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The Dickens Fellowship is an organization devoted to the study and appreciation of the works of Charles Dickens. It also has a philanthropic side in charitable causes related to children. Numerous branches of the Fellowship have been established throughout the world. The Hamilton branch (no. 47) was founded on 5 February 1908. It suspended its activities in 1912 and resumed meetings on 26 January 1931. The last known activity of the branch was at the Annual Conference held in Bath, May 1939, though it was still listed in the Dickensian, the Fellowship's journal, in the 1946/47 Winter issue. The Hamilton chapter is among the list of branches "lost during the war" in the Fall 1947 issue of the Dickensian.

The Salford Public School Literary Society met weekly, except in the summer months. The purpose of the society was to provide social gatherings. A critic was appointed for each meeting, and then participants sang, and gave recitations and readings, after which the critic made comments. The Society presumably was made up of residents of Salford, Ontario and vicinity. A post office was established at Salford in Oxford county on 1 November 1955. The population in this dispersed rural community was 200 in 1886. It is not known when the Society was established.

Dominion Steel Casting Company Limited was incorporated under the Companies Act of the Dominion of Canada in 1912 by Clifton and Frank Sherman. They added the Dominion Steel Foundry Company in 1913. In 1917, they became Dominion Foundries and Steel Limited. The company officially changed its name to Dofasco in 1980, though it had long been a popular nickname. In 2006, they were acquired by Arcelor and are now a standalone subsidiary of ArcelorMittal.

Hamilton Steel Wheel Company Limited was incorporated in 1916 by letter patent under the first part of the Companies Act with its head office in Hamilton, Ontario. Both certificates are stamped "cancelled". It was a subsidiary of Dominion Foundries and Steel Limited. The two merged in 1917.

The Social Democratic Party of Canada (SDPC) was a Marxist organization that formed in 1911 as a result of a split from the Socialist Party of Canada over affiliation with the Socialist International. The SDPC was affiliated with the International Socialist Bureau, and had a paper entitled Cotton’s Weekly (1908-1915), continued by the Canadian Forward (1916-1918). Prominent Ontario members of the SDPC included James Simpson, a mayor of Toronto in the 1930s. Most of the SDPC members joined the Communist Party of Canada in 1921 or the CCF in the 1930s.

The first Society of Friends Preparative Meeting in Upper Canada was held at Yonge Street, 6 June 1804, authorized by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The first Yonge Street Monthly Meeting was held in September 1806. In 1812, Yonge Street Monthly Meeting allowed an indulged meeting to be held at the house of John Haight which was situated near Pickering. In 1819 a Preparative Meeting was established at Pickering in the newly built meeting house which was used until 1833-34 when a new meeting house was built.

There was a split in 1828 between Orthodox members and a Hicksite faction with the Hicksites forced to establish a new meeting house about two miles away. This split was not unique to Pickering but reflective of a wider movement both in British North America and the United States which is often referred to as the Great Separation. Friends who were followers of Elias Hicks separated from the existing body of Friends.

Peter Martin Associates (PMA) was founded by Peter and Carol Martin in 1965. As well as publishing significant works in the field of Canadian politics, art, and culture, the company specialized in children's books, young adult fiction, and text books for the college education market. Authors included Janet Lunn, Fredelle Maynard, David Lewis Stein, Robert Fulford, Donald Cameron, and Joyce Wieland. The sale and distribution of PMA books was overseen by a number of companies over the years, including the Belford Book Distributing Company (owned in part by PMA) and by the University of Toronto Press, on a fee basis. The firm was sold to The Book Society of Canada, owned by Irwin Publishing, in 1982.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a major international union that represents a wide spectrum of service employees, health care workers forming the largest component of its membership. After abortive attempts at organizing in 1941, the Building Service Employees International Union (BSEIU) granted its first Canadian charter to Vancouver office cleaners in 1943 (Local 244). The Union made its appearance in Eastern Canada on July 6, 1944 when Toronto department store workers, elevator operators, and package handlers were chartered as Local 204. This local quickly became a leader in the union's Canadian expansion. The BSEIU grew rapidly throughout the next two decades and by 1970 was arguably the largest service workers' union in Canada. In 1968, the BSEIU dropped "Building" from its name and became the SEIU.

Alan O'Connor was a Ph.D. student in Sociology at York University who had an interest in folklore and the study of social history. He undertook a research project on the occupational culture of printers in the Toronto area. His project involved interviewing approximately twenty memebers of the Toronto Typographical Union. This union was the first trade union in Canada, formed in 1832 by printers in York (later Toronto).

This local was established in November 1952 as the Hamilton Municipal Employees' Association of the National Union of Public Employees. The latter union merged with the National Union of Public Employees in 1963 to form the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Local 167 represents the workers of the Macassa Lodge and the Wentworth Lodge Nursing Homes. These workers include nursing assistants, cleaning and kitchen staff, and health-care assistants. In 2000 Local 167 joined with Local 5 to form Local 5167.

Local 2151 consists of employees (drivers and mechanical workers) of Travelways School Transit Ltd. with offices in both Burlington, Ont. and Stoney Creek, Ont. The company was taken over by Laidlaw Transit Ltd. (Hamilton Division) in 1991.

Members of Local 794 are employees of Hamilton Civic Hospitals. For the history of its separation from Local 5 in 1960, see Local 5 fonds, Box 43, F.22.

A waterworks for Hamilton was first proposed in 1836. A competition was held in 1854 for waterworks designs. The first pump went into operation in 1859. By 1916 the original engines were being used only as standby units. The engines last ran in 1939. The original waterworks has now been restored and is operated as a museum.

The Hamilton Pressman's and Assistants Union Local 176 was organized on November 5, 1904. Its history can be traced back to the parent company of the International Typographical Union which came to Canada in 1865, and its affiliate, the Toronto union which became Local 91 on May 23, 1866. In 1895 the local turned down a Montreal proposal for a district union. It told the Trades and Labour Council that if the Pressman were allowed to join, Local 91 would leave the parent union (which it did in July, although it came back in October after the ITU had arrived at an agreement with the Pressman). The International Printing Pressman's Union of North America began as an affiliate of the International Typographical Union and changed its name to International Printing Pressman's and Assistants Union in 1896.

Muskoka Cottage Sanatorium was located on Lake Muskoka, north of Gravenhurst, Ont. It was established in 1897 as a 35-bed tuberculosis hospital and was the first of its kind in Canada. It was not closed until 1994, although it had long ceased to be a sanatorium. The Ontario Department of Health used it for other purposes.

The Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America (Organización de Solidaridad con los Pueblos de Asia, Africa y América Latina, abbreviated OSPAAAL) was founded in Havana, Cuba in January 1966 after a meeting of the Tricontinental Conference. The leftist OSPAAAL opposes imperialism and sees itself as a defender of human rights. Its message is carried through the publication of colourful posters containing text in English, Spanish, French, and Arabic.

The Bradley-Garretson Company Limited originated in Philadephia, and was involved in subscription book publishing. The Canadian branch was established in Brantford in 1876 by D.R. Wilson. Some time before 1879, Thomas Samuel Linscott, who was born in Devonshire, England in 1846 and had emigrated to America for health reasons, became the company's manager. Ordained in 1875 as a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, Linscott retired from the ministry in 1879 and bought the Canadian interests of the company.

Based in Toronto and Brantford, Ontario, Bradley-Garretson ("The Book and Bible House") published books between 1879 and 1920. According to Warner and Beer's History of Brant County (1883), it employed at Brantford "from fifteen to twenty" clerks and assistants, using "all the modern appliances" and appointed "over one thousand agents" in 1882. The company was not officially incorporated until 1895, by which time Linscott's son, Thomas Henry Linscott, had become the main owner. In 1896 the company opened the Toronto office at 155 Bay Street. (A related operation, Linscott Publishing Co., was established in 1897). Many of Bradley-Garretson's publications were religious in nature, although the company also issued books related to politics and the domestic sciences. Several imprints of the company are life and work anthologies written about individuals such as Sir John Thompson, Dwight L. Moody and Rev. Charles Spurgeon.

The Canadian School of Musketry was authorized by the government in 1903. The troops trained at the Rockcliffe Rifle Range and were part of a permanent force in the Canadian Army. D.H.C. Mason is credited with founding the School and overseeing the Battalion. Names of individuals in the photograph are listed in ink on the reverse. The names include: C.E. Kelly, 73 Melrose Ave Hamilton, [Mr.] Munro, Capt. H.F.G. Woodbridge 71st Regt Fredericton, N.B., M.T. Graham C.I. 356 Cambria St. Strafford, J.W. Kirckconnell, Lindsay, Ontario, J. Harold Keer, 44th Regt Welland, Ontario, D.W. Clarkson, Stanley, New Bruns., J Edwards RMS, Kingston, Ontario, A.S. [S-Marie] St. 4th FCE, Montreal.

Members of the Laundry Workers Union of Hamilton, Ont. were formerly represented by American Federation of Labor. On 29 January 1953 they formed their own local (Local 37) assisted by the Canadian Congress of Labour. By 1957 they were represented by the National Union of Public Service Employees, which joined with the National Union of Public Employees in 1963 to form the Canadian Union of Public Employees.