For over 100 years the City of Hamilton has been identified closely with industry.

Hamilton became a centre of Canadian industry in the middle of the nineteenth century when the Great Western Railway was founded in the city. Known as the Birmingham of Canada for its industrial focus, Hamilton progressed from having small industrial workshops at mid-century to having large, nationally important factories at the beginning of the twentieth century to having the most technologically advanced modern industry at the beginning of the twenty-first century.