Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics Historical Studies of Alberta and Beyond

From 1928 to 1972, the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act, Canada’s lengthiest eugenic policy, shaped social discourses and medical practice in the province. Sterilization programs—particularly involuntary sterilization programs—were responding both nationally and internationally to social anxieties produced by the perceived connection between mental degeneration and heredity. Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics illustrates how the emerging field of psychiatry and its concerns about inheritable conditions was heavily influenced by eugenic thought and contributed to the longevity of sterilization practices in Western Canada.

Using institutional case studies, biographical accounts, and media developments from Western Canada and Europe, contributors trace the impact of eugenics on nursing practices, politics, and social attitudes, while investigating the ways in which eugenics discourses persisted unexpectedly and remained mostly unexamined in psychiatric practice. This volume further extends historical analysis into considerations of contemporary policy and human rights issues through a discussion of disability studies as well as compensation claims for victims of sterilization. In impressive detail, contributors shed new light on the medical and political influences of eugenics on psychiatry at a key moment in the field’s development.

With contributions by Ashley Barlow, W. Mikkel Dack, Diana Mansell, Guel A. Russell, Celeste Tuong Vy Sharpe, Henderikus J. Stam, Douglas Wahlsten, Paul J. Weindling, Robert A. Wilson, Gregor Wolbring, and Marc Workman.

About the Editors

Frank W. Stahnisch holds the Alberta Medical Foundation/Hannah Professorship in the History of Medicine and Health Care at the University of Calgary where he also chairs the History of Medicine and Health Care program. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences and the author of A New Field in Mind – A History of Interdisciplinarity in the Early Brain Sciences (2019).

Erna Kurbegović received her PhD in history at the University of Calgary. Her research looks at the early history of forced sterilizations and eugenics discourses in Western Canada.

Reviews

A bold anthology that offers a historical overview of the Western Canadian uptake of the eugenics movement while pinpointing key legacies and learning opportunities linked to current discourses on mental health.

—Kylie Nicolajsen, Canada’s History

Table of Contents

1. Foreword / Guel A. Russell
2. Acknowledgements
3. Prologue: Eugenics and Its Study / Robert A. Wilson
4. List of Illustrations
5. Introduction
6. 1. John M. MacEachran and Eugenics in Alberta: Victorian Sensibilities, Idealist Philosophy, and Detached Efficiency / Henderikus J. Stam and Ashley Barlow
7. 2. The Consequences of Eugenic Sterilization in Alberta / Douglas Wahlsten
8. 3. The Involvement of Nurses in the Eugenics Program in Alberta, 1920–1940 / Diana Mansell
9. 4. The Alberta Eugenics Movement and the 1937 Amendment to the Sexual Sterilization Act / Mikkel Dack
10. 5. Eugenics in Manitoba and the Sterilization Controversy of 1933 / Erna Kurbegović
11. 6. “New Fashioned with Respect to the Human Race”: American Eugenics in the Media at the Turn of the Twentieth Century / Celeste Tường Vy Sharpe
12. 7. The “Eugenics Paradox”: Core Beliefs of Progressivism versus Relics of Medical Traditionalism—The Example of Kurt Goldstein / Frank W. Stahnisch
13. 8. Too Little, Too Late: Compensation for Victims of Coerced Sterilization / Paul J. Weindling
14. 9. Commentary One / Marc Workman
15. 10. Commentary Two / Gregor Wolbring
16. Conclusion: Lessons from the History of Eugenics
17. Appendix / Notes / Bibliography / Contributors / Index

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