'A postscript for father': Defining a new fatherhood in interwar Canada

Canadian Historical Review

Volumn 78, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 385-408

  Comacchio, Cynthia ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0009317434     PISSN: 00083755     EISSN: 17101093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/CHR.78.3.385     Document Type: Review

References (132)

1. 'But What of the Fathers?' Family Herald, 9 July 1919, 4;
2. M.C. Ringland, 'What about Father?' Maclean's, 1 Aug. 1928, 16
3. On the postwar celebration of maternalism, see V. Strong-Boag, The New Day Recalled: Lives of Girls and Women in English Canada, 1919-1939 (Markham: Penguin 1988), esp. chap. 5.
4. Recent examples of the historiography on maternalism include S. Koven and S. Michel, eds., Mothers of the New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (New York: Routledge 1993);
5. S. Pedersen, Family, Dependency, and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914-45 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993);
6. M. Ladd-Taylor, Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare and the State (Urbana, Ill: University of Illinois Press 1993);
7. C.R. Comacchio, Nations Are Built of Babies: Saving Ontario's Mothers and Children (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1993);
8. K. Arnup, Education for Motherhood: Advice for Mothers in Twentieth-Century Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1994).
9. L. McKee and M. O'Brien, 'The Father Figure: Some Current Orientations and Historical Perspectives,' in McKee and O'Brien, eds., The Father Figure (London: Tavistock 1982), 20-2;
10. also M. Barrett, Women's Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis (London: Verso 1988), 16.
11. The Canadian historiography specifically on fatherhood is scant, especially for the early twentieth century: see R. Rutherdale, 'Fatherhood and the Social Construction of Memory: Breadwinning and Male Parenting on a Job Frontier, 1945-1966,' in J. Parr and M. Rosenfeld, eds., Gender and History in Canada (Toronto: Copp Clark 1996);
12. for the nineteenth century, see E.J. Errington, Wives and Mothers, School Mistresses and Scullery Maids: Working Women in Upper Canada (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1995), 73-6.
13. On Western Europe and North America, see J. Demos, 'The Changing Faces of Fatherhood,' in Demos, Past, Present and Personal: The Family and the Life Course in American History (New York: Oxford University Press 1986);
14. Y. Knibiehler, Les pères aussi ont une histoire (Paris: Mesnil-sur-l'Estrée 1987);
15. J. Delumeau and D. Roche, Histoires des pères et de la paternité (Paris: Larousse 1990);
16. the essays in F.W. Bozett and S.M. Hanson, eds., Fatherhood and Families in Cultural Context (Beverley Hills, Calif: Sage 1985);
17. J. Modell, G. Elder, and R. Parke, eds., Children in Time and Place: A Developmental and Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993);
18. and the comprehensive overview by R. Griswold, Fatherhood in America: A History (New York: Basic Books 1993).
19. J. Ursel, Private Lives, Public Policy: 100 Years of State Intervention in the Family (Toronto: Women's Press 1992), 102, 105, 144-5;
20. C. Backhouse, Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada (Toronto: Women's Press 1991), esp. chap. 7
21. F. Edwards, 'An Old-Fashioned Father,' Maclean's, 1 March 1934, 22;
22. 'Father Doesn't Count!' Canadian Congress Journal 10, 11 (1931): 39
23. Griswold, Fatherhood in America, 119
24. S. Pines, 'We Want Perfect Parents,' Chatelaine, Sept. 1928, 31;
25. Dr W.S. Hall, 'The Family and Family Life,' Canadian Mentor 7, 4 (1925): 5. Canadian Mentor was 'a magazine of Christian leadership' aimed at groups such as the ym/ywca, Tuxis, and Boy Scouts.
26. J.N. Barss, 'The Treatment of the Delinquent as Social Service,' Social Welfare 2, 7 (1920): 190,
27. and Social Welfare 2, 8 (1920): 212;
28. Ontario, Sessional Papers, 1924, '56th Annual Report upon the Gaols and District Lock-ups of Ontario';
29. Report of the Royal Commission to Investigate the Penal System of Canada (Ottawa: King's Printer 1938), 176.
30. On the hereditarian arguments, see A. McLaren, Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885-1945 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1990), 94, 166-7;
31. and D. Chunn, From Punishment to Doing Good: Family Courts and Socialized Justice in Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto 1994), esp. chap. 1.
32. W.E. Blatz and H.M. Bott, Parents and the Preschool Child (Toronto: J.M. Dent 1928), 212.
33. British oral histories suggest a range of disciplinary roles among fathers: see P. Johnson, The Edwardians: The Remaking of British Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1977);
34. also S. Humphries, Rebels or Hooligans: An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth (Oxford: Blackwell 1981).
35. For contemporary views on race suicide, see editorial, 'Birth Control,' Social Welfare 5, 12 (1923): 243-4;
36. Dr J.J. Heagerty, 'Birth Control,' Social Welfare ibid., 6, 3 (1924): 57;
37. Dr E.L. Chicanot, 'Canada's Falling Birth Rate,' Canadian Doctor 1, 2 (1935): 10;
38. also 'Does Canada Face Birth Subsidization?' Canadian Doctor ibid., 2, 11 (1936): 15.
39. See also A. McLaren and A.T. McLaren, The Bedroom and the State: The Changing Practices and Politics of Contraception and Abortion in Canada, 1880-1980 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1986). These issues are further discussed in Comacchio, Nations, esp. chap. 3.
40. R. Swan, from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, remembering the immediate postwar years, in D. Read, ed., The Great War and Canadian Society: An Oral History (Toronto: New Hogtown Press 1978), 202.
41. On the casualties of war, see J. Giles, Women, Identity and Private Life in Britain (London: Macmillan 1995), 52-4;
42. J. Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies and the Great War (London: Reaktion 1996).
43. A.M. Dymond, The Laws of Ontario Relating to Women and Children (Toronto: Clarkson W. James 1923), 39;
44. M. McPhedran, 'Domestic Relations and the Child,' Social Welfare 2, 1 (1919): 14-15;
45. P. Bryce, 'Family Desertion,' Social Welfare 4, 4 (1922): 82-3.
46. See also J. Snell, In the Shadow of the Law: Divorce in Canada, 1900-39 (Toronto: University of Toronto 1991), 42-3, 55-8; 144-6;
47. Chunn, From Punishment to Doing Good, 48;
48. and Strong-Boag, The New Day Recalled, 160.
49. While no Canadian study has yet uncovered the parameters of the working-class father role, the groundwork has been laid. See J. Parr, The Gender of Breadwinners: Women, Men and Change in Two Industrial Towns (Toronto: University of Toronto 1990);
50. D. Baillargeon, Ménagères au temps de la crise (Montreal: Remue-ménage 1991);
51. S. Morton, Ideal Surroundings: Domestic Life in a Working-Class Suburb in the 1920s (Toronto: University of Toronto 1995), esp. 68-74;
52. M. Rosenfeld, 'It Was a Hard Life: Class and Gender in the Work and Family Rhythms of a Railway Town,' in B. Bradbury, ed., Canadian Family History (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman 1992);
53. T. Dunk, It's a Working-Man's Town: Male Working Class Culture in Northwestern Ontario (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991);
54. J. Fingard, 'From Sea to Rail: Black Transportation Workers and Their Families,' Acadiensis 24, 2 (1995);
55. and on farm families, J. Taylor, Fashioning Farmers: Ideology, Agricultural Knowledge and the Manitoba Farm Movement (Regina: Canadian Center 1994);
56. also Rutherdale, 'Fatherhood,' in Parr and Rosenfeld, eds., Gender and History;
57. and Griswold, Fatherhood, 35-37
58. 'Would Bonus Every Birth,' Toronto Globe, 15 March 1921;
59. W. Tite, 'Married Women in Industry,' Canadian Congress Journal 3, 10 (1924): 40.
60. On the family wage, see B. Palmer and G. Kealey, Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labour in Ontario (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1982), 318;
61. J. Parr, The Gender of Breadwinners, 241-244
62. 'Changes in the Cost of Living in Canada from 1913 to 1937,' Labour Gazette, June 1937, 819-821
63. On gender and family in Quebec during these years, see A. Levesque, Making and Breaking the Rules: Women in Quebec, 1919-1939 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1994);
64. Baillargeon, Ménagères au temps de la crise.
65. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 31 March 1926, 2105-6. Agnes MacPhail and J.S. Woodsworth reinstigated the discussion in 1928 and 1929;
66. Debates, 6 Feb. 1928, 212;
67. For similar views, see 'What of Our Prison Widows?' Social Welfare, 11, 3 (1928): 52;
68. C.V. Pilcher, 'Our Federal Penitentiaries,' Social Welfare 14, 10 (1933): 190.
69. Dr H. MacMurchy, 'The Baby's Father,' Canadian Public Health Journal 9, 7 (1918): 3l8. MacMurchy delivered this speech at the inaugural meeting of the Child Welfare Section of the Canadian Public Health Association in 1918.
70. Dr P. Bryce, 'Two Problems in Child Welfare,' Social Welfare 3, 7 (1921): 188;
71. Dr E. Smith Shortt, 'Report on Mothers' Pensions,' 1914, Elizabeth Smith Shortt Papers, University of Waterloo, box 4, file 1847, 2-3.
72. Shortt was one of the first mothers' allowances commissioners in Ontario. For labour's views, see T. Moore, Preface, in M. Cohen, Mothers' Allowances in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan 1927), 8.
73. See also V. Strong-Boag, 'Wages for Housework,' Journal of Canadian Studies 14, 1 (1979);
74. J. Struthers, The Limits of Affluence: Social Welfare in Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1994), 19-49.
75. B. Broadfoot, Ten Lost Years: Memories of Canadians Who Survived the Depression (Toronto: Doubleday 1971), 70;
76. Baillargeon, Ménagères, 203.
77. See also R. Pierson, 'Gender and the Unemployment Insurance Debates in Canada,' Labour/Le Travail 25 (spring 1990).
78. National Archives of Canada (na), mg 28, i 10, Canadian Youth Congress, vol.3, file 599, 1942-1944. Interview, Mr A.K., Antigonish, ns, 1 Aug. 1944. These 'intensive interviews' were conducted by the cyc as part of a national survey on citizenship and youth services.
79. M.E. Anstey, 'If It Were Not for the Kiddies,' Social Welfare 14, 2 (1931): 26;
80. M. Emerson, 'Parent Education in a Family Casework Agency,' Child and Family Welfare, 10, 5 (1935): 46
81. Blatz and Bott, Parents and the Preschool Child, 224-5;
82. A. Rotundo, American Manhood (New York: Basic Books 1994), 167-9;
83. Stearns, 'Fatherhood in Historical Perspective,' 40-4;
84. Morton, Ideal Surroundings, 71-2;
85. Demos, 'Many Faces,' 52-4;
86. Rutherdale, 'Fatherhood and the Social Construction of Memory,' notes that 'time' was the most cited problem of fathers that he interviewed.
87. Council on Child and Family Welfare, 'Postnatal Letters,' no. 2, 3
88. H. Russell Ross, 'Juvenile Delinquency in Montreal' (ma thesis, McGill University 1932), 79
89. na, cyc Papers, interview, 'Hugh,' Halifax, Aug. 1944, 3
90. 'Letters from a Schoolmaster,' Maclean's, 15 April 1938, 43
91. T.E. Moore, president, Trades and Labour Congress, 'The New Morality,' Canadian Unionist, July 1929, 14;
92. MacMurchy, 'The Baby's Father,' 315-316
93. Dr H. MacMurchy, Mother (Ottawa: King's Printer 1928), 15-16, 38
94. Dr A. Brown, The Normal Child: Its Care and Feeding (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1923), 224
95. K. Gorrie, executive secretary, Protestant Children's Homes, Annual Report 1930, 3
96. Some examples of the reordering of Mother's Day include 'Baby's Day and Yours,' Canadian Congress Journal, 4, 8 (1925): 46;
97. B. France, 'Cultivating Habits,' National Home Monthly, Oct. 1934, 22;
98. Council on Child and Family Welfare, 'Postnatal Letters,' no. 7, 2-3;
99. 'Preschool Letters,' no. 10, 1-2;
100. and S.N. Pines, 'Irregularities of Babyhood,' Chatelaine, Feb. 1929;
101. on the unrecognized impact on mothers, see N. Weiss, 'The Mother-Child Dyad Revisited,' Journal of Social Issues 34, 2 (1978): 35.
102. Dr H. MacMurchy, How to Take Care of the Father and the Family (Ottawa: King's Printer 1923), 5-7
103. and 'A Hint to Mothers,' 3
104. 'Cries: Every Kind,' Canadian Congress Journal 4, 4 (1925): 51;
105. B. France, 'Why Baby Cries,' National Home Monthly, June 1936, 22;
106. Ontario Department of Health, The Baby (1933), 29,
107. The Baby (and (1940), 30
108. See, for example, Maclean's, Sept. 1939.
109. na, mg 28 i 10, vol.35, file 168, letters to the Canadian Welfare Council, from London, 21 Aug. 1933;
110. also vol. 35, file 168, letter from Rainy River, 1 April 1929
111. G. Irwin, Three Lives in Mine (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1986);
112. Irwin devotes an entire chapter to 'Father,' 17-50.
113. E.L. Groves, 'A Home Run,' in Groves, Everyday Children: A Book of Poems (Toronto: E.L. Groves Memorial Fund, 1932), 75-6;
114. see also 'A Hero Like His Dad,' 51,
115. and 'Waiting for Daddy,' 93.
116. Stearns, 'Fatherhood,' 44-47
117. D. Livesay, Journey with My Selves: A Memoir (Vancouver: Douglas & MacIntyre 1991), 15
118. H. Boyle, Homebrew and Patches (Toronto: Clarke Irwin 1963), 54, 64; Boyle grew up on a farm near Cargill, Ontario.
119. 'Big Brothers Movement,' Canadian Public Health Journal 47 (1922): 104.
120. University of British Columbia Archives, Journals of the Tuxis, 9th Annual Boys Parliament, Calgary, 1928, 5;
121. also 10th Annual Boys Parliament, Victoria, bc, 1929, Report of the Committee of Home Affairs, 24;
122. also pamphlet promoting 'Father and Son Week,' 3-10 February 1929;
123. on sex-role modelling, see J. Pleck, 'The Theory of Men's Sex Role Identity,' in M. Lewis, ed. In the Shadow of the Past: Psychology Views the Sexes (New York: Columbia University Press 1983), 206-207
124. Demos, 'Faces of Fatherhood,' 58;
125. on immigrant families, see L. Petroff, Sojourners and Settlers (Toronto: mhso 1995),
126. and Francis Swyripa, Wedded to the Cause: Ukrainian-Canadian Women and Ethnic Identity, 1891-1991 (Toronto: University of Toronto 1993).
127. H. Atkinson, 'Boys in Trouble,' Child and Family Welfare 7, 6 (1932): 2;
128. see also the contemporary sociological survey in Ross, 'Juvenile Delinquency in Montreal,' 1932, 34-35
129. Interview cited in C.M. Bayley, 'The Social Structure of the Italian and Ukrainian Immigrant Communities in Montreal, 1935-37' (ma thesis, McGill University 1939), 71;
130. The Social Structure of the Italian and Ukrainian Immigrant Communities in Montreal, 1935-37' 1939), ibid., case study 7, Miss E., 278. Bayley spent fifteen months living among Italians and seven months among Ukrainians in Montreal between 1935 and 1937 as a Research Fellow in Sociology at McGill, under the supervision of Carl Dawson. On generational conflict in immigrant families, see Swyripa, Wedded to the Cause, 90-95
131. P. Berton, The Dionne Years (Toronto: Penguin 1977), 205.
132. On the Dionnes, see M. Valverde, 'Families, Private Property and the State,' in Parr and Rosenfeld, eds., Gender and History in Canada.