Vapeur, thermoélectricité et hydroélectricité comme force motrice le long du corridor industriel du canal de Lachine, des années 1850 à la Seconde Guerre mondiale

The author sets out to show that steam played an important role in the industrialization of Montreal during the second half of the nineteenth century, and that there were many factors which led the manufacturing industry to increasingly resort to thermoelectricity and hydroelectricity as a source of power in the early twentieth century. He argues that the coal market was favourable for Montreal industrialists up to World War I. While following the use of steam as motive power among the companies of the Lachine Canal's industrial corridor, he not only determines the main phases associated with this energy, but also demonstrates that the type and production capacity of these industrial plants influenced the type of energy they used. Though by 1912 steam remained the main motive power used in industry, thermoelectricity and hydroelectricity all the same gained ground during the first years of the twentieth century. During World War I, the price of coal increased sufficiently that Montreal's manufacturing industry had no other choice but to increasingly resort to hydroelectricity as motive power, until it finally overtook steam in the 1920's. However, the author argues that the rate policy of the Montreal Light, Heat and Power (MLHP) utility company handicapped the city's manufacturing industry when compared to other industrial areas. While historical literature maintains that electricity had only beneficial effects on the manufacturing growth of Quebec, the author challenges that interpretation. Admittedly, on the larger provincial scale, the established theory remains true, but while Montreal also benefited from the rise of industry, it depended more on the interdependence of industries (sale and purchase of products) than on the fact that emergent industries settled there. The author's interpretation also sheds new light on the nationalization of MLHP by the Government of Quebec in 1944.

PhD dissertation

Université Laval

Québec

2010

xvii-331p.

fr