Montreal in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Montreal began the twentieth century as Canada’s primary city, its major port with an emerging industrial sector, ruled by an Anglophone Protestant elite while populated by a Francophone Catholic majority—the two solitudes. Diverse European immigrant communities created a third solitude, producing a city of complex communities. Linguistic and educational segregations drew newcomers to difficult choices. The city juggled its diversity through the depression; World War II and early cold war times brought prosperity. The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 ended Montreal’s primacy; Toronto rose to become Canada’s financial and industrial capital—while the Quiet Revolution for Francophone rights in Quebec propelled Montreal to become a more regional cultural capital. That movement helped Montreal protect key industries while immigrants from Asia, Latin America, and the Islamic world created new ethnic diversity. Urban processes mixing separations, aggregations, and integrations allowed Montreal to grow through urban sprawl and keep solid prosperity, fair distributions, and open opportunities, limiting marginalities.