Eugenics in the Community: Gendered Professions and Eugenic Sterilization in Alberta, 1928–1972

2014/04/01 by Amy Samson · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Medical History and Research #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes #Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices

paper · pdf · doi:10.3138/cbmh.31.1.143

openalex publication_date 2014/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/05

Abstract

Scholarship on Alberta's Sexual Sterilization Act (1928-1972) has focused on the high-level politics behind the legislation, its main administrative body, the Eugenics Board, and its legal legacy, overlooking the largely female-dominated professions that were responsible for operating the program outside of the provincial mental health institutions. This paper investigates the relationship between eugenics and the professions of teaching, public health nursing, and social work. It argues that the Canadian mental hygiene and eugenics movements, which were fundamentally connected, provided these professions with an opportunity to maintain and extend their professional authority.

Citations

• Sterilizing the “Feeble‐minded”: Eugenics in Alberta, Canada, 1929–1972

Cited by

• Margaret W. Thompson [wikipedia]

Related

• Sterilized by the State
• Eugenics and Healthy Families. Interdependence and Legitimation
• Abnormal in Alberta: The Genealogy of “Severely Normal” as a Biopolitical Dog Whistle
• “Mere guesswork”: Clarifying the role of intelligence, mentality, and psychometric testing in the diagnosis of “mental defectives” for sterilization in Alberta from 1929 to 1972.
• Eugenics and sexology