HAMILTON, On. - Glen Faulman feels a sense of pride as he looks at his worker identification card placed next to his father and his grandfather’s. They are all from the same steel manufacturing plant, Stelco – a company that’s had a presence in his hometown, Hamilton, for over a century. But he isn’t looking at the three generations of I.D. cards from the comfort of his home, he’s viewing them through a glass display case featured at the Hamilton Art Gallery (HAG). “It’s kind of crazy. It’s nice to get some recognition for the collecting I’ve done,” Faulman told CTV News. He says he started working at Stelco in 1999, while his father began his career in 1964 and his grandfather in 1934. “It’s fun, but it’s money and effort,” he added. “I’ve been gathering this collection in hopes that [this] can be the guts of the museum.” The 53-year-old has been digging up artifacts that belonged to his father and grandfather – all of which are manufactured in Hamilton and some of which are nearly a century old, passed down from the generations his family has lived in there. It’s part of an exhibition at the gallery called “Made in Hamilton,” which shows a series of roughly 400 artifacts, including automotive, appliances, hardware and pantry items that were produced in Hamilton. It also includes photos, advertisements and brochures showcasing events between 1913 and 1952. The display couldn’t be timelier, as the industrial relationship with the United States that resulted in the creation of many of these items is now on rocky ground, with the U.S. slapping 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian steel imports, and Canada now set to impose retaliatory tariffs. For Faulman, this feels like a personal attack on his family’s legacy. “[U.S. President Donald Trump] always hits my pocketbook personally and I don’t appreciate it,” said Faulman. “We’re not producing as much as we did, so I’m not working the same hours that I used to do… and so, that means my paycheck shrinks.” The curator of the exhibition, Tor Lukasik-Foss, said the gallery was packed with people excited to see the displays when they first showcased Faulman’s artifacts in late June. “Back when these items were manufactured, we were generating more things,” Lukasik-Foss told CTV News. “We had more American investment, we had the greatest breadth of companies, and we made every kind of thing. And Glen’s collection is a really rare, beautiful illustration of just how deep and wide the breadth of making is, or how it was in this city.” He says he displays provides a reminder but also aims at giving hope that decades of a prosperous relationship may be able to overpower the turmoil over the past couple of years. “I think the exhibition tells a really unique story about what we’re going through now with the U.S. A lot of what’s here represents the full potential of what a partnership between two countries looks and feels like,” he said. “Like what happens when the supply chains are integrated, when an American factory can come up here and situate and then develop its own culture and sense of innovation.”
