In building our collection we try to paint a comprehensive picture of industrial work in Nova Scotia and its impact on our people over time. We collect a wide range of artifacts to cover as many angles as possible.
We acquire products of Nova Scotia industry and the tools used to make them. We also try to capture the social dimension of industrial life as new technologies and new ways of working change our lives.
Why we collect
We collect objects to assist Nova Scotians in understanding their past and present. We want to know about the machines used, the workers who used them, the things that were made, the changes in technology over time, and the role of industry in modern life.
The big picture
All of these objects make up a collection, “the industrial collection”. Since our museum is part of the Nova Scotia Museum family of museums, our collection is part of the provincial collection. This collection belongs to the people of Nova Scotia. It has been built over 140 years largely thanks to the generosity of individual donors.
How we do it
The Museum of Industry started building its collection in 1986 before the museum in Stellarton was erected. Some artifacts were transferred to our care from the collection of the Nova Scotia Museum and new items were acquired, mostly through donations from individuals and companies. We decide if we will accept an object into our collection based on the themes that fulfill our Purpose and we follow the Nova Scotia Museum’s collection policy. What to collect is a very important decision because we are making a commitment to care for each object forever. We are still adding to our collection to preserve and tell the important stories of Nova Scotia’s industrial heritage.
What we collect
We collect artifacts about industry and work in Nova Scotia, past and present. A lot of the collection is about resource extraction (mining, lumbering) and especially manufacturing, but we also want to know about more modern industries, such as services (hair styling, and dentistry to name a couple), and knowledge-based industries (usually technology-based). Our collection of over 30,000 items is as varied as it is large. It includes some Really Big Things, like locomotives, and Really Small Things, like printing type.
Themes
Themes and topics represented in our collection include: products of NS industry, tools and machinery, the age of steam, technology and everyday life, industry in art, work clothes, railways, labour unions, the impact of industry on the environment, and women’s changing role.
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Acadia Gas Engine
Products of NS Industry
Nova Scotia has made a wide range of goods over the years; from hockey skates to chocolate, from underwear to outerwear.
Some Highlights of the Collection:
- Skates from Starr Manufacturing of Dartmouth. The groundbreaking design created by John Forbes that was sold worldwide. We have examples of the skates and skate blades.
- Gas Engines: We have significant examples of the gas engines, many for marine use, that were made in NS by manufacturers like Acadia Gas Engines.
- Clothing: Nova Scotia had a significant textile and clothing sector at one time making underwear and work wear. We have collected made in Nova Scotia clothing as well as clothing for work.
- Edge Tools: we have a collection of 40 edge tools made in Nova Scotia including axes, adzes and slicks for the forestry industry, shipbuilding and general use.
- NS Glass: Trenton was home to a short-lived pressed glass industry that flourished from the early 1880s to the early 1900s. Our exhibits feature an impressive display of examples of this work.
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Knitting machine
Tools and Machinery
Having the right tools for the job is essential in any field and has become increasingly expensive as industrial production methods require bigger, more sophisticated machinery than before.
Food Industry - Pop making machine
The making of soft drinks was widespread in the early twentieth century as small, local producers turned out refreshing favourites like Orange Pulpy and Ginger Beer. We have a collection of pop making machinery that includes large vats for preparing the beverages and the equipment for bottling them under pressure without losing that essential fizz.
Textile Industry
Nova Scotia has a long history of textile production dating back to the days of water powered carding mills in the early nineteenth century. We have some examples of the more complex technology used in twentieth century mills.
Knitting machine
Modern textile factories use large complex knitting machines that create fabric knitted in the round from which garments are cut and sewn. We have two that date from the 1950s and was brought to Stellarton by an Italian knitwear firm, Donato Faini.
Dominion Textiles
The Museum collected a lot of 22 artifacts from Dominion Textiles, Yarmouth after it ceased production in the 1980s. The original plant was founded as the Yarmouth Duck & Canvas Co. in 1883 to make sail canvas and it later switched to other industrial fabrics to stay in business.
Iron & Steel
A variety of iron and steel fabrication industries were active in Nova Scotia making everything from nails and axe heads to rail cars. The Museum has collected equipment from a variety of companies and the tools run from foundry tongs and wooden patterns to a hydraulic forging hammer that pounded out rail car axles.
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Robb Engine
Age of Steam
Whether fueled by wood or coal, steam technology powered the industrial revolution.
In our Age of Steam Gallery visitors can view some examples of steam engines from Nova Scotia and see how they were used.
Davies Engine
The Davies engine, made in Pictou, is effectively two linked steam engines. It was used to haul boats.
Robb Engine
Made by Robb Engineering of Amherst, it is a vertical steam engine that was used in a manufacturing plant in the United States.
The Machine Shop
In the Machine Shop there are a series of machines linked to single engine by a series of belts and pulleys linked to a common drive shaft. This was a common set up in industrial workplaces and allowed a whole room full of equipment to be run from a single power source.
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Ringer Washer
Technology & Everyday Life
Over the last one hundred years we have seen rapid technological change and all of it affects the way we work and live.
So many of these technologies have become so central to the way we live now that we wonder how anyone ever got by without them.
Water turbine
Hydroelectic turbines were used all over Nova Scotia to harness the power of rivers to power homes and factories.
Electric Appliances
On the domestic front electricity transformed housework with electric water pumps, refrigerators and washing machines.
Computers
Early computers filled whole rooms and had less computing power than the many small devices we carry with today like smart phones and MP3 players.
Industry & Society
Whether its art or journalism, there is a fascinating visual record of our changing society and landscape captured in photos and paintings.
Photographs
Wehave a collection of over 2200 photos depicting the people, buildings and landscapes of Nova Scotia’s industrial past.
Paintings
The Museum has built a small collection of paintings depicting industrial themes including a set of 12 paintings by Halifax artist Joseph Purcell illustrating Nova Scotia gold mining areas as they would have looked in the nineteenth century.
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Miner's hat
Work Clothes
Clothes make the worker. Some garments keep us safe while others identify us to the customers.
The Museum has tried to collect a range of garments from different walks of life including miners, foundry workers and service industry personnel.
One can see the progression of the desire to protect workers from the dangers of their work in the development, for instance, of miner’s head gear from soft caps to simple hard hats up to the modern hard hats with built in hearing protection and lamp clips.
Railways
In addition to our railway locomotives, the Museum has collected a large number of photos and railway-related material. The railway was an essential part of industrialization, moving goods and people around the province and to markets beyond the region and it still has a powerful grip on the public imagination.
The collection includes some large scale models of locomotives. Some that really existed like Sydney Colleries No. 25 and some more fanciful like the nineteenth century model of a wood burning locomotive in our Age of Steam Gallery.
At our site visitors can view four different locomotives of different types and vintages. The oldest is Samson, Canada’s oldest surviving locomotive, and Locomotive 151 greets you outside as you approach the building
Labour Union Memorabilia
It is a challenge to collect artifacts to tell the story of unionized labour. So much interesting material is not considered to be “artifacts” and gets thrown out.
Union pins
Whether protesting or claiming pride in union membership, pins have long been an inexpensive and effect way to show solidarity.
Labour agreement booklets
The little booklets represent hours of negotiating between business and labour.
Other Union documents
The Museum has collected a variety of material relating to union activity, especially in the Pictou County Coal Field. We have records of union meetings, insurance plans, even a couple of songs.
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Early Stellarton: This mid-nineteenth century photo of early mining operations shows the immediate impact on the landscape.
Impact on the Environment
The impact of industrial development on the environment is a topic of grave concern in the world today, but a difficult story to tell with artifacts. We are trying to build our collection in this area.
In early photos of mining areas we can see the immediate impact on the environment in the treeless, debris littered landscapes.
Nova Scotia’s early industrialization has left a toxic legacy hidden in the ground. So much of the development happened in the days before any form of environmental legislation. The early steelmaking efforts in Sydney left one of the worst toxic waste sites in Canada, the Sydney Tar Ponds, which is finally being cleaned up after long neglect.
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Women’s Changing Role
Women’s Changing Role
The changes brought by industrialization have had a great impact on women’s lives both domestic and occupational. New technologies have changed work at home and created new opportunities for work outside the home.
Clerical Work
Traditionally clerical work was assigned to young men in offices and was considered an apprenticeship toward a business career. By the late nineteenth century women were starting to take on this work but without hope for advancement.
Wartime Work
Women answered the call to factory work in both world wars. The Museum has collected material like photos and personal artifacts from women who worked in wartime industry in Pictou Co. This is reflected in our exhibit galleries.
Changes on the Home Front
Changing technology in the home from cast iron pots to electric ranges has had a significant impact on women’s work at home. The “labour saving devices” brought in by the arrival of electricity may have reduced the heavy lifting component, but also raised the bar for domestic perfection.
Women in the Trades
This is an area in which we would like to build our collection as more and more women enter trades previously dominated by men.
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Perm machine
Service Industries and Tourism
As traditional manufacturing work has declined, service industries and tourism have become major employers.
Tourism: In Nova Scotia active promotion of tourism goes back to the early part of the twentieth century.
Hairdressing equipment: These aren’t torture devices, they were tools of the trade for the trained professional hairdresser of the 1930s. Hairdressing is just one of many service industries that have grown in importance over the last century.