With the opening of the Victoria Bridge in 1860, a year-round transportation route was finally established to the Atlantic Ocean at Portland, Maine. The bridge also provided connections, via the railway, to Upper-Canada and the mid-western United States. The economic, political, social, and cultural effects of these links were felt in Montreal and the surrounding areas. The authors focus primarily on the construction of the bridge, but several essays dealing with the years before during and after the event demonstrate that 1845 to 1875 was an important era in the industrialization of Montreal.

The Canadian photographer William Notman and his empire of photographic studios, initiated in 1856, are the focus of this study by Stanley Triggs. Over a period of 78 years, more than 400,000 photographs were taken by the Montreal studio alone, and Triggs presents a fascinating and detailed picture of how this was achieved. Previous publications about Notman and his work are no longer in print, making William Notman's Studio a particularly valuable exposition of Canadian iconographic images.