Saint John and Its Business Located in southern New Brunswick and at the mouth of the Saint John River on the western shores of the Bay of Fundy, the port of Saint John is a modest-sized Canadian city. By 1871, Saint John was the fourth most populous city in Canada and the chief urban centre in the region for import and export, with geography and population playing a chief role in Saint John's continued prosperity. As the central hub of access to, and egress from, the communities along the coast and throughout the interior of the province, Saint John's success also depended on transportation and communication links and an available workforce. A significant proportion of Saint John's value-added manufacturing came from artisan workshops, craftshops as well as small and large manufactories. Construction firms, shipyards, foundries and textile mills coexisted with shipping agents, insurance brokers, commission merchants and newspaper publishers. Wholesale and retail merchants provided all types of goods so that everything from carriages and coffins to fancy goods and liquor were readily available.

Industry and investment in the region started to decline by the early twentieth century. The 1911 Canadian census showed that the city had grown by only 1200 persons during the previous forty years and it had fallen to eleventh place in terms of population. To remedy the situation, the civic government and the Saint John Board of Trade implemented an intense strategy to improve the city's economic prospects. For the previous generation, depictions of the city emphasized the success implied by access to the sea that provided for trade and commerce through shipping. With renewed vigour, Saint John presented itself as the only ice-free winter port in eastern Canada and relentlessly pursued transportation links that would connect it to Canadian markets to the west. City merchants bolstered this positive appearance by distributing images as part of their marketing campaigns in an effort to make a good impression and to boost the perception of their city. In fact, in 1914 the city's own Common Council published a promotional brochure, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada: Canada's Winter Shipping Port, that optimistically declared:

The commercial expansion of Saint John has been so great, and its building operations so marvellous during recent years, that such a booklet should prove a source of much information to those who wish to locate factories or engage in the wholesale or retail business, showing them what industries it already has and what ones could be established with profit in this seaboard city, which is connected not only by rail with all parts of the Dominion, but is also in touch by some seventeen steamship lines with the world's great foreign markets.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Saint John's economic and business base has diversified, in keeping with the changes and developments in technology, business methods and the global economy. Though new enterprises are reshaping the determined profile of the city's business face, Saint John still retains a strong connection with the essential elements of its historical character.