Unit 2
Industrialization, 1850s to 1920s

This unit looks at how industrialization affected working people in Canada. Between 1850 and 1890, various regions in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, and Ontario underwent dramatic transformations. Their economies industrialized and they experienced new levels of capitalization. Working people, particularly men (but women and children as well), began participating in waged work. Those who did not work for wages, especially women and girls, remained in the home where they tried to get by on increasingly smaller household incomes. In response to the economic pressures that workers and their families were facing, many working people joined new organizations that promised to create social change.

Objectives

After completing Unit 2, you should be able to

1. define the terms “industrialization” and “urbanization,” and describe occurrences of each in 19th-century Canada.
2. describe how industrialization affected skilled workers in 19th-century Toronto.
3. list the factors that caused the Knights of Labor to gain popularity in 19th-century Ontario.
4. describe how and why Joe Beef protected the poor men who worked on Montreal’s waterfront.
5. discuss the gendered division of labour in industrializing Montreal.
6. describe how some First Nations groups in British Columbia responded to wage labour.