A gang of workmen constructing the framework of the tube and staging of the Victoria Bridge pose for Montreal photographer, William Notman. The bridge took six years to build from Point St. Charles in Montreal to St. Lambert on the south shore of the St. Lawrence river. Three thousand men were employed in its later stages. Many of the labourers on this project and other railway works were new immigrants, whose mobility and relative destitution made them readily available for such work. By 1860, Canadian railways employed roughly 6,600 men in building, running, and maintaining the whole network.
Courtesy: Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum
