The nickel industry traces its origins back to the 1820s. During the following decades consumption grew at a steady rate, albeit from a very low base. In the latter part of the nineteenth century nickel gained more industrial prominence as it was found that steel alloys containing nickel had superior qualities for armour, weapons and several types of electrical machinery.

In 1875 nickel mining commenced in the French colony New Caledonia and in the late 1880s around Sudbury in Ontario, Canada. For almost a century these two areas were the world's main sources for nickel ore. Older nickel producers, such as the numerous small Norwegian nickel works were mostly driven out of business. The leading nickel producers established a cartel in 1896. It proved very successful and came to dominate the nickel industry for more than seventy years.

The development of the industry and the market structure was examined in O. W. Main's classic book The Canadian Nickel Industry: A Study in Market Control and Public Policy from 1955. For several decades Main's book remained the sole academic analysis on the nickel industry. It was only in the 1990s that accomplished historians such as Gordon Boyce, Matt Bray and Angus Gilbert made further investigations into the oligopolistic nature of the nickel industry.

By 1914 the industry was dominated by three leading companies, the US-owned International Nickel Company (INCO), the British-owned Mond Nickel and the French Le Nickel.