In 1913, Hamilton hosted a “Great Industrial Exposition of Exclusively Made-In-Hamilton Products”, a five-day event held at the downtown Hamilton Armories that featured displays from nearly 100 of the city’s over 400 industries. The purpose was to demonstrate the city’s reputation as “the foremost per capita producer of manufactured goods” in Canada. The exposition was wildly popular, with attendance of over 50 000 (more than half the city’s population at the time), and led to annual expositions through the first half of the 20th Century.
Collector Glen Faulman is a third-generation Stelco worker and an eighth-generation Hamiltonian from a family tightly bound to a ‘buy Hamilton / buy Canadian’ ethic. It is no surprise then that he has devoted over three decades to collecting a range of Hamilton-made goods and ephemera from all stages of its manufacturing history.
Made in Hamilton will present Faulman’s remarkable collection in a way that evokes the spirit of the city’s bygone industrial exhibitions. Three exhibition rooms on the main floor will be organized into a series of ‘booths’ or displays, including Automotive, Appliances, Hardware, Pantry, and more. Items will be displayed in conjunction with signs and advertisements of the era, as well as photos, promotional films, brochures and ephemera from ‘Made in Hamilton’ events between 1913 and 1952.
The exhibition will illustrate a chapter of this city’s history when industry was a spectacle, and civic identity was indelibly grafted to a culture of making. Made in Hamilton invites us to reflect on how this legacy continues to shape Hamilton’s role in a global economy.
