A year later, another Toronto Star news article in 1896 condemned Chinese laundries as “not the first shadow of claim for public patronage worthy of consideration.” Reportedly, Chinese laundrymen in Toronto did not pay taxes; rather, they sent $1,200 of revenue a week to China.54 In another report in 1911, Jack Canuck was equally unflattering:
One need only stroll through the above mentioned block [King, Queen, Yonge and York streets] and notice the throngs of Chinamen lounging in the streets and doorways to realize the ‘Yellow Peril’ is more than a mere word in this city. The average citizen would stand aghast did he but realize the awful menace lurking behind the partitions or screens of some of these innocent appearing laundries and restaurants.55
When Ah Chong tried to open a laundry at 1061 Bathurst Street in 1906, property owners faced him in opposition at City Hall. His application was turned down because the city’s Board of Control had visited the area and determined that there were already enough Chinese laundries.56
The Laundry Association and its white laundry owners urged health authorities to press attacks on the “dirty laundries” to prevent the spread of infection.57 A Toronto Star report described the living conditions that were not “all too agreeable to the tastes of their patrons.” It was “alleged by those who claim to know, that in most of these places their working boards are used for bedsteads, and the soiled linen which comes from the houses of Toronto citizens are utilized for bed clothes.”58
While these and other protests were filed under the cover of endangerment of public health, the underlying issue was the competitive edge realized through lower operating expenses. Despite this advantage, Chinese hand laundries were hardly a threat to white-owned steam laundries that supported more profitable bulk washing for hotels and restaurants. It was a match of David and Goliath, but in this battle, Goliath was the victor. The city passed by-law No. 41 in 1902 to “license and regulate laundrymen and laundry companies and for inspecting and regulating laundries” and implemented a licence fee of $50. Chinese laundry owners protested that the fee did not take into account the number of employees and heavily penalized their small businesses. W.P. Hubbard, municipal alderman, successfully advocated on their behalf and the fee was changed to correspond to the number of employees. Small businesses, like the Chinese ones, paid as little as $5, while larger ones, like those owned by white laundrymen, paid up to $20.
There would be further protests. At its annual convention in 1906, the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada demanded an increase of the head tax from $500 to $1,000.59 The head tax remained as it was; however, the provincial government introduced “an Act to Amend the Factory, Shop and Office Building Act” in 1914. No Chinese person could “employ in any capacity or have under his direction or control any female white person in factory, restaurant or laundry.” The Chinese in Toronto pooled their funds to challenge this discriminatory law, but their case reached the Supreme Court of Canada without a successful outcome. The Consul General of China voiced disapproval, and the law was not strictly enforced until 1928.60
Undeterred by the hostile sentiment and restrictive legislation, Chinese laundries kept multiplying. Even the Toronto city directory began to list them separately from other laundries, starting in 1908. By 1921 there were 374 laundries, representing an increase of fourfold within 20 years. At this time, the Chinese population in Toronto was 2,134. Over half of the Chinese in Toronto were estimated as being involved in the laundry business.61
From 1921 to 1941, the number of laundries expressed as a percentage of the Chinese population in Ontario ranged from 40.9 percent to 25.8 percent (see Table 5). The 1930s marked the decline in the growth of laundries that fell to 258 by 1947.62
TABLE 5
Chinese Laundries Relative to Chinese Population in Ontario, 1921–1941
Source: Ban Seng Hoe, Enduring Hardships (Gatineau, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2003), 9.
Although the early laundries were clustered in downtown Toronto, they spread across the city. George Lee, who later became a dentist, worked at his father’s laundry at 1132 Yonge Street. Harry Lem, owner of Lichee Garden, worked at a laundry operated by his father and uncle in the Danforth area. Tom Lock recalled that his father, who arrived in Toronto with his hair in a queue, was “one of the pioneers, a small businessman who was forced to open a laundry because of the language barrier.”63 He described hand laundering at his father’s business in the St. Clair and Lansdowne neighbourhood:
To make the linens white, we used to put the soiled linen in a big square steel tank 4’ x 4’ x 6’ deep on top of the coal stove. We would feed the tank using a hose and add bleach, stirring the washing with a big stick. After, Ma would stand on a stool, reach into the boiling water and drag out the clothes with the stick. She would then drop them in a pail and transfer them to the washing machine.64
A Torontonian reminiscing about his youth during the Great Depression described a local laundry:
Outside of Chinatown there were a number of Chinese who ran laundries… They must have done a good business because any time I visited one of these establishments to pick up some finished washing for a neighbour (my mother always did her own), I noticed their shelves were full of the wrapped finished product.65
Olive N. Graham remembered the laundry being picked up at her house by Lem Brother Laundry, which was located near the Scarborough Bluffs in the 1920s:
Not to be forgotten was the small sad figure of the Chinese laundryman who came regularly to the neighbourhood carrying his load in a white sack on his back. Mother would give him her best cloths and shirt collars which he finished beautifully in his little shop at Birchcliff. Tickets would be in Chinese characters and this, of course, was very mysterious. What a lonely life he must have led.66
Kay Chong’s experience, so typical of the strong kinship in the laundry business, shows the young age at which some early immigrants came to work under sponsorship of a family member. Chong’s father, who arrived in 1920 at the age of 13 to work in his relative’s laundry, later owned and operated two hand laundries in the Broadview and Arlington areas. He brought over his 17-year-old son, Kay, from China in 1950. Kay later took over the laundries from his father.67
Even as laundries multiplied across the city, Chinatown was not lacking in other types of businesses (see Table 6). A fancy goods store, Wing Tai and Company, opened at 405 Yonge Street. In 1902 a shop at 69½ Queen Street West was operated as the Quong Ying Yune Tea Company. Other tea businesses included Lee Chong Yung at 154 York Street, Yee Quong Teas at 156¼ York Street, and Kwong Yong Loy at 85–87 Queen Street East. Additionally, a cluster of businesses extended between 173 to 187% Queen Street East: two laundries, four goods stores, one cigar store, and a men’s furnishings store.
One goods store offered a variety of provisions, including Chinese herbs, homemade Chinese sausage, and various other imported products from China. It operated not only from the storefront but also from a truck, delivering to restaurants and laundries. The owner’s son remembered how deliveries were made to the customers:
Chinese