Koester, Carolyn Elizabeth (Author)
Krementsov, Nikolai L. (Advisor)
In the early twentieth century, interest in eugenics swept the world. Seen as a scientific solution to social ills of the day like prostitution, venereal disease and the supposed rise in “feeble-mindedness,” its principles were based on the notion that humanity could be improved through selective breeding, as was already being done with plants and animals. Many jurisdictions, including thirty American states as well as Alberta and British Columbia in Canada, implemented legislation which required certain “unfit” individuals to undergo reproductive sterilization. Others passed legislation requiring pre-marital certificates of medical “fitness.” Surprisingly, Ontario never followed suit. This has led to the assumption that “not too much” of a eugenic nature happened in that province. However, by investigating the relationship between eugenics and law using primary sources relatively unknown to historians of medicine, science and technology, I have found evidence of considerable eugenic activity in Ontario. This dissertation focusses on the period from 1910 to 1938 and three specific legal processes. First, I examine the story of Dr. Forbes Godfrey, MPP, who, between 1910 and 1921, introduced eight private members’ bills in the legislature, four to implement sterilization and four to implement marriage restrictions. All eight failed to pass. Second is the story of three Royal Commissions, established in 1917, 1929, 1938, which all recommended eugenic solutions to the problems they were set up to consider. Once again, none of their proposed eugenic solutions were adopted. Third is the story of industrialist A. R. Kaufman and the Parents’ Information Bureau he incorporated to promote birth control and sterilization. This work led to a 1936 criminal prosecution now known as the Eastview Trial in which the judge determined, partly because of an argument based explicitly on eugenic principles, that distributing birth control information and devices served the “public good.”
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Book
C. Elizabeth Koester;
(2021)
In the Public Good: Eugenics and Law in Ontario
(/isis/citation/CBB455004372/)
Article
Westermann, Stefanie;
(2012)
Secret Suffering: The Victims of Compulsory Sterilization during National Socialism
(/isis/citation/CBB001251923/)
Article
Sarah Walsh;
(2022)
The executioner’s shadow: Coerced sterilization and the creation of “Latin” eugenics in Chile
(/isis/citation/CBB396292693/)
Article
Barna Szamosi;
(2021)
Medical decisions influenced by eugenics: Hungarian gynecological practices during the 1910s
(/isis/citation/CBB541074211/)
Book
Molly Ladd-Taylor;
(2017)
Fixing the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB934034393/)
Thesis
Kelly Jo Fulkerson Dikuua;
(2019)
[Un]informed Consent: Eugenics, Forced Sterilization and Medical Violence in the Jim Crow United States and Apartheid Southern Africa
(/isis/citation/CBB087168632/)
Book
Wheatley, Thelma;
(2013)
“And Neither Have I Wings to Fly”: Labelled and Locked up in Canada's Oldest Institution
(/isis/citation/CBB001420282/)
Article
Sabine Hildebrandt;
Susan Benedict;
Erin Miller;
Michael Gaffney;
Michael A. Grodin;
(2017)
“Forgotten” Chapters in the History of Transcervical Sterilization: Carl Clauberg and Hans-Joachim Lindemann
(/isis/citation/CBB559171268/)
Book
Reaume, Geoffrey;
(2000)
Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1770-1940
(/isis/citation/CBB000101654/)
Article
Patricia Bowley;
(2015)
Farm Forestry in Agricultural Southern Ontario, ca. 1850-1940: Evolving Strategies in the Management and Conservation of Forests, Soils and Water on Private Lands
(/isis/citation/CBB900280294/)
Article
Hayter, Charles R. R.;
(2003)
Seeds of Discord: The Politics of Radon Therapy in Canada in the 1930s
(/isis/citation/CBB000630193/)
Thesis
Bouchard, Daniel;
(2003)
Pollution, science et pouvoir: L'histoire d'un désastre écologique à Sudbury (1883--1945): Derrière l'écran de fumee
(/isis/citation/CBB001562318/)
Article
Jacqueline McIsaac;
(2013)
Cameras in the Countryside: Recreational Photography in Rural Ontario, 1851-1920
(/isis/citation/CBB937209030/)
Article
Revie, Linda;
(2006)
More Than Just Boots! The Eugenic and Commercial Concerns behind A. R. Kaufman's Birth Controlling Activities
(/isis/citation/CBB000930214/)
Article
Jack Lucas;
(2014)
How Hydro Ontario Went Local: The Creation of Local Districts and the Ontario Central System
(/isis/citation/CBB406060084/)
Article
Smith, Jenna Murdock;
(2011)
Next Stop, “Sunshine Station”: The Ontario Provincial Board of Health and the Exhibition of Tuberculosis, 1908--1929
(/isis/citation/CBB001211537/)
Book
Tracey L. Adams;
(2018)
Regulating Professions: The Emergence of Professional Self-Regulation in Four Canadian Provinces
(/isis/citation/CBB232284068/)
Book
Adams, Tracey L.;
(2000)
A Dentist and a Gentleman: Gender and the Rise of Dentisty in Ontario
(/isis/citation/CBB000100993/)
Article
Daniel Macfarlane;
Andrew Watson;
(2018)
Hydro Democracy: Water Power and Political Power in Ontario
(/isis/citation/CBB839399283/)
Book
Dyck, Erika;
(2013)
Facing Eugenics: Reproduction, Sterilization, and the Politics of Choice
(/isis/citation/CBB001551526/)
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