Productive and Spatial Strategies in the Montreal Tobacco Industry, 1850-1918

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores the productive and spatial strategies associated with industrial change. A significant portion of the literature on industrial change after 1880 has emphasized the importance of the corporation. To add another dimension to this literature, and building on the work of economic geographers and historians, this paper investigates the range of strategies open to firms and industries. These strategies are theorized through the concept of production formats, which states that studies of industrial organization and economic change need to be built upon the social, technological, and material properties of firms and industries within a historically specific context, and are demonstrated through the example of the Montreal tobacco industry between 1850 and 1918.The production format is a useful concept for understanding the divergent growth paths of the various branches of the tobacco industry, as it is able to capture a variety of productive and spatial strategies characterizing the in...