ADVANCE RE ADING COPY
SEP TEMBER 2021
Don Loucks & Leslie Valpy
Homes and Stories of Toronto’s Workers from the 1820s to the 1920s
MODEST HOPES Homes and Stories of Toronto's Workers from the 1820s to the 1920s Don Loucks and Leslie Valpy Celebrating Toronto’s built heritage of row houses, semis, and cottages and the people who lived in them. Publication: CANADA September 14, 2021 | U.S. October 12, 2021
FORMAT 7 in (W) 8.5 in (H) 282 pages
Paperback 978-1-4597-4554-4 Can $29.99 US $26.99 £ 19.99
EPUB 978-1-4597-4556-6 Can $14.99 US $14.99 £9.99
PDF 978-1-4597-4555-1 Can $29.99 US $26.99 £ 19.99
KEY SELLING POINTS Traces Toronto's history through the lens of its original housing architecture, focusing on the people who
lived in the semis, townhouses, and cottages built from 1820 to 1920
A history of Toronto’s immigrants and working class, focusing on the stories of eight Torontonians and their
modest family homes
Generously illustrated throughout with line illustration sketches and archival photographs Authors bring years of experience with heritage planning and heritage conservation
BISAC HIS054000 – HISTORY / Social History HIS006000 – HISTORY / Canada / General ARC014000 – ARCHITECTURE / Historic Preservation / General
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Don Loucks is an architect, urban designer, and cultural heritage planner, with forty years of project experience. He is committed to environmental, economic, and cultural sustainability, and to preserving the variety of rich urban forms that contain the stories of our communities’ history. He lives in Toronto. designmetropolitan.com metropolitan_sketches45 Leslie Valpy is a conservation practitioner, researcher, and writer, with a passion for built heritage, history, architecture, and conservation. Working with both intangible and tangible dimensions of heritage, she has participated in a range of projects throughout Ontario. She lives in Toronto. ModestHopesTO
MARKETING AND PUBLICITY Niche marketing to Toronto local history groups Publicity campaign to targeted media and influencers Consumer, trade, and/or wholesaler advertising campaign
Social media campaign and online advertising Email campaigns to consumers, booksellers, and librarians Digital samples available for booksellers
RIGHTS World, All Languages ABOUT THE BOOK Too often, workers’ cottages are characterized today as being small, cramped, poorly built, and disposable. But in the late 1800s, to have worked and saved enough money to move into one was an incredible achievement. Moving from the crowded conditions of boarding houses, or areas such as Toronto’s Ward or Ashport’s “shanty-town,” just east of the city, to a self-contained, six-hundred-square-foot row house was the result of an unimaginably strong hope for the future, a belief in it, and a commitment to what lay ahead. For the workers and their families, these houses were far from modest. The architectural details of these cottages suggested status, value, and pride of place; they reminded the workers of where they had come from, with architectural roots from their homeland. These “modest hopes” are an undervalued heritage resource and an important but forgotten part of the Toronto narrative about the people who lived in them and built our city.
For more information, contact publicity@dundurn.com Orders in Canada: UTP Distribution 1-800-565-9523 Orders in the US: Ingram Publisher Services 1-866-400-5351
dundurn.com @dundurnpress
Fig. i
Hamilton Street.
INTRODUCTION
Home Is Where the Heart Is There is little thought for the past, especially the past of the working poor, those who lived in tiny homes and laboured in the traditional industries and trades. Memory or acknowledgement of those who truly built the country with their hands and their skill and fortitude is obliterated. We just romanticize them as an idea and pave over their existence. — John Doyle, Globe and Mail 1
T
he purpose of Modest Hopes is coincidentally summarized in the preface of George H. Rust-D’Eye’s Cabbagetown Remembered, where he writes that his book “is intended to remedy, in some small way, the imbalance of attention to the lower social orders and their environment, caused by the perspective of the early writers on the history of this city.”2 In the early 1800s, the Town of York was defined by John Graves Simcoe’s 1793 “Plan of York Harbour,” which consisted of a 10-squareblock grid just west of the Don River. The geography of the lake, river, and rising ground to the north contained the small community of one- and two-storey log, frame, and later brick buildings. “Muddy York,” named
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after the condition of its streets, had a population of 700 in 1812, made up mostly of English, Scottish, and Irish settlers; Loyalists who had fled the American Revolution; and a small number of escaped slaves from the U.S. South. By 1852, the Town of York had a new name, Toronto, had been designated a city, and had a population of 30,000. Visitors to the city in the early part of the century often remarked on the clouds of wood and later coal smoke that obscured the community and its few church steeples. They were also assailed by the noise of industry and the yelling of carters and merchants in the streets, as well as the unavoidable smell of horse dung and backyard privies. These were some of the conditions that greeted the thousands of newcomers who began to flood into Toronto at this time. As primitive and unsavoury as this environment was, it did not dim the hopes of those who arrived looking for a better life. With almost inconceivable sacrifice and commitment, tens of thousands of immigrants came to Toronto in search of a brighter future. Their sense of dislocation, their fear of the unknown, and the utter strangeness of this community in the wilderness must have been almost overwhelming. The fact that most of the newcomers spoke English, the language of their new home, would have helped them adjust to their new surroundings. Connections with family and friends already living in Toronto with whom they could live until they found their own homes would have made the transition from the old to the new easier. But for most of the newcomers, adjusting to life in their adoptive city must have been a struggle only comparable to the experience of immigrants today. The enduring need for and dream of a “home” as a safe and nurturing place to live and raise families in the New World must have helped sustain them. So many of these new arrivals to Toronto had been in desperate conditions. Most had fled appalling poverty; many were driven out of their homes and off ancestral lands they and their families had lived in and worked on for countless generations. From the peasants’ stone huts or hovels of rural Scotland and Ireland to the crowded tenements of cities such as Edinburgh, Dublin, and London, immigrants from Britain
Introduction
arrived hoping for better futures in Upper and Lower Canada and cities such as Toronto and Montreal. The conditions they left behind, the experiences of their passage across the ocean or the trek from other parts of the continent, the expectations they had for Toronto, and the actual conditions they met upon arrival affected their progress and success in their new home. A city can be seen as a collection of neighbourhood communities. Each one consists of physical and tangible contexts made up of streets, buildings, open spaces, and natural features. Each also has an intangible character that comprises the events, stories, and lives of the people who lived there. Many factors affected the quality of immigrants’ daily lives both outside and inside homes — community environments such as places of employment, schools, religious institutions, and shopping. But equally important, the quality of their daily lives was shaped inside their homes, such as the requirements of washing and of bodily functions, sleeping, clothing storage, laundry, food storage and preparation, and family interactions met within these houses. These contexts and the individual elements within them are reflected in their stories. The earliest workers’ homes still seen in Toronto are the Scadding Cabin, built in 1794 and moved to its current location at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1879, and the Osterhout Log Cabin, built in 1795 and moved to Guildwood Park in 1934.3 Still scattered throughout the older parts of Toronto, however, are some of the city’s first “workers’ cottages.” These modest houses are squeezed between their larger, newer neighbours, or exist in short rows hidden behind decades of change and “modernization.” The layers of porches and second-storey additions, clapboard fronts, angel stone, and vinyl siding disguise the original modest homes that sheltered and nurtured the families of immigrants and labourers who built Toronto. Newcomers who arrived in Toronto and lived in crowded temporary conditions and then worked and saved enough money to move into, for example, a self-contained 12- to 16-foot-wide frame-and-brick
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Fig. ii Osterhout Log Cabin, built circa 1795 and moved to Guildwood Park in 1934.
rowhouse was the result of unimaginably strong hopes, beliefs, and commitments to their futures. For workers and their families, these houses were far from modest; they improved quality of life, embodied social and economic advancement, and served as signs of ambition and values. Historically, and continuing today, from the perspective of many Torontonians, these tiny, modest couplets and rowhouses are cramped, poorly constructed, unlivable, and unimportant “teardowns,” as John Doyle in the Globe and Mail has commented. Chapter One in Modest Hopes offers an overview of the traditional British structures that served as models for Toronto’s workers’ cottages.
Introduction
The innovative, historic antecedents conceived in the 19th century to serve as plans for improving workers’ housing are also presented. This context is intended to put into perspective the five house types that evolved from 1820 to 1920. These house types, whether single, side-by-side duplex, or row, are identified and explored in Chapter Two. Building descriptions, photographs, illustrations, and elevations are included in that chapter to provide an understanding of the houses themselves, their layout, and the spaces inside. Chapter Three introduces the range of immigrant groups that came to Toronto from the 1820s to the 1920s, describing who they were, where they came from, and the housing conditions they left behind. Understanding how these people lived before coming to Toronto helps readers to appreciate the enormity and scale of the achievements of many who were able to purchase or rent and live in a Modest Hope. Chapter Four outlines the history of Toronto from 1820 to 1920. As well as examining the physical and economic growth of the city, the chapter also looks at the social conditions faced by the poor who arrived in Toronto searching for better lives. What was Toronto like when the thousands of immigrants who migrated to the city between 1820 and 1920 arrived? During this period, Toronto’s great symbols of empire and power, such as St. James Cathedral, Osgoode Hall, and the University of Toronto, were built. At the same time, Toronto became a “city of cottages.” The reactions of Toronto’s citizenry and ruling elite to these waves of new arrivals are also discussed. Chapter Five considers some of the neighbourhoods that contained — and still contain — great numbers of workers’ cottages, such as Lombard Street,4 The Junction,5 The Ward,6 Cabbagetown,7 Corktown,8 Leslieville,9 and Riverside.10 In Chapters Six and Seven, the stories of eight individuals and their families who lived and flourished in some of these workers’ cottages are told. And finally, Chapter Eight reviews the reasons why these vulnerable buildings are valuable, what they represent, and why they should be preserved.
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ADVANCE RE ADING COPY
NOT FOR SA L E
Celebrating Toronto’s built heritage of rowhouses, semis, and cottages and the people who lived in them. Too often, workers’ cottages are characterized today as being small, cramped, poorly built, and disposable. But in the late 1800s, to have worked and saved enough money to move into one was an incredible achievement. Moving from the crowded conditions of boarding houses or areas such as Toronto’s Ward or Ashport’s “shanty-town,” just east of the city, to a selfcontained, six-hundred-square-foot rowhouse was the result of an unimaginably strong hope for the future, a belief in it, and a commitment to what lay ahead. For the workers and their families, these houses were far from modest. The architectural details of these cottages suggested status, value, and pride of place; they reminded the workers of where they had come from, with architectural roots from their homeland. These “modest hopes” are an undervalued heritage resource and an important but forgotten part of the Toronto narrative about the people who lived in them and built our city. Don Loucks is an architect, urban designer, and cultural heritage planner, with forty years of project experience. He is committed to environmental, economic, and cultural sustainability and to preserving the variety of rich urban forms that contain the stories of our communities’ history. He lives in Toronto. Leslie Valpy is a conservation practitioner, researcher, and writer, with a passion for built heritage, history, architecture, and conservation. Working with both intangible and tangible dimensions of heritage, she has participated in a range of projects throughout Ontario. She lives in Toronto. ModestHopesTO
designmetropolitan.com
metropolitan_sketches45
Can $29.99 US $26.99 £ 19.99