WWI Toronto

Toronto Munitions Factory, World War I

The catalyst for this story was the simple fact that my great aunts worked in a munitions factory in WWI that was around the corner from the office I worked in from 2010 - 2019. At the time, I was travelling by GO Train to Exhibition Station. Door to door, my commute was 2-hours each way. Reading material was a must! In 2015, I decided to pick up my Great Aunt’s history of the family for a diversion. It was then that I reread the chapter about WWI, learning that Great-Aunts Frankie and Mattie worked at the Russel Motors factory at the corner of King and Dufferin Streets in Toronto. At the time, I was working at Music Canada on Mowat Avenue, just around the corner.

“They walked the same sidewalks 100 years before,” I thought. It was as if I’d been struck by a bolt of lightning.

Then and Now

I’d walked by the corner of King and Dufferin hundreds of times. On my way to the bank. As I walked to one of the local restaurants for lunch. When I went to the drycleaners. 

It’s a red brick building with lots of big windows that takes up much of the city block. Above the door, at the top of the building, there’s an extra detail that looks like it would have been a clock at one time. The streetcar tracks and overhead cables crisscross like a kaleidoscope in front of the door. 

It isn’t difficult to find photos of the intersection circa WWI. The grainy black and white images confirm that the building hasn’t changed much.

Picturing the Munitions Factory

Even more important for the story, was for me to be able to picture the munitions factory. Here’s a passage from Aunt Frankie’s book that got me started:

“Martha got a job operating a big machine that made some large parts of a gun at $5.00 a day. It was a fortune.

Mr. Lang, who was doing the hiring, said that I was no strong enough to operate such a machine. He looked inside my lower lip and said it was pale. He Declared again that I hadn’t the strength to do that kind of work. He gave me the job of inspecting tiny parts of a gun, with less pay than working on the big machines.

Eight or ten women sat around a long table and boxes of different parts of the guns were brought to each of us. Each part was no bigger than three quarters of an inch in diameter. It was a seven day a week job. Work ceased for a half hour lunch break at 6:30 on that shift.”

Some of these details found their way into No Secrets Among Sisters. Again, the internet proved helpful, producing examples of the munitions factories operated by Russel Motors in Toronto during the First World War. From there, imagining Frankie and Mattie at work was relatively easy.

To see examples of these photos, visit Library and Archives Canada.