Growing pains: Edward Partington and the early wood pulp industry in New Brunswick, 1890-1910.

摘要

The story of the dramatic rise of pulp and paper as the most important manufacturing industry in Canada by the end of the 1920s is well known. Less well known are the difficulties of the industry in its early years of development (1890-1910). The pool of technical and mechanical knowledge in Canada to run a pulp and paper mill was shallow. In addition, markets tended to be unstable and access to sufficient quantities of capital and wood was precarious in some places. There were notable successes but also enough errors to doom a large number of enterprises. New Brunswick mills experienced all the pitfalls of pulp production during this era, none more so than the Cushing Sulphite Fibre Company, despite the fact that the main financier and the mill manager were prominent figures in the early history of the industry.