Eugenics in North America

Question 1

How many states passed Eugenics Acts?

Answer 1

30

Question 2

Alberta sterilized___, but recommended sterilization of___.

Answer 2

• 2822

- 4000

Question 3

What did every province debate? Why?

Answer 3

• Sterilization act

- Population control

Question 4

___classification system.

Answer 4

Racialized

Question 5

Who was J.S. Woodsworth?

Answer 5

Leader of social gospel, first leader of the CCF.

-Classification of difference races: those we should encourage or discourage to come to Canada.

Question 6

What was J.S. Woodsworth;s book, Strangers Within our Gates (1909), about?

Answer 6

Desirable and undesirable races, population control

Question 7

How did J.S. Woodsworth view politics?

Answer 7

As a form of population control.

Question 8

How did J.S. Woodsworth characterize and classify immigration?

Answer 8

Based on race

Question 9

Woodsworth established ‘___’ versus ‘__’ based on nations of assimilability.

Answer 9

• desire-ables

- undesirables

Question 10

What did Tommy Douglas write his 1933 MA thesis, “The Problems of the Subnormal Family” on?

Answer 10

Compares two different groups of women in Weyburn:
Amoral- don’t know better, exploited feel minded
-Immoral- prostitution, choosing to behave badly
He believed that to deal with the subnormal family we must first determine the causes that have contributed to its present condition…1) the hereditary causes and 2) the environmental causes

Question 11

When was the United Farmers’ Association formed? What did it give rise to?

Answer 11

• 1920

- Women’s Association

Question 12

What were the United Farm Women of Alberta?

Answer 12

• Lobbied for women to vote
• Drafted Eugenics association
• Extending rights for particular women
• Maternal feminism should have some kind of political say: women who full citizens (not men) should decide who should be mothers.

Question 13

What did Irene Parlby, president of the United Farm Women of Alberta, believe?

Answer 13

“But civilized society having declared that the mentally unfit must be kept alive, given such training as they are capable of, having placed the growing burden on financing this care and training on the shoulders of the fit, then seems only reasonable that those who have to carry the added taxation to provide this care should be interested in learning all they can about it, and have a word to say as to how they wish the problem handled.
In short:
-wedge between those who are fit and unfit
-one you fall into degenerate group, you children will stay there
-eugenics applied across political spectrum–not just a fascist idea

Question 14

What did Parlay believe about family history?

Answer 14

“…family histories show use fairly conclusively the hereditary tendency of feeble-mindedness, and its close relationship with so many other social problems, such as alcoholism, prostitution, and crime of every kind.”

Question 15

What are the 3 remedies that Parlay proposed/

Answer 15

1. Regulation of marriage (have to go to doctor to get certificate)
2. Segregation of all mental defectives (in asylums and hospitals)
3. Sterilization (survival operations)

Question 16

What did theories about eugenics cross? Meaning?

Answer 16

• Theories about eugenics crossed ideological boundaries

- Applied by the ‘right’ and ‘left’ as a way of improving society.

Question 17

What threads fed into the eugenics ideas?

Answer 17

• fear of other races
• it is degenerating (was the fear)
• we need to stop it (society is getting worse)

Question 18

With eugenics in Canada, they tightened which laws and employed which types of professionals to do what?

Answer 18

• Tightened its immigration laws

- Employed psychiatrists to examine in-coming families

Question 19

What did the eugenics movement represent about health-related decisions?

Answer 19

Another examples whereby health-related decisions re governed by tensions between concern for the individual or for society.

Question 20

What broader social tensions did eugenics represent/

Answer 20

• nativism
• fear of ‘race degeneration’
• nationalism

Question 21

When did Alberta pass the sexual sterilization act?

Answer 21

In 1928 (lasted until 1972)

Question 22

Which was the only other Canadian province to pass a eugenics act?

Answer 22

British Columbia (1933-1973)

Question 23

What happened to the sterilization act in Saskatchewan?

Answer 23

It was passed in 1933, but the gov’t fell apart and the law never happened.

Question 24

Between 1929 and 1972, Alberta Eugenics Board authorized sterilization of___individuals in Alberta on grounds that they were___ ___.

Answer 24

• 2834
• Mentally
• Defective

Question 25

How long were people from institutions examined for when they went before the board?

Answer 25

7 minutes

Question 26

What was the average age of those who were sterilized/

Answer 26

14

Question 27

Under which government, and when, was the sexual sterilization act repealed?

Answer 27

• Loughheed Government

- 1972

Question 28

For how many years were people signing consent forms for sterilization?

Answer 28

first 8 years

Question 29

When did they change the law for sterilization requiring consent?

Answer 29

1937

Question 30

People with an IQ of below___were deemed unable to consent because they removed the need for the consent form in general.

Answer 30

70

Question 31

What were the united farm women of Alberta committed to and focused on?

Answer 31

Committed to building a better society and focus on motherhood and maternal feminism.

Question 32

In the mid-1870s, Canada’s early suffrage leaders formed what and lobbied for what?

Answer 32

Formed the Toronto Women’s Literary Club to lobby for the vote. They were referred to as “suffragettes”.

Question 33

Who did the Toronto Women’s Literary Club pul support together in?

Answer 33

Suffrage organizations that were concerned with improving society and promoting family and community health through legislated changed.

Question 34

Who did suffrage leaders in Canada take inspiration from?

Answer 34

From British activists who campaigns dated from the early 1860s.

Question 35

Who was one of the most famous cases in Canadian legal history brought by?

Answer 35

• Emily Murphy
• Nellie McClung
• Irene Parlby
• Henriette Muir Edwards
• Louise McKinny

Question 36

What was 1910s/20s feminision infused with ideas of?

Answer 36

Race, sexuality, motherhood, and purity that undermined efforts to produce a universal movement.

Question 37

How should we understand the feminist?

Answer 37

-Eugenics was a way to get birth control which was illegal until 1969.

Question 38

Which of the famous 5 were sterilized?

Answer 38

Violet McNaughton and Irene Parlby

Question 39

Why were the famous 5 sterilized?

Answer 39

• Control of one’s own body

- Reproductive health

Question 40

What did the Pope suggest about eugenics?

Answer 40

• Suggested sterilization as a birth control method was wrong
• Should not temper with women’s bodies unless they were feeble minded.

Question 41

In 1928 Alberta Legislation empower the Eugenics Board of Alberta to review patients before what? What did this lead to?

Answer 41

they were discharged from asylums or hospitals.

if they were deemed mentally ‘unfit’ or ‘defective’ could be sterilized

Question 42

Where were most who were sterilized live before sterilized and where most sterilization took place?

Answer 42

Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives, Red Deer, Alberta: Later named Michener Centre

Question 43

What was the most common reasons for sterilization (3 reasons)?

Answer 43

1) Low IQ
2) Mental deficiency
3) Feeble-mindedness

Question 44

Eugenics philosophies profoundly influenced attitudes towards what?

Answer 44

social differences and cultural developments in Western Canada

Question 45

Who wer etwa women who fought back against sterilization in the 1990s?

Answer 45

Leilani Muir (added up her IQ incorrectly) and Doreen Befus (advocate for disability rights).