Eugenics and Migration: A Case Study of Salvation Army Literature about Canada and Britain, c.1890–1921

Baker, Graham

doi:10.3138/cbmh.31.1.77

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, correspondence from a Waifs and Strays receiving home in Canada dated 1911 referred to ‘a boy … who has been in Canada nearly 8 years – emigrated from Lambeth workhouse – is said to be deficient and the Canadian authorities wish to send him back’. 7 In the early 1900s, as eugenic ideas and fears regarding the genetic threat of feeble-mindedness became more prevalent, perceptions of defect and disability influenced the decision-making process, specifically in relation to which children/young people should be allowed to stay or should be sent back (Baker, 2014; Baynton, 2016).…”

Section: ‘It Would Be a Good Opening For Him’ And ‘One Of The Finest Party Of Lads That Has Come To The City’mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘A troublesome girl is pushed through’: Morality, biological determinism, resistance, resilience, and the Canadian child migration schemes, 1883–1939

Sims‐Schouten

2021

History of the Human Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article critically analyses correspondence and decisions regarding children/young people who were included in the Canadian child migration schemes that ran between 1883 and 1939, and those who were deemed ‘undeserving’ and outside the scope of the schemes. Drawing on critical realist ontology, a metatheory that centralises the causal non-linear dynamics and generative mechanisms in the individual, the cultural sphere, and wider society, the research starts from the premise that the principle of ‘less or more eligibility’ lies at the heart of the British welfare system, both now and historically. Through analysing case files and correspondence relating to children sent to Canada via the Waifs and Strays Society and Fegan Homes, I shed light on the complex interplay between morality, biological determinism, resistance, and resilience in decisions around which children should be included or excluded. I argue that it was the complex interplay and nuance between the moral/immoral, desirable/undesirable, degenerate, and capable/incapable child that guided practice with vulnerable children in the late 1800s. In judgements around ‘deservedness’, related stigmas around poverty and ‘bad’ behaviour were rife. Within this, the child was punished for his/her ‘immoral tendencies’ and ‘inherited traits’, with little regard for the underlying reasons (e.g. abuse and neglect) for their (abnormal) behaviour and ‘mental deficiencies’.

show abstract

Section: ‘It Would Be a Good Opening For Him’ And ‘One Of The Finest Party Of Lads That Has Come To The City’mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘A troublesome girl is pushed through’: Morality, biological determinism, resistance, resilience, and the Canadian child migration schemes, 1883–1939

Sims‐Schouten

2021

History of the Human Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…5. Despite the linguistic similarities, there is no evidence of a direct connection between eugenics and the Saunders' plant breading work. For a discussion of the Canadian eugenics movement, see Baker (2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Grasses tame and wild: Imperial entanglements in settler colonial cereal breeding and botany

Anderson¹

2018

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article argues that imperial and local state-supported science played a key role in the discursive and material changes – including political, economic, and ecological – in Canadian settler colonialism. I advance this argument through two case studies from Canada's Experimental Farm Service: the breeding of Marquis wheat and attempts to domesticate wild rice as ornamental feed for game birds. Marquis wheat has been celebrated for its role in expanding the wheat growing regions of Canada's Prairies, whereas wild rice's role was transferred from food to ornamental. The movements of these plants through the scientific milieu of the Experimental Farm Service demonstrate how the state used science to lift up settler communities while holding down Indigenous communities.

show abstract

Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences, 2014

2014

Isis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The University of Chicago Press andThe History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis.

show abstract

Eugenics and Migration: A Case Study of Salvation Army Literature about Canada and Britain, c.1890–1921

Cited by 5 publications

References 20 publications

‘A troublesome girl is pushed through’: Morality, biological determinism, resistance, resilience, and the Canadian child migration schemes, 1883–1939

‘A troublesome girl is pushed through’: Morality, biological determinism, resistance, resilience, and the Canadian child migration schemes, 1883–1939

Grasses tame and wild: Imperial entanglements in settler colonial cereal breeding and botany

Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences, 2014

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About