The Impact of Industrial Decentralization on the Gendered Journey to Work, 1900–1940

Scholars have assumed that in North American cities before World War II only the decentralization of industry drew workers into the suburbs, and even then sometimes with a lag of years. In fact available evidence is meager and contradictory. The impact of industrial decentralization on settlement patterns can be traced by using published annual data in city directories regarding the evolution of labor sheds and employment fields. A case study of Toronto, Ontario, using directories and oral histories, shows that the decentralization of employment was only one influence upon suburban settlement, even among blue-collar workers. Cross-sectional data and case studies of one city and one suburban employer show that it did contribute to a temporary shortening of the journey to work for suburban workers. In part this was because companies tapped a preexisting suburban labor pool. Men were affected more than women, possibly because of the concentration of housing and job opportunities for women in the downtown. This is consistent with, but does not prove, arguments that decentralization enabled companies to exploit suburban male workers and that suburbanization disadvantaged women.