Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T17:54:16.132Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Diversity of Industrial Experience: Cabinet and Furniture Manufacture in Late Nineteenth-Century Ontario

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Ben Forster  and
Kris Inwood
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The diversity of paths to industrialization is illustrated by the example of the cabinet- and furniture-manufacturing industry in Ontario, Canada. Complex and unpredictable demand combined with smaller markets and lower incomes than those in the United States and the relative abundance of wood to limit mechanization and the size of enterprise in the Canadian industry. Small and unpowered workshops remained competitive throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, creating a distinctive industrial experience that reflects the unique interaction of local demand and supply.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , 01 June 2003 , pp. 326 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2003. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Acton, James. The Canadian Book of Furniture. Toronto, 1923.Google Scholar
Burley, David G. A Particular Condition in Life: Self-Employment and Social Mobility in Mid-Victorian Brantford, Ontario. Kingston, Ont., 1994.Google Scholar
Cathcart, Ruth. Jacques and Hay: 19th Century Toronto Furniture Makers. Erin, Ont., 1986.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. Cambridge, Mass., 1990.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, Mass., 1977Google Scholar
Craven, Paul, ed. Labouring Lives: Work and Workers in Nineteenth-Century Ontario. Toronto, 1995.Google Scholar
Crowley, John E. The Invention ofComfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America. Baltimore, Md., 2001.Google Scholar
Cruikshank, Ken. Close Ties: Railways, Government and the Board of Railway Commissioners, 1851-1933. Montreal, 1991.Google Scholar
Darling, Sharon. Chicago Furniture: Art, Craft & Industry, 1833-1983. New York, 1984.Google Scholar
Darroch, Gordon, and Soltow, Lee. Property and Inequality in Victorian Ontario. Toronto, 1994.Google Scholar
Davis, Kenneth R. Furniture Marketing: Product, Price and Promotional Policies of Manufacturers. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1957.Google Scholar
Drummond, Ian. Progress without Planning: The Industrialization of Ontario from Confederation to the Second World War. Toronto, 1987.Google Scholar
Ennals, Peter, and Holdsworth, Deryck W.. Homeplace: The Making of the Canadian Dwelling over Three Centuries. Toronto, 1998.Google Scholar
Gaffield, Chad. History of the Outaouais. Quebec, 1997.Google Scholar
Gilmour, James. Spatial Evolution of Manufacturing: Southern Ontario, 1851-1891. Toronto, 1972.Google Scholar
Hardy, Rene, and Seguin, Normand. Foret et societe en Mauricie. Montreal, 1984.Google Scholar
Heron, Craig. Working in Steel. Toronto, 1988.Google Scholar
Hindle, Brooke. America’s Wooden Age: Aspects of Its Early Technology. Tarrytown, N.Y., 1975.Google Scholar
Hounshell, David. From the American System to Mass Production, 18001932: Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States. Baltimore, Md., 1984.Google Scholar
Hudson, Pat, ed. Regions and Industries: A Perspective on the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Cambridge, U.K., 1989.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris. The Canadian Charcoal Iron Industry, 1870-1914. New York, 1986.Google Scholar
Joy, Edward T. English Furniture, 1800-1851. London, 1977.Google Scholar
Kealey, Greg. Toronto Workers Respond to Industrial Capitalism 1867-1892. Toronto, 1980.Google Scholar
Kealey, Greg, ed. Canada Investigates Industrialism. Toronto, 1973.Google Scholar
Koltun, L. A. The Cabinetmaker’s Art in Ontario, c. 1850-1900. Ottawa, 1979.Google Scholar
Lower, Arthur Reginald Marsden. Great Britain’s Woodyard: British America and the Timber Trade, 1763-1867. Montreal, 1973.Google Scholar
Lower, Arthur Reginald Marsden. The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest: A History of the Lumber Trade between Canada and the United States. Toronto, 1938.Google Scholar
McCalla, Doug. Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada, 1784-1870. Toronto, 1993.Google Scholar
McKendrick, Neil, Brewer, John, and Plumb, J. H. The Birth ofa Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England. London, 1982.Google Scholar
Millard, Rodney. The Master Spirit ofthe Age: Canadian Engineers and the Politics of Professionalism. Toronto, 1988.Google Scholar
Monod, David. Store Wars: Shopkeepers and the Culture of Mass Marketing, 1890-1939. Toronto, 1996.Google Scholar
Montreal in 1856. Montreal, Quebec, 1856. Reproduced in Revue de I’histoire de I’amerique francaise 6 (1952-53).Google Scholar
Oliver, John Leonard. The Development and Structure of the Furniture Industry. Oxford, U.K., 1966.Google Scholar
Paine, Howard. The Heritage ofUpper Canadian Furniture. Toronto, 1978.Google Scholar
Parr, Joy. The Gender of Breadwinners: Women, Men and Change in Two Industrial Towns, 1880-1950. Toronto, 1990.Google Scholar
Plice, Steven S. Manpower and Merger: The Impact of Merger upon Personnel Policies in the Carpet & Furniture Industries. Philadelphia, Pa., 1976.Google Scholar
Porter, Glenn, and Livesay, Harold. Merchants and Manufacturers: Studies in the Changing Structure of Nineteenth-Century Marketing. Baltimore, Md., 1971.Google Scholar
Porter, John R., ed. Living in Style: Fine Furniture in Victorian Quebec. Montreal, 1993.Google Scholar
Porter, Michael. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York, 1990.Google Scholar
Reid, Richard. The Upper Ottawa Valley to 1855. Ottawa, 1990.Google Scholar
Richards, John. A Treatise on the Construction and Operation of Wood-working Machines: Including a History of the Origins and Progress of the Manufacture of Wood-working Machinery. London, 1872.Google Scholar
Robertson, Barbara. Sawpower: Making Lumber in the Sawmills of Nova Scotia. Halifax, 1986.Google Scholar
Roell, Craig H. The Piano in America, 1890-1940. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1989.Google Scholar
Sabel, Charles F., and Zeitlin, Jonathan. World of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrialization. New York, 1997.Google Scholar
Scranton, Philip. Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization 1865-1925. Princeton, N.J., 1997.Google Scholar
Sparkes, Ivan G. The English Country Chair: An Illustrated History of Chairs and Chairmaking. Bourne End, U.K., 1973.Google Scholar
Sparkes, Ivan G. Woodland Craftsmen. Aylesbury, U.K., 1977.Google Scholar
Spelt, Jacob. The Urban Development in South-Central Ontario. Assen, The Netherlands, 1955.Google Scholar
Taylor, George Rogers, and Neu, Irene D.. The American Railroad Network, 1861-1890. Cambridge, Mass., 1956.Google Scholar
Urquhart, M. C., and Buckley, Kenneth A. H. Historical Statistics of Canada. Toronto, 1965.Google Scholar
Urquhart, W. T., and Forbes, H. L. Guide to the Manufactures of Ontario and Quebec. Montreal, 1870.Google Scholar
Weatherill, Lorna. Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660-1760. London, 1988.Google Scholar
Wynn, Graeme. Timber Colony: A Historical Geography ofEarly Nineteenth CenturyNew Brunswick. Toronto, 1981.Google Scholar

Articles and Essays

Alaimo, Aurelio. “Small Manufacturing Firms and Local Productive Systems in Modern Italy.” In Small Firms, Large Concerns: The Development of Small Business in Comparative Perspective, ed. Konosuke Odaka and Minoru Sawai. New York, 1999, pp. 168–96.Google Scholar
Altman, Morris. “A Revision of Canadian Economic Growth: 1870-1910 (A Challenge to the Gradualist Interpretation).” Canadian Journal of Economics 20 (Feb. 1987): 86–113.Google Scholar
Atack, Jeremy. “Economies of Scale and Efficiency Gains in the Rise of the Factory in America. 1820-1900.” In Quantity and Quiddity: Essays in U.S. Economic History, ed. Peter Kilby. Middletown, Conn., 1987, pp. 286–335.Google Scholar
Atack, Jeremy. “Firm Size and Industrial Structure in the United States during the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Economic History 46 (June 1986): 463–76.Google Scholar
Bardell, P. S. “The Origins of Alloy Steels.” History of Technology 9 (1984): 1–30.Google Scholar
Barraclough, Kenneth C. “Swedish Iron and Sheffield Steel.” History of Technology 12 (1990): 1–39.Google Scholar
Berg, Maxine, and Hudson, Pat. “Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution.” Economic History Review 45 (Feb. 1992): 24–50.Google Scholar
Bertram, Gordon W. “Economic Growth in Canadian Industry, 1870-1915: The Staple Model and the Take-Off Hypothesis.” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 29 (May 1963): 159–84.Google Scholar
Bird, Michael. “Cabinetmaker and Weaver Friedrich K. Ploethner. Canadian Collector 15 (May/June 1980): 28–32.Google Scholar
Bird, Michael. “Perpetuation and Adaptation: The Furniture and Craftsmanship of John Gemeinhardt (1826-1912).” Canadian Antiques and Art Review 3 (March 1981): 20–34.Google Scholar
Bladen, Marion L. “The Construction of Railways in Canada to the Year 1885.” Contributions to Canadian Economics 5 (1932): 43–60.Google Scholar
Bladen, Marion L. “The Construction of Railways in Canada Part II: From 1885 to 1931.” Contributions to Canadian Economics 7 (1934): 61–107.Google Scholar
Byerly, A. E. “Preston in 1866.” Waterloo Historical Society: Annual Report 21 (1933): 53–56.Google Scholar
Clark, Clifford E. “The Vision of the Dining Room: Plan Book Dreams and Middle Class Realities.” In Dining in America,1850-1900, ed. Kathryn Grover. Boston, 1987, pp. 142–72.Google Scholar
Cruikshank, Ken. “The Transportation Revolution and Its Consequences.” Canadian Historical Association, Historical Papers (1987): 112–38.Google Scholar
Edwards, Clive. “The Mechanization of Carving: The Development of the Carving Machine, Especially in Relation to the Manufacture of Furniture and the Working of Wood.” History of Technology 20 (1998): 73102.Google Scholar
Ettema, Michael. “Technological Innovation and Design Economics in Furniture Manufacture.” Winterthur Portfolio 16 (Summer/Autumn 1981): 197224.Google Scholar
Forster, Ben. “Finding the Right Size: Markets and Competition in Midand Late-Nineteenth-Century Ontario.” In Patterns of the Past: Interpreting Ontario’s History, ed. Roger Hall, William Westfall, and Laurel Sefton MacDowell. Toronto, 1988, pp. 150–73.Google Scholar
Gagan, David, and Gagan, Rosemary. “Working Class Standards of Living in Late Victorian Urban Ontario: A Review of the Miscellaneous Evidence on the Quality of Material Life.” Canadian Historical Association Journal 1 (1990): 171–93.Google Scholar
Green, A. G., and Urquhart, M. C. “Estimates of Output Growth in Canada: Measurement and Interpretation. In Perspectives on Canadian Economic History, ed. McCalla, Doug and Huberman, Michael, 2d ed. Toronto, 1993, pp. 158–76.Google Scholar
Harley, C. Knick. “Coal Exports and British Shipping, 1850-1913.” Explorations in Economic History 26 (July 1989): 311–38.Google Scholar
Harley, C. Knick. “Ocean Freight Rates and Productivity, 1740-1913: The Primacy of Mechanical Invention Reaffirmed.” Journal of Economic History 48 (Dec. 1988): 851–76.Google Scholar
Heron, Craig. “Factory Workers.” In Labouring Lives: Work and Workers in Nineteenth-Century Ontario, ed. Paul Craven. Toronto, 1995, pp. 479594.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris. “The Representation of Industry in the Canadian Census, 1871-91.” Histoire sociale/Social History 28 (Nov. 1995): 347–74.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris., and Irwin, Jim. “Land, Income and Regional Inequality: New Estimates of Provincial Incomes and Growth in Canada, 1871-1891.” Acadiensis 31 (Spring 2002): 157–84.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris., and Sullivan, Tim. “Nineteenth-Century Ontario in Its Regional Context.” Canadian Papers in Business History 2 (1993): 71–102.Google Scholar
Kyriazidou, Ekaterini, and Pesendorfer, Martin. “Viennese Chairs: A Case Study for Modern Industrialization.” Journal of Economic History 59 (March 1999): 143–66.Google Scholar
Lamoreaux, Naomi. “Constructing Firms: Partnerships and Alternative Contractual Arrangements in Early Nineteenth Century American Business.” Business and Economic History 24 (Winter 1995): 43–72.Google Scholar
McConnell, D. “Daniel Knechtel, 1843-1936.” Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Agenda Papers. Ottawa, 1980.Google Scholar
McInnis, Marvin. “Marketable Surpluses in Ontario Farming, 1860.” Social Science History 8 (Fall 1985): 395–424.Google Scholar
Nelson, Daniel. “Scientific Management, Systematic Management, and Labor, 1880-1915.” Business History Review 48 (Winter 1974): 479–500.Google Scholar
Pursell, Carroll. “Variations on Mass Production: The Case of Furniture Manufacture in the United States to 1940.” History of Technology 17 (1995): 127–41.Google Scholar
Radforth, Ian. “Confronting Distance: Managing Jacques and Hay’s New Lowell Operations, 1853-1873.” Canadian Papers in Business History 1 (1989): 75–100.Google Scholar
Risk, R. C. B. “The Nineteenth-Century Foundations ofthe Business Corporation in Ontario.” University of Toronto Law Journal 23 (1973): 270–306.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter. “Forests into Farmland: Upper Canada Clearing Rates, 182239.” Agricultural History 57 (July 1983): 326–39.Google Scholar
Sabel, Charles F., and Zeitlin, Jonathan. “Historical Alternatives to Mass Production.” Past and Present 108 (Aug. 1985): 133–76.Google Scholar
Scranton, Philip. “Diversity in Diversity: Flexible Production and American Industrialization, 1880-1930.” Business HistoryReview 35 (Spring 1991): 27–90.Google Scholar
Scranton, Philip. “The Politics of Production: Technology, Markets, and the Two Cultures of American Industry.” Science in Context 8 (Autumn 1995): 369-95.Google Scholar
Sokoloff, Ken. “Was the Transition from the Artisanal Shop to the Non-mechanized Factory Associated with Gains in Efficiency? Evidence from the U.S. Manufacturing Censuses of 1820 and 1850.” Explorations in Economic History 21 (Oct. 1984): 351–82.Google Scholar
Tchakerian, Viken. “Productivity, Extent of Markets, and Manufacturing in the Late Antebellum South and Midwest.” Journal of Economic History 54 (Sept. 1994): 497–525.Google Scholar
Urquhart, M. C. “New Estimates of Gross National Product, Canada, 18701926: Some Implications for Canadian Development.” In Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, ed. Stanley Engerman and Robert Gall-man. Chicago, 1986, pp. 9–28.Google Scholar

Magazines and Newspapers

Canada Lumberman and Millers, Manufacturers and Miners’ Gazette. July 1900.Google Scholar
Canadian Manufacturer. 1883, 1886-95, 1907.Google Scholar
Canadian Woodworker and Furniture Manufacturer. Jan. 1918, Nov. 1919, Feb. 1922, Oct. 1923, Jan. 1923.Google Scholar
Free Press (London). 30 June 1870, 5 Nov. 1874, and 21 July 1875.Google Scholar
Industrial Canada. May 1896, March 1903.Google Scholar
Monetary Times. 21 Nov. 1867, 11 Aug. 1871, 4 Feb. 1876, 25 Feb. 1876, 21 June 1878, 19 March 1880, 20 May 1881, June 1882, 16 Nov. 1877.Google Scholar
Toronto Globe. 16March 1854, 25 Sept. 1854, 26 March 1855, 15 Feb. 1862, 16 Feb. 1862.Google Scholar

Government Documents

Canada, House of Commons. Journals (1876), Appendix No. 3, “Report of the Select Committee on the Causes of the Present Depression.”Google Scholar
Canada, House of Commons. Census, 1870-71,5 vols. Ottawa, 1873-1878. Vol. 3 (1875).Google Scholar
Canada, House of Commons. Census, 1890-91,4 vols. Ottawa, 1893-1897. Vol. 3 (1894).Google Scholar
Canada, House of Commons. Census, 1901,4 vols. Ottawa, 1902-1906. Vol. 2 (1904).Google Scholar
Canada, House of Commons. Census Bulletin, 1892.Google Scholar
Canada, House of Commons. Report of the Royal Commission on the Relations of Capital and Labor in Canada. Ottawa, 1889.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

Geo. Moorhead Manufacturing Co. Photographs ofFurniture (n.p., n.d.), J. J. Talman Regional Collection, Weldon Library, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.Google Scholar
Jones, Francis. Sketchbook, Canadian Museum of Civilization.Google Scholar
Knechtel Furniture Company Records, Queen’s University Archives, Kingston, Ont.Google Scholar
National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ont.Google Scholar
Record Group 19, Department of Finance RecordsGoogle Scholar
Record Group 31, series 1, Manuscript Census, 1871, schedule 6 (Industrial Establishments), microfilm.Google Scholar
Canadian Manufacturers’ Association RecordsGoogle Scholar

Unpublished Sources

Green, Terence S. “A Locational Study of the Furniture Industry in Southern Ontario.” BA Thesis, University of Toronto, 1967.Google Scholar
Heirloom Furniture Manufacturing Company Papers. Private collection in the possession of the Calhoun Family, Chesley, Ont. Annual Audits, 1916 and 1918, and Board of Directors Minutes.Google Scholar
International Labour Organization (ILO). “Technological Changes in the Woodworking Industries and Their Social Consequences.” Tripartite Technical Meeting for the Woodworking Industries, Geneva, 1967.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris. “Industry in a Rural Society: Canada during the Late Nineteenth Century.” Paper presented to the Canadian Network for Economic History, Kananaskis, Alberta, April 1999.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris. “Transportation, Tariffs and the Canadian Iron Industry, 1867-1897.” University of Guelph, Department of Economics Discussion Paper no. 1989-3.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris., and Irwin, Jim. “Emigration and the Canadian Economy 1870-1900: A Regional Perspective.” Paper presented to the Canadian Network for Economic History, Stratford, Ont., Oct. 2000.Google Scholar
McInnis, Marvin. “Canada in the World Market for Forest Products, 18501895.” Paper presented to the Second Canadian Business History Conference, Victoria, Feb. 1988.Google Scholar
Ross, James Andrew. “‘Ye Olde Firme’: Heintzman & Company, Ltd., 18851930: A Case Study in Canadian Piano Manufacturing.” MA Thesis, University of Western Ontario, 1994.Google Scholar
Trant, Jennifer. “The Victorian Furniture Industry in Grey and Bruce Counties, Ontario.” MA Thesis, Queen’s University, 1987.Google Scholar
Urquhart, M. C. “Canadian Economic Growth 1870-1980.” Queen’s University, Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper no. 734, 1988.Google Scholar