Coal mining, so essential to the development of Nova Scotia, began as an industry here with the arrival of a British mining company in the 1820s. Our exhibits explain how their engines, equipment, and miners brought us the Industrial Revolution. In this area you will find Samson, a locomotive of that time and the star of the Museum of Industry. You also can experience the power of steam engines through demonstrations and our belt-driven machine shop, which shows how one steam engine could power many machines to increase productivity.
Moving on, you arrive at the heyday of industrial activity with exhibits on the iron and steel industries, the railway (check out our HO-scale model railway), automobile production, inventions, and factory work. Don’t miss our assembly line game where you have work to do. Before you leave this area, visit the “kitchen” to hear about living conditions and how housewives coped in some of Nova Scotia’s hard-scrabble industrial towns.
Throughout the exhibits the cut-out figures of workers show you how Nova Scotians worked in those days.
You leave this gallery by descending a ramp into an open space where some of our biggest artifacts are on display.
