Bankers' Hours: Life Behind the Wicket at the Banque d' Hochelaga, 1901-21

The first decades of the twentieth century saw some significant changes in the nature of office work. Large numbers of employees were added to the payroll, jobs were broken down into their component parts, and women were brought in to fill the lowest positions. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, as to how the introduction of these changes varied from industry to industry or from region to region. This study of the conditions of employment at the Banque d'Hochelaga indicates that bank workers, unlike other white-collar employees, were faced with the instability that came from being regularly moved from branch to branch, In other regards, the working conditions faced by the employees of the Hochelaga differed from those for the industry as a whole because of the recruitment of the Hochelaga's work force from a French-speaking labour market.