How shocking photos transformed Toronto's poorest neighbourhood

In the early 1900s, immigrants from China, Italy andEastern Europe arrive in Toronto en masse.

They're looking for a better life in Canada and they need an affordableplaceto live. St. John's Ward (nicknamed "the Ward"), a 0.5 kmslum in the middle of the city, becomes a popular spot where many immigrants settle.

The Ward is packed with thousands of people. Deadly diseases like diphtheria and typhoid are rampant they spread through close contact, tainted water and unpasteurized milk.

Most of the Ward's residents have no indoor plumbing and no toilets. Sanitation standards and public health regulations don't exist.

Dr. Charles Hastings, the city's Medical Officer of Health, sees the need for standardized health regulations. He knows Toronto requires safe running water and a proper sewage system to keep its citizens healthy.

The problem? Toronto's changemakers, the middle and upper classes, turn a blind eye to the Ward's abysmal living conditions.

Hastings needs to make the problem stand out so it canno longerbe ignored. He tasks the city's official photographer, Arthur Goss, with gathering photographic evidence of the suffering in the Ward.

Hastings shows the photos at exhibitions across Toronto, shocking the middle and upper classes. They can't look away any longer. Living conditions in the Ward become one of City Hall's top concerns.

Thanks to Hastings' and Goss' work, diphtheria infectionsand typhoid fever ratesplummet, Toronto becomes the first Canadian city to require pasteurization of milk andthe citysets the standard fornation-widepublic health regulations.