The photographic material in this series constitutes a large and important group of industrially related images. Stelco produced them for its own internal purposes: as mill identification on sites, identification of new equipment and machineries for studying progress of construction on sites, for company's in-house magazines, for events and for celebrations. Photographs depict the day-to-day life of employees working inside of mills and aspects of Stelco everyday production. They cover the period prior the Company's creation in 1910 and continue until 1986. Material before 1920 and after the 1970s is scarce.
The oldest and rarest photographs show the first steel mills built in Quebec and Ontario. Photographs display the construction phases of the Hilton and Lake Erie mills located in Hamilton and Nanticoke respectively, and the McMaster mill in Contrecoeur, Quebec. For special events, Stelco hired professional photographers to promote its business. Many of these were used for advertising as well as promotional activities. They were published in the Stelco Flashes internal magazine, in catalogues and publications for showing the company 25th, 35th, 50th and 75th anniversaries.
The panoramic and aerial photographs are remarkable. These often show the scope of the industrial complexes with the city, neighborhood or port facilities in the background. This series contains more than one hundred aerial and panoramic photographs taken from 1917 to 1978. During the 1950s, media, photographers and artists were fascinated by the extent of industrial progress. They visited Stelco's mills to take photographs, or produce films or radio shows. Some employees demonstrated exceptional talent. One of these, John J. Carey (known as Jack), received permission from Stelco to take photographs and make films during the 1940s and 1950s. Several of his photographs are available in this series.
Photographs also were produced for the purpose of staff training. They comprise of color slides taken in 1979 for the course entitled "Ironmaking Course Training" covering metallurgical introduction on blast furnace, its design, the cold blast system and the furnace application.
The professional photographers involved in this series are: Mather & Co. Hamilton, Acro Photographers Toronto, Brigdens Ltd. Toronto, Photographic Arts Toronto, Carey Studio Hamilton, John Matthias Co. Hamilton, Lloyd Bloom Hamilton and Associated Commercial Photographers Ltd. The oldest aerial and panoramic photographs were produced by Percy E. McDonald (Hamilton), Airmaps Ltd. (Toronto) and Air Service Canada Ltd. (Montreal). For those taken during 1970s, they are: Herb Smith Photography, Simcoe ON, Northway Survey Corporation Ltd. Toronto, Harey Flatman, Hamilton and William Cod Aerial Photography, Port Dover ON.
The textual portion of records in this series consists of correspondence, reports and ledgers describing plants expansion in various areas. They accompanied photographs of this series.
