The Lost Code

Capital Investments

Saint-Jacques Street, Montréal's Banking District, Circa 1910

McCord Museum, MP-1978.207.1

Capital was needed to fuel industrial growth. British immigrants, especially from England and Scotland, invested in the construction of manufacturing plants and factories. These industrialists paid workers' salaries, sold manufactured goods, and earned profits, which they reinvested in other ventures. In the second half of the 19th century, a handful of French Canadians became industrialist, but they were very much in the minority.