Graduate Students

Nichols, Bruce - M.A

The Child That Bit Its Parent:The Relationship Between the CPR and Sudbury, 1883-1903 - Dr. Gilbert Stelter, advisor

         Canada's first big business was the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), That company had an enormous impact on many communities across Canada. As Pierre Berton noted in his study of the transcontinental road: "There were few Canadians who were not in some manner affected by the presence of the CPR; no other private company, with the single exception of the Hudson's-Bay, has had such an influence on the destinies of the nation."' By the 1890s, the CPR "was the largest corporation in Canada as measured by the size of its work-force." The relationships between that huge company and its communities is the focus of this paper. In this investigation, the methodology used to examine those relationships is the case study with Sudbury, Ontario, one of the first communities founded by the CPR, as its focus. Sudbury began in 1883 as a construction centre on the fine, but that privileged status soon ended when the construction phase moved beyond Sudbury the following year.' The relationship between the company and the community changed with the company's sudden reduction of its presence in the town in terms of employees and equipment.