Stefano Agnoletto, The Italians Who Built Toronto: Italian Workers and Contractors In the City's Housebuilding Industry, 1950-1980 (Bern: Peter Lang 2014)

In The Italians Who Built Toronto: Italian Workers and Contractors in the City's Housebuilding Industry 1950-1980, Stefano Agnoletto takes readers into Toronto's construction trades during the post-war economic boom. His focus is the role of Italians in that boom and their "building of Toronto." Agnoletto seeks to build on the work of other pioneers in this field such as Robert Harney, Franca Iacovetta, and Roberto Perin by creating a book that focuses explicitly on the labour and business history of Italians and their "ethnic niche," (189) as he puts it, as tens of thousands of Italians in post-war Toronto became employed in numerous construction trades from bricklayers, carpenters, labourers, and cement finishers. His focus is primarily on the "structural and cultural factors" (16) that were central to Italians in the construction industry and he also debunks the idea that Italians were not supportive or indifferent to unionization in this period.

The book centers on how the creation of ethnicity, such as Italians becoming Italians in Toronto, was connected to macro-economic conjunctures, like a construction boom. Italians discovered themselves, he argues, as members of a larger exploited ethnic group and this was a factor in their developing class consciousness. The book's focus on economics and structural economic forces as well as its plethora of statistical information are its greatest strengths, reflecting Agnoletto's expertise and training as a holder of a PhD in Economic History. While the book tries to detail the cultural elements behind the Italians in the construction trades, it falls slightly short of the mark. Greater exploration of the social history of the historical actors, including gender analysis, is missing here. Yet his in-depth coverage of economic forces and prevalent use of statistics will prove essential reading for those academics involved in or interested in the business history of the construction trades and Italians in post-war Toronto.

Agnoletto begins his inquiry by examining immigration policy and the gradual shift in how the predominately British city of Toronto evolved into a multicultural centre. In these early chapters he pays homage to earlier works on immigration history, almost to a fault, because we are not introduced to the Italians until Chapter 3 and their involvement in the construction industry, the main focus of the book, doesn't get discussed until Chapter 5. While the opening chapters are incredibly detailed and filled with troves of statistical data (with seventeen graphs at the conclusion of just Chapter 2) it still feels like a familiar trip. Where the book really takes off is when Agnoletto takes us into the messy world of the construction industry and the Italians involvement in it. He convincing demonstrates how they filled a labour need in the city and subsequently entered an "ethnic niche." He argues that the majority of Italian immigrants didn't choose the construction industry; it was the only choice available. Agnoletto's structural economic data makes this case rather easily and convincingly.

In Chapter 5 we are introduced to more of the social history of the workers. He draws on oral histories and interviews with Italians in the post-war Toronto community and the reader does get a good opportunity to hear from these workers, often with the use of large block quotations. These workers give us a sense of the often dangerous and precarious working conditions that they faced. Especially revealing is what Agnoletto refers to as the "jungle" of the industry where labour was in such high demand that unsafe working environments were common. Many Italian workers were left with disabling construction related injuries. The intensely competitive industry also produced interesting class dynamics with workers sometimes becoming contractors overnight and then turning around to hire their former fellow workers. While hearing from the workers themselves is beneficial to the overall study, at times the book fails to develop the interesting revelations that these workers provide. We never really get a sense of how workers managed to deal with their fellow workers who became contractors and began employing them in the same harsh working conditions as their former bosses. The issue is discussed but not fully explored. These oral accounts are not as fleshed out as they could have been, which would have given these accounts, and the historical actors who provided them, more of a three-dimensional feeling. Almost entirely missing is the subject of gender. While Agnoletto points out not many women were involved in the construction industry, there were certainly many men, and no discussion of masculinity ever arises in the book. Robert Harney, who Agnoletto frequently cites, put out the call over a decade ago for more research on male Italian workers and their psychological state in his article "Men Without Women: Italian Migrants in Canada, 1885-1930." With so many Italians involved in the male-dominated construction industry, and access to living historical actors, for Agnoletto to avoid discussing the role of gender and its relationship to ethnicity and class, feels like a missed opportunity.

Agnoletto discusses the role of Italians in unionization and successfully debunks the notion that the Italians were not active participants in the organized labour movement. He discusses Bruno Zanini's battles to organize his fellow Italians in Toronto into such unions as the Plasterers and Cement Masons' Union and the Canadian Bricklayers Association and also how they obtained a charter as Local 811 of the International Hod Carriers, Building, and Common Labourers' Union while still under Zanini's leadership. After a series of catastrophic and fatal work accidents, Agnoletto discusses how Italians organized themselves into the radical Brandon Union Group, an organization that united Italians across union locals. The group even garnered support from more conservative minded Italians revealing how, in this instance, the plight of Italian workers could inspire unity across class lines. By far these chapters are the most engaging of the book and reveal much to readers about Italians and their role in unionization though again Agnoletto cuts short a discussion that would have proven interesting. He highlights how organized crime penetrated the industry heading into the 1970s but does not fully flesh this out. A further and more fully developed discussion on this would have added to the complexity of the labour situation and the dynamics of the time as it pertained to Italians.

Stefano Agnoletto's The Italians Who Built Toronto is a solid contribution to the business history literature on Italian workers in the 20th century, and in particular to the construction trades, while also offering a glimpse into their lives as workers and as Italians. A notable omission was the lack of an in-depth discussion on masculinity in the construction industry and how it pertained to Italians. While the book does give readers a chance to hear from workers in the period, the characters and analysis are cut too short, and interesting avenues of research are brought up and mentioned, but never chased up and explored in full. Still, the book is a worthy read for those seeking to know more about the economic and business history of a people that not only helped build an industry and its unions, but that also helped build a city.

DENNIS MOLINARO

Trent University and University of Toronto