During the second half of the nineteenth century, Toronto experienced an industrial revolution. Urban growth and the blooming of industrial capitalism brought prosperity to the nation, but for the working class, great poverty was the general rule.
This picture of a one room "home" in the downtown area of Toronto shows how some of the more poverty stricken lived in 1911. Such conditions prevailed for almost thirty years, between 1880 and 1914. Great numbers of working class immigrants and native-born Canadians suffered in such squalor, some living in houses and rooms without any plumbing or heat. Prior to the legislation which brought improvements to the standard of living, these people were at the mercy of private charities to supplement their income. The major impetuses behind these reforms were the newly established National Council of Women, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, as well as many church groups. Middle-class women, horrified by the widespread existence of such slums, were determined to bring improvements to the living and working conditions of the working class by means of the vote; under its pressure departments of education would offer domestic science, and municipalities would legislate slums out of existence.
