"Stelco at War: Scientific Management and Canadian Munitions Production in the Great War"

In 1910, five of Canada’s most important iron and steel manufacturers were merged to form the Steel Company of Canada (Stelco), the Dominion’s answer to U.S. Steel. Only a few years later the British Empire declared war against Germany, and Canadian industry was conscripted into the war effort. But how exactly did one turn a factory that mainly produced nails into one that could make 18-pounder shells for the Canadian Expeditionary Force? As we know from previous research by historians like Michael Bliss, this was not without its difficulties, with many duds produced, and even worse, shells that exploded in the artillery piece, sometimes killing Canadian soldiers. But by 1917 they had largely figured out the problems, with even the U.S. government putting in orders with Stelco when they joined the war effort. This paper will argue that the key factor was the adoption of scientific management by Stelco and other Canadian munitions producers. Canadian industry largely lagged behind the United States in the adoption of modern management technologies. It took the war to force Canadian industry out of its conservatism and transform the way that labour was organized in their factories, breaking worker-control of the productive process. Like Bliss, most historians that have looked at this process have emphasized “top-down” changes, often emphasizing the role of the Imperial Munitions Board. I rather take a “bottom-up” approach, by looking at changes on the factory floor, concentrating on Stelco’s Notre-Dame Works in Montreal.