The Spadina Garment District

Spadina Avenue became the centre of Toronto's clothing manufacturing industry in the early 20th century, built largely by Jewish immigrants, many with tailoring skills brought from Eastern Europe, who settled in the surrounding Kensington Market area and found work, or opened their own shops, in the garment trade. By the mid-20th century the strip was lined with cutting rooms, sewing floors and wholesale showrooms, and Toronto's "rag trade," as it was known, had become the largest clothing manufacturing hub in Canada.

A changing industry

The garment district also became a centre of labour organizing, with Jewish and, later, Chinese and other immigrant garment workers pushing for better conditions in what was often physically demanding, low-paid piecework. Toronto's garment manufacturing declined significantly from the 1970s onward as production shifted overseas, and many of Spadina's old factory buildings have since been converted into lofts, offices and university space, though a handful of wholesale clothing businesses still operate on the strip as a remnant of the district's manufacturing peak.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Clothing Industry
• Ontario Jewish Archives — Spadina Avenue and the Garment Industry

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