on Mary Street. This company was set up in 1880 by local merchants and manufacturers. They wanted to capitalize on a new textile tariff structure introduced as part of the Macdonald government's National Policy a year earlier. The driving force behind this new enterprise was James M. Young, the eldest son of a prominent Hamilton merchant family. Young had entered into textile production a few years earlier, when he bought the Dundas Cotton Company. His new Hamilton Cotton plant produced a variety of yarns and fabrics.

Production expanded greatly in the 20th century. The Young family strengthened their holdings in Hamilton and added plants in Marysville, New Brunswick, Montreal, Quebec and Trenton and Woodbridge, Ontario. They also guided production at Hamilton's Cosmos-Imperial mill. The family wound down its operations in the 1960s, partly due to competition from foreign producers.

Many of Hamilton Cotton's employees were women from the neighbourhood around this north end plant. The Great Depression of the 1930s did not hit Hamilton's textile mills as hard as many other city industries. This turned the tables on tradition by putting some female textile workers in the unfamiliar role as their family's primary breadwinner.

Workers at this plant were organized as Textile Workers Union of America Local 723.