National Network for Equitable Library Service

Inside Hamilton’s Museums helps to satisfy a growing curiosity about Canada’s steel capital as it evolves into a post-industrial city and cultural destination. In this special excerpt we visit Erland Lee Museum, which stands as an excellent example of Ontario Gothic Revival architecture and serves as the birthplace of the Women's Institute movement. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the historic home, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside Hamilton’s Museums helps to satisfy a growing curiosity about Canada’s steel capital as it evolves into a post-industrial city and cultural destination. In this special excerpt we visit Battlefield House Museum and Park, which commemorates the British victory at the 1813 Battle of Stoney Creek that stopped the American army from capturing Upper Canada. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the historic house and gardens, offering historical background to the battle and into the lives of James and Mary Gage.

Finalist for a 2017 Hamilton Literary Award, the Kerry Schooley Award Unbuilt Hamilton presents the Ambitious City at its most ambitious, exploring the origins and fates of unrealized building, planning, and transportation proposals from the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first. Marvel at the sweeping vista down Hamilton’s own version of the Champs-Élysées as you enjoy a concert in the escarpment amphitheatre. Drive up the Gage Avenue tunnel, or ride down the Ottawa Street incline railway.

Exploring Hamilton through its heritage museums. Inside Hamilton’s Museums helps to satisfy a growing curiosity about Canada’s steel capital as it evolves into a post-industrial city and cultural destination. With an emphasis on storytelling and unsung heroes, the book identifies where Sergeant Alexander Fraser bayonetted seven enemy soldiers in a shocking attack to save Upper Canada in 1813. It evokes the day in 1939 when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth opened the Queen Elizabeth Way, the first intercity divided highway in North America.

2016 Hamilton Arts Council Literary Award for Non-Fiction — Winner David Milne is one of Canada’s finest artists, a man whose work speaks to the intricate beauty of the world as he experienced it. David Milne (1882–1953) dedicated his life to exploring nature and casting it into art in a variety of modernist formats. He was born into poverty in rural Ontario and remained poor all his life because of his relentless dedication to his art. For him, art was life.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit The Market Gallery at 95 Front Street East — the upper floor of the famous St. Lawrence Market. Walk into the market’s interior and look back carefully, and you clearly see an earlier building. It is the remains of Toronto’s first purpose-built City Hall. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit the well-known Grange at 317 Dundas Street West, near the Art Gallery of Ontario. More than any other house in Toronto, The Grange, built in 1817, testifies to the years when a tiny, colonial elite connected by blood and marriage — the Family Compact — dominated the government and judiciary. The Grange was home to the Boultons.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Spadina House on Davenport Hill, less renowned than its ornate but much later neighbour, Casa Loma, and first erected by landowner and politician Dr. William Baldwin in 1818. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Montgomery’s Inn, on Dundas Street West in present-day Etobicoke. For twenty-five years, beginning in 1830, the hard-working Irish immigrant Thomas Montgomery presided over the place, providing food and lodging to travellers, and creating a social hub for the surrounding area. The inn is not to be confused with (John) Montgomery’s Tavern on Yonge Street, rebel headquarters of the 1837 Rebellion.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Mackenzie House, the grey-brick townhouse, steps from modern Yonge-Dundas Square and the Toronto Eaton Centre, where the firebrand rebel publisher lived from 1859 till his death in 1861; his family moved out in 1871. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.