Under the president's gaze: Sexuality and morality at a Canadian University during the Second World War

Canadian Historical Review

Volumn 82, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 36-54

  Gidney, Catherine ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34247747675     PISSN: 00083755     EISSN: 17101093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/CHR.82.1.36     Document Type: Review

References (107)

1. Neither the name of the student nor the identity of the university bears on the arguments I make in this article. For that reason, and to protect the anonymity of the student involved, I have chosen to disguise both. The two letters from the student that I am referring to or quoting from, along with the correspondence between Blair and the university president, are preserved in the university's archives.
2. Blair was the director of the Immigration Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources. In the 1930s, restrictions on immigration to Canada were so extensive that a separate Department of Immigration was deemed unnecessary. See Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948 (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys 1983), 5-7.
3. See, for example, Michael Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century: College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991);
4. A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario, 1791-1951 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1994);
5. Marguerite Van Die, An Evangelical Mind: Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada, 1839-1919 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1989).
6. One exception is Paul Axelrod, Making a Middle Class: Student Life in English Canada during the Thirties (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1990).
7. See, for example, Cynthia R. Comacchio, 'Nations Are Built of Babies': Saving Ontario's Mothers and Children, 1900-1940 (Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press 1993);
8. Karen Dubinsky, Improper Advances: Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880-1929 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1993);
9. Mary Louise Adams, The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of Heterosexuality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1997);
10. Mona Gleason, Normalizing the Ideal: Psychology, Schooling and the Family in Postwar Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1999).
11. Mariana Valverde connects religion and moral regulation to a greater extent in The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885-1925 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1991).
12. See Alyson King, 'Literature, Debates and Frolics: Women Students' Culture at McMaster University, 1900-1930,' paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, June 1997;
13. Beth L. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press 1988), 3, 13, 80;
14. Jonathan Ned Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality (New York: Dutton Books 1995), 61, 83. Katz argues that the terms 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual' were invented in the late nineteenth century and mark the public legitimation of a different-sex eroticism disconnected from reproduction. See especially pages 28, 181.
15. See Annalee Golz, 'Family Matters: The Canadian Family and the State in the Postwar Period,' Left History 1, 2 (1993): 9, 13;
16. Ruth Roach Pierson, 'They're Still Women After All': The Second World War and Canadian Womanhood (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1986), 20;
17. Christabelle Sethna, 'Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: Absent Fathers, Working Mothers and Delinquent Daughters in Ontario during World War Two,' in Lori Chambers and Edgar-André Montigny, eds., Family Matters: Papers in Post-Confederation Canadian Family History (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press 1998), 22;
18. John Costello, Virtue under Fire: How World War Two Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (Boston: Little, Brown 1985), 258;
19. Mona Gleason, 'Psychology and the Construction of the "Normal" Family in Postwar Canada, 1945-60,' Canadian Historical Review 78, 3 (1997): 442-443
20. This argument follows Valverde, Age of Light, Soap, and Water, 24, who has suggested that moral regulation involved as much the preservation of a certain type of personality as a system of punishment or repression.
21. 'President Stresses Need for Balanced Outlook,' Varsity, 25 Sept. 1941, 7;
22. 'Klinck Urges Students Curtail Frosh Rites,' Ubyssey, 24 Sept. 1940, 1
23. Frederick G. Gibson, 'To Serve and Yet Be Free': Queen's University, 1917-1961 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1983), 181
24. Nancy Kiefer and Ruth Roach Pierson, 'The War Effort and Women Students at the University of Toronto, 1939-1945,' in Paul Axelrod and John G. Reid, eds., Youth, University and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1989), 162
25. Gibson, 'To Serve and Yet Be Free,' 185
26. 'Delta Gamma,' Dalhousie Alumni News, April 1943, 18;
27. Report of Dean of Women in the Annual Report of the President of the University of British Columbia, 1941-2, 40;
28. Kiefer and Pierson, 'The War Effort and Women Students,' 162, 164, 175-6.
29. For Ontario universities more generally, see McKillop, Matters of Mind, 523-526
30. Kiefer and Pierson, 'The War Effort and Women Students,' 162
31. University of British Columbia Archives, Klinck Papers, box 1, file 2, Address to Freshmen Students during Newcomers' Organizational Period, 18 Sept. 1942. In 1942 students who failed a course were reported to the government and subject to the draft. By 1943 those placing in the bottom half of their class faced conscription. See McKillop, Matters of Mind, 535-536
32. Kiefer and Pierson, 'The War Effort and Women Students,' 162
33. Kiefer and Pierson, 'The War Effort and Women Students,' Ibid., 168, 171-172
34. Adelaide M. Plumptre, Varsity, 15 Oct. 1941, 2,
35. quoted in Kiefer and Pierson, 'The War Effort and Women Students,' 170
36. Abella and Troper, None Is Too Many, 7-9
37. Barbara Roberts, Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada 1900-1935 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press 1988), 3
38. Abella and Troper, None Is Too Many, 7-9
39. United Church of Canada/Victoria University Archives (UCA/VUA), Records of the President's Office, 89.130v, box 71-9, Residence Regulations 1945-6; University of King's College Archives, E.1.1.4, University of King's College Students' Handbook, 1940
40. UCA/VUA, Burwash Hall and Men's Residence Committee, 87.195v, box 1-5, Burwash Hall, 1935; ibid., box 1-1, Victoria University Men's Residences, 1946-7; University of King's College Archives, Calendars 1930-1, 1939-40. Such moral requirements remained in effect well into the twentieth century. See Dalhousie University Archives, MS-1-3, A226, Dalhousie President's Office, Buildings - Men's Residence (Howe Hall), Dalhousie Men's Residence Handbook, c. 1959
41. Axelrod, Making a Middle Class, 113
42. Axelrod, Making a Middle Class, Ibid., 116
43. Samuel Leonard Simpson, 'The Social Sciences Club - A Study in Sex and Censorship,' in Philip A. Krigg et al., The Way We Were: Anecdote - Antic - Absurdity at the UBC (Vancouver: UBC Alumni Association 1987), 36
44. Axelrod, Making a Middle Class, 115
45. Axelrod, Making a Middle Class, Ibid., 137
46. Administrators were also motivated by fears that funding would be cut. See, for example, Michiel Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1999), 66.
47. Catherine Gidney, 'Poisoning the Student Mind? The Student Christian Movement at the University of Toronto, 1920-1965,' Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, new series, 8 (1997): 150;
48. S.R. Hewitt, 'Spying 101: The RCMP's Secret Activities at the University of Saskatchewan, 1920-1971,' Saskatchewan History (fall 1995): 24
49. UCA/VUA, SCM, box 84-53, file First Hazen Conference 1941, 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' Account of First Canadian Hazen Conference, Chaffey's Locks, Ontario, June 23-29, 1941. The Edward W. Hazen Foundation was an American institution that commissioned leading scholars to write about religion in higher education and sponsored faculty conferences on the same topic. While these conferences had been going on periodically since 1929 in the United States, the first Canadian conference occurred in 1941. See Douglas Sloan, Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American Higher Education (Louisville, Ky: Westminister John Knox Press 1994), 36.
50. UCA/VUA, SCM, box 84-53, file First Hazen Conference 1941, 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' 9-14
51. 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' Ibid., 9
52. 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' Ibid., 9
53. Editorial, 'The Spirit is Essential,' United Church Observer, 15 Feb. 1943, 4;
54. Editorial, 'Christian Family Week,' United Church Observer, ibid., 1 May 1944, 4;
55. Mrs Hugh MacMillan, 'Reconstructing Family Life,' United Church Observer, ibid., 15
56. Canadian Youth Commission, Youth Speaks Out on Citizenship (Toronto: Ryerson Press 1948), 53.
57. Several of the educators involved in the Hazen report participated in the Canadian Youth Commission. For example, Martyn Estall, S.R. Laycock, Gregory Vlastos, and R.G. Riddell were all members of the citizenship committee, while S.N.F. Chant and N.A.M. Mackenzie were members of the broader Canadian Youth Commission. See Youth Speaks Out on Citizenship (ibid., iv-v.
58. Youth Speaks Out on Citizenship (Ibid., 104-105
59. UCA/VUA, SCM, box 84-53, file First Hazen Conference 1941, 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' 10
60. 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' Ibid., 8
61. For this interpretation of Freud, see Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality, 73-74
62. UCA/VUA, SCM, box 84-53, file First Hazen Conference 1941, 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' 10
63. For this reference to Laycock, see Gleason, 'Psychology and the Construction of the "Normal" Family in Postwar Canada, 1945-1960,' 444-445
64. Gleason, 'Psychology and the Construction of the "Normal" Family in Postwar Canada, 1945-1960,' Ibid., 443
65. Gleason, 'Psychology and the Construction of the "Normal" Family in Postwar Canada, 1945-1960,' Ibid., 453.
66. Mary Louise Adams, in The Trouble with Normal, 168, traces similar connections between the family and national stability.
67. Adams, The Trouble with Normal, 166-167
68. See McKillop, Matters of Mind;
69. Marlene Shore, The Science of Social Redemption: McGill, the Chicago School, and the Origins of Social Research in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1987);
70. Doug Owram, The Government Generation: Canadian Intellectuals and the State, 1900-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1986).
71. This division has been found for other contexts. Mariana Valverde has found that, in examining juvenile delinquency, some members of the Toronto Welfare Council committee continued to use traditional moral language while others used psychiatric language. All members, however, were concerned about familial instability and social disorder. See Valverde, 'Building Anti-Delinquent Communities: Morality, Gender, and Generation in the City,' in Joy Parr, ed., A Diversity of Women: Ontario, 1945-1980 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1995), 31.
72. Similarly, Sethna, in 'Wait Till Your Father Gets Home,' 19-37, has found that social hygienists were more concerned with public morality than public health in creating sex education courses.
73. UCA/VUA, SCM, box 84-53, file, First Hazen Conference 1941, 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' 9
74. 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' Ibid., 10-13
75. 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' Ibid., 14
76. 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' Ibid., 9
77. 'The Influence of the University in Canada on the Life of the Student,' Ibid., 12
78. Patricia Jasen, 'The English Canadian Liberal Arts Curriculum: An Intellectual History, 1880-1950' (PhD dissertation, University of Manitoba 1987), 203
79. For the social gospel, see Richard Allen, The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914-1928 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1971).
80. For idealism and the rise of the social sciences, see A.B. McKillop, A Disciplined Intelligence: Critical Inquiry and Canadian Thought in the Victorian Era (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1979).
81. Heather Warren argues that the shift in American Protestant thought from the language of character to that of personality occurred in the late 1930s and early 1940s as Christians attempted to come to terms with psychoanalysis. See Heather A. Warren, 'The Shift from Character to Personality in Mainline Protestant Thought, 1935-1945,' Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 67, 3 (1998): 537.
82. William McGuire King, 'An Enthusiasm for Humanity: The Social Emphasis in Religion and Its Accommodation in Protestant Theology,' in Michael J. Lacey, ed., Religion and Twentieth-Century American Intellectual Life (Cambridge: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Cambridge University Press 1989), 53
83. Robert Falconer, 'The Place of the University in National Life,' University of Toronto Quarterly 4, 3 (1934-1935).
84. See also Gibson, 'To Serve and Yet Be Free': Queen's University, 1917-1961, 202.
85. 'President Stresses Need for Balanced Outlook,' Varsity, 25 Sept 1941, 1
86. Falconer, 'The Place of the University in National Life.'
87. For the link between Christianity and democracy, see also Dr Thomas Greenwood, 'Why Britain Shall Win the War,' Kings' College Record, Nov. 1940, 6;
88. Gibson, 'To Serve and Yet Be Free': Queen's University, 1917-1961, 202.
89. Annual Report of the President of the University of Toronto, 1941-2, 17
90. UCA/VUA, Records of the President's Office, 89.130v, box 37-114, Baccalaureate Service by Walter T. Brown, Principal Victoria College, 19 April 1942
91. Ibid., Baccalaureate Service 1945, no author
92. Principal J.G. Brown, Union College, 'The Church's Present Educational Policy,' United Church Observer, 15 Aug. 1942, 16
93. Editorial, 'Education,' United Church Observer, ibid., 1 Nov. 1942, 4;
94. George E. Levy, 'Democracy and Religion,' United Church Observer, ibid., 15 July 1942, 15;
95. Editorial, 'Education for Life,' United Church Observer, ibid., 1 Nov. 1944, 4.
96. For the postwar period, see Canadian Youth Commission, Youth Speaks Out on Citizenship.
97. Ruth Brownbridge, 'Building Today for a Christian World,' United Church Observer, 1 Jan. 1945, 10
98. David B. Roe, King's College Record, Encaenia 1946, 22
99. 'The President Looks at the University,' University of British Columbia Graduate Chronicle, Jan. 1945.
100. For a similar comment in the Christian press, see 'Christian Family Week,' United Church Observer, 15 April 1942, 5.
101. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat, 26
102. George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (New York: Basic Books 1994), 14, 145-146
103. Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality, 20-22
104. Chauncey, Gay New York, 122-123
105. Gary Kinsman, The Regulation of Desire: Sexuality in Canada (Montreal and New York: Black Rose Books 1987), 115
106. Gary Kinsman, The Regulation of Desire: Sexuality in Canada Ibid., 15
107. Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water, 33