At the beginning of 1793 Toronto was the gateway to a distant portage to the Upper Great Lakes, its permanent population a lone fur trader. One hundred and twenty-five years later it was a solid, vibrant metropolis, an industrial powerhouse supporting half a million residents. Toronto is a city built by its people, from the original colonial aristocracy of the Family Compact, to the masses of British and Irish migrants who forged its profound links with Empire, to the polyglot flow of international migration that would ultimately transform the city in the twentieth century. This book recounts their stories, and their stories are the history of Toronto's emergence as a world-class city. In Toronto to 1918, distinguished historian J.M.S. Careless expertly draws Toronto's stories together, creating an illuminating and entertaining portrait of the city. The text is complemented with more than 150 historical illustrations.

Here is a record of one of history's great migrations, the Atlantic Migration to the New World, especially from 1770 to 1890, when eleven million people came from the British Isles to North America. The slow crossing by sailing ship was unpleasant even in the best accommodation, but for the poor conditions were wretched in the extreme. Famine, unemployment, poverty drove many from the Old World, and their desperate circumstances made them vulnerable to exploitation at both ends of the journey. In the New World, the immigrant had to adjust to strange conditions as he ventured into the interior of the continent to enter upon the hardships of pioneering. Mr. Guillet has located records never before consulted, found contemporary descriptions not previously used, and presented excerpts from diaries, narratives, letters, and emigrant guidebooks formerly accessible only in museum and archives collections. The illustrations are all from contemporary sources and provide in themselves an authentic and comprehensive picture of the times.