Hamilton

Hamilton. City (2017 pop 579,200) and leading industrial center in Ontario, Canada. In 1981, 11,600 of its residents were of Ukrainian origin. The first Ukrainian organizations in Hamilton were socialist—the Shevchenko Prosvita Association (1910), a branch of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party of Canada (1915), and the Women’s Educational Organization (1920). A congregation of Ukrainian Baptists had formed by 1914. The Church of the Holy Ghost, a Ukrainian Catholic church, was built in 1918. During the interwar years branches of the Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association, the Canadian Sitch Association, the Ukrainian National Federation, the United Hetman Organization, and the Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood of Canada were established. By 1941 there were 2,265 Ukrainians in Hamilton.

Since the 1980s the Ukrainian community in Hamilton has been served by three Catholic and one Orthodox parish, a Presbyterian congregation, three Ukrainian schools (one of them a Catholic day school), several youth associations, and the Ukrainian Canadian Social Services Inc. The largest organizations are the local branches of the Ukrainian National Federation, the Canadian League for Ukraine’s Liberation, and the Ukrainian Self-Reliance League. There are four Ukrainian credit unions and a branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation. The community as a whole is represented by the local office of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]