Urban manufacturing centres

In the 19th century Canadian life began to change drastically as a result of the Industrial Revolution. In growing numbers, men and women were heading to the factories and workshops of cities and towns. Towns in southern Ontario experienced great economic and demographic growth; Hamilton, for example, became one of the main industrial and manufacturing centres in Canada. At the end of the century, Winnipeg reached its zenith as an industrial and grain-trading centre, while Victoria changed from a town of fewer than 5,000 people to a city of some 35,000, became the political capital of British Columbia, and developed into a major manufacturing centre for the Pacific northwest. Thousands found work in Montreal, which emerged as the dominant Canadian urban centre in the early 20th century. The urban population became increasingly concentrated in the major centres, and such rapid urbanization brought with it massive proletarianization and social needs to which the government had to respond. Many French Canadians succumbed to the attraction of the large manufacturing towns in New England: between 1860 and 1870, some 200,000 of them emigrated.