MADE
IN HAMILTON
20TH CENTURY
INDUSTRIAL TRAIL
![[Industrial Trail Logo]](logo.jpg){kind=logo}
About
This Tour
Come view the plants of Hamilton's twentieth century industrial giants from
the window of a city bus, or car, as you travel along Burlington Street. A
return loop will take you along the historic Barton Street corridor, where
you will see several more industrial sites and learn about the development
of Hamilton's first industrial suburbs.
How to
use this Site
There is a map below. You may click on the individually numbered locations
on the map, or click on the name corresponding to each number in the ordered
list below.
To Do This Tour by City Bus
The two main legs of this tour follow existing public transit routes of the
Hamilton Street Railway Company (HSR). The tour makes a natural "loop" made
by the HSR's eastbound Bayfront 4 and westbound Barton 2 bus routes (see map).A
transfer point for the buses is located on Barton Street, just east of Woodward
Street.
MADE
IN HAMILTON 20TH CENTURY INDUSTRIAL TRAIL
ROUTE MAP
INTRODUCTION
Huckleberry
Point, New Year's Eve 1895 - the start of a new era. That was the day the
Hamilton Blast Furnace Company's new Blast Furnace "A" was fired up. Over
the next fifty years, much of the east end changed from farmland, fields,
forests and marsh into heavy industry and workers' housing. The colossal mills
of Stelco, Dofasco and many other companies shaped Hamilton and its workforce.
This tour tells the story of the making of the 20th century industrial city.
Some of these east end workplaces were homegrown
enterprises: the Hamilton Blast Furnace Company, the Hamilton Bridge Company.
Many others were American branch plants set up in Canada to avoid paying high
import tariffs. The largest of these firms were Canadian Westinghouse and
International Harvester. By 1920, Hamilton had attracted nearly 100 American
branch plants, for the following reasons:
proximity to raw materials and markets;
a well-established industrial base;
a skilled workforce;
an abundant supply of electricity;
relatively cheap land;
many local tax incentives.
These
new factories looked different. They were massive compared with the 19th century
factories downtown. The introduction of electricity brought architectural
freedom. These new buildings did not require the shafting and belting of the
19th century steam-powered plants. To increase visibility and ventilation
on the shop floor, architects often used large win-dows and skylights in their
modern plant designs. New building technologies such as reinforced concrete
and structural steel made these improvements possible.
Inside these sprawling plants a second Industrial Revolution was underway. Complex new machinery was introduced. Supervision was close and the pace of work was fast. Production often went around the clock. Shift work became the norm.
Employers brought a new workforce to these new plants. There was still room for skilled craftsmen, like the British workers so important to Hamilton in the 19th century. But there were far more semi- and unskilled male workers on the shop floor. Many of them were recent immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Women also found work, especially in the city's new textile industry. By the 1940s, workers at many east Hamilton plants had organized themselves into strong industrial unions. Many of these unions were affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) south of the border. In 1946, workers from the local steel, rubber, and electrical industries won a major strike that established industrial unionism in the city.
The
city's first suburbs took shape around these plants. New immigrants from Italy,
Armenia, Poland, the Ukraine and other countries rented, built or purchased
homes here. Working families used their limited resources to turn these new
subdivisions into neighbourhoods. They relied on each other to get through
tough times. The stores, churches, community halls and other institutions
near the corner of Barton Street and Sherman Avenue reflected the multi-ethnic
character of this new community. Ottawa Street became the city's second downtown.
Barely twenty years after the blowing in of the first blast furnace, the east end of Hamilton had been changed forever. In the shadow of these fiery new mills thousands of people had come to live and work. The city proudly billed itself Canada's "manufacturing metropolis".
(For a workers'-eye view of Hamilton history check out the Workers' City walking tour series, published by the Ontario Workers Arts & Heritage Centre.)
The Second World War transformed Hamilton industry, erasing the long decade of the Great Depression almost overnight. Local factories re-tooled for war production and scram-bled to increase their productive capacity. Orders poured in for everything from tents and uniforms to armaments and shells.
A new workforce was assembled after thousands of local male factory workers enlisted in the armed forces. "Rosie the Riveter" became a common site on the shop floor, as women were recruited into heavy industrial jobs that had been the traditional reserve of men. The government provided subsidized day care for mothers working in war industries. Men and women flooded in from out of town to perform war work. Many of them lived in barracks and housing hurriedly erected by government contractors.
These men and women put in long hours and worked hard to help their fellow citizens fighting for democracy overseas. Once victory was in sight, they began to fight for indus-trial democracy at home. The introduction of collective bargaining legislation helped unions in many Hamilton plants win their first contracts before the end of the war. A series of strikes in 1946 helped nail down these wartime gains.