A portion of the Toronto working class was made up of immigrants. The earliest migration to Canada came from the British Isles (including Ireland) and some from Germany. In the period from the 1890s to the First World War, many Southern and Eastern Europeans arrived in Canada. Some men came with families; others, like the Italians in this photograph, came alone. Many Italian men came to Canada through U.S. ports and looked for jobs in railroad construction. A network of steamship agents, labour bureaus, contractors and railroad superintendents exploited the immigrants by taking bounties for each passenger or by acting as middlemen between the employer and the immigrant. The CPR, for instance, depended on shipments of migrant labour from Europe for a docile, cheap labour force. The city became a base for these transient workers who returned there when unemployed. Although a large number worked as navvies on the railroads, many others settled in Toronto or Montreal to practice a trade. Seasonal underemployment in Italy prepared Italians for seasonal labour in Canada and for a multiplicity of jobs.
