Chinese Laundries, Commemorative plaque, 2025.  

Plaque Text

This lane is named for Sam Ching, one of the earliest Chinese men recorded in Toronto. In 1878, Ching owned a hand laundry at 9 Adelaide Street East near here.

Canada’s first Chinese migrants were labourers who arrived on Vancouver Island in 1788. The 1858 Fraser River Gold Rush and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s brought more Chinese workers to Canada.

Excluded from most work except manual labour, many Chinese men opened hand laundries, which were in demand, affordable to start, and offered freedom from discriminatory hiring practices.

The same year Sam Ching first appeared in the Toronto Directory, Wo Kee’s laundry was also listed at 385 Yonge Street, as was Tang Kee’s at 121 York Street. Earlier laundries were not documented due to incomplete or inaccurate record keeping. Language barriers often excluded or misrepresented people in local listings.

In 1885, Canada placed a “head tax” on new arrivals from China. White laundry owners tried to force their Chinese-owned rivals out of business by claiming they were a source of disease and lobbying local politicians to act starting in the 1890s. In 1902, the city placed a $50 annual license fee ($1,500 in 2025) on hand laundries, hurting Chinese businesses. As well, a 1914 Ontario law made it illegal for Chinese people to hire or manage white women in laundries, restaurants, or factories.

In 1923, the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chinese Immigration Act) effectively banned all Chinese immigration to Canada. By the time the act was repealed in 1947, laundromats and home washing machines had made hand laundries largely obsolete.