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Widening the Story - Artifact 5

Eugenic and Euthenic ideas about Child Development and Family

Context: Leaders in Eugenics and Euthenics at Macdonald Institute

Eugenicists held false and value-laden ideas about heredity and human characteristics, traits, and diseases. This is evident in the 1925-26 “Biol.11-Biology” exam. Question #4 asks students to “[d]iscuss the causes of some of the common mental defects and diseases. Regarding these, what eugenic measures are to be recommended for the improvement of the race?1(footnote)

For illustrative purposes, here we have selected Tuberculosis (TB), “Cretinism” (and the thyroid condition called goitre), and Pernicious Anemia for a brief discussion of the faulty thinking of eugenicists.

  1. In his 1937 book, Problems in Human Heredity, Vincent Jackson (in the Macdonald Institute Eugenics Reference Library) suggests that TB is genetically inherited.2(footnote) But this is inaccurate. TB results from an infection whose risk is a function of the degree of exposure.
  2. In another book, called Eugenics, from the Macdonald Institute eugenics library, the author Irving Fisher uses dehumanizing language to refer to a person with “Cretinism” as “a kind of idiot”, and “loathsome objects.”.3(footnote) “Cretinism”, now known as Congenital Iodine Deficiency Syndrome, is not a genetic disorder but the result of severe iodine deficiency in the thyroid hormones. The thyroid enlargement is known as “goiter.”
  3. Pernicious anaemia (PA), first described in 1855, is now commonly known as Vitamin B12 Deficiency Anemia. Many cases are simply due to not enough B12 in the diet.4(footnote)

Champions of the pseudo-sciences of eugenics and euthenics connected their theories directly to policies that advanced  settler colonial race betterment. But, in practice, euthenics and eugenics were sometimes at odds. This is evident in the same 1925-26 “Biol.11-Biology” exam.

Question #5 asks students to “Show how Medicine and Surgery, Public Hygiene and Sanitation, Charity, Education, and other applications of worthy humane and social sentiments may not necessarily work towards Eugenic progress, and may often in fact tend to produce race deterioration in man.”

Eugenicists, on the one hand, believed that biology was the key to human success. Euthenicists, on the other hand, advocated for human improvement through traits acquired from within one’s environment, education, and training. For example, the Indian Residential School system (in effect until 1996) exemplifies this euthenics approach. It forcibly transferred thousands of children away from their communities and into church-run institutions where they could be conditioned in white settler ways. Other policies of forced removal include what is now referred to as the “60s Scoop,” a term that removes the ongoing violence of the process. This euthenic “betterment” practice not only traumatized children, parents, and communities in Canada and elsewhere, it also contributed to cultural genocide against First Nations Peoples.

At Macdonald Institute, professors taught students about child welfare systems and institutions in the courses called Mothercraft and Child Development. Mothercraft describes the skill and knowledge in looking after children. Courses emphasized the environment, including mental, moral, social, and physical hygiene. Methods promoted by professors to “improve” people included education, habit training and formation punishment, and prevention.

The highlighted Mothercraft exam question from 1934-35 asks about the accomplishments of leaders in child welfare.5(footnote)

Dr. Frederick Tisdall joined the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto in 1921. By 1929, he became director of the Nutritional Research Laboratories. He co-invented Pablum baby cereal in 1930 and was a prominent guest speaker at the Ontario Agricultural College in 1938.6(footnote) Tisdall later led nutrition experiments that caused egregious harm to institutionalized First Nations children between 1942 and 1952.7(footnote)

Dr. MacMurchy was a leading eugenicist who guest taught at Macdonald Institute. Her views helped to shape the curriculum in home economics as she delivered guest lectures at Macdonald institute on more than one occasion.8(footnote) She served as Ontario’s “Inspector of the Feeble-minded” from 1906 to 1919. In her 1911 report on feeble-mindedness for the Ontario Government, she wrote a section titled “The Evil to Come.” In that section, MacMurchy equated feeble-mindedness to criminality:

“The Child that never should have been born is a witness against us. The mother unable to protect herself claims our protection, and so long as we refuse it, so long will she bring evil upon us and upon our country. The generation yet unborn has a right to ask of us that we transmit to them their Canadian birthright at least as good, in respect to the character of our citizens, as we found it, and therefore we must not permit the Feeble-Minded to be mothers of the next generation.”9(footnote)

Dr. MacMurchy was a strong proponent of the sterilization of the feeble-minded. She later worked as Chief of the Division of Maternal and Child Welfare for the federal government from 1920 to 1934.10(footnote)

Judge Hawley Mott worked with the Canadian Committee for Mental Hygiene to arrange a psychiatric court clinic for the psychological study of juvenile deviance. Dr. William Blatz was a child psychologist who also studied juvenile deviance.

Footnotes

  1. RE1 MAC A0004 Box 2, Folder 1925-1926. Courtesy of University of Guelph McLaughlin Library Archives & Special Collections. ↩

  2. Vincent Jackson, Problems in Human Heredity, (Winnipeg: Jackson, 1937), 24, located in Macdonald Institute Eugenics Reference Library. Courtesy of University of Guelph McLaughlin Library Archives & Special Collections. ↩

  3. Irving Fisher, Eugenics (Battle Creek, MI: Good Health Publishing Co., 1913), 14-15. Courtesy of University of Guelph McLaughlin Library Archives & Special Collections ↩

  4. RE1 MAC A0004 Box 2, Folder 1925-1926. Courtesy of University of Guelph McLaughlin Library Archives & Special Collections. ↩

  5. M.C. 1,21,31,41 – Mothercraft, Final Examination, 1934-1935 RE1MACA0004 Box 3, Folder 1934-1935. Courtesy of University of Guelph McLaughlin Library Archives & Special Collections. ↩

  6. Dr. Tisdall was listed as a Prominent Guest Speaker in 1939 and his work with Foods and Nutrition in 1940, see “OAC Annual Reports to the President”RE1 OAC A0090, Box 4, p.9. ↩

  7. Noni E MacDonald, Richard Stanwick, and Andrew Lynk, “Canada’s Shameful History of Nutrition Research on Residential School Children: The Need for Strong Medical Ethics in Aboriginal Health Research,” Paediatrics & Child Health 19, no. 2 (February 2014): 64–64, (Source). ↩

  8. Dr. Helen MacMurchey was a repeat guest speaker at Macdonald Institute’s annual Girls’ Conferences held in association with the Women’s Institutes. See RE1 OAC A0090 “OAC Annual Reports to the President.” ↩

  9. Helen MacMurchy, “Report upon the Care of the Feeble-Minded in Ontario” (The Legislative Assembly of Toronto, 1906, 1911), 14-15), Internet Archive, (Source). ↩

  10. Angus McLaren, Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885-1945 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990), 30-31, 44-45, (Source). ↩