Mansell D, Hibberd J
University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Int Hist Nurs J. 1998 Summer;3(4):4-11.
The opening decades of the twentieth century were years in which the Canadian government actively recruited immigrants from the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States to assist in the settlement of western Canada. The immigration waves that followed contained large numbers of non-English speaking people of eastern European heritage. As these numbers increased, the white Anglo-Saxon minority feared a "multiplication of the inferior". Alberta's solution was the passage of the Sterilization Act in 1928 and the creation of the Eugenics Board. The Act remained law until 1972 and its repercussions are facing Alberta courts today. The Act was supported by many prominent first-wave feminists such as Nellie McClung and Emily Murphy. Nurses too supported the Act and the philosophical ideology on which the need for sterilization was based- "an available means for racial improvement." The role nurses played in promoting eugenics in Alberta through referrals to the Eugenics Board and the promotion of birth control material will be explored in the presentation. Contributions made by public health nurses will be included since much of their work was devoted to the socialization of new immigrants to Canada. Class, gender and ethnicity are central themes to this discussion because the majority of individuals who were sterilized were unemployed, female immigrants from eastern Europe. These two decades represent a time in nursing history when the nurse's duty to care was complicated by the attitudes and values of the society in which she existed. Primary sources used include the personal collection of one of Alberta's early birth control nurses, Canadian Journal of Public Health, Canadian Nurse, and Alberta newspapers.
二十世纪初的几十年里，加拿大政府积极从英国、欧洲和美国招募移民，以协助加拿大西部的定居。随后的移民潮中有大量来自东欧的非英语裔人群。随着这些人数的增加，盎格鲁-撒克逊白人少数群体担心“劣等人的繁衍”。艾伯塔省的解决办法是在1928年通过《绝育法案》并设立优生学委员会。该法案一直是法律，直到1972年，其影响至今仍在艾伯塔省的法庭上显现。该法案得到了许多著名的第一波女权主义者的支持，如内莉·麦克朗和艾米丽·墨菲。护士们也支持该法案以及绝育必要性所基于的哲学理念——“一种改善种族的可行手段”。在本次演讲中，将探讨护士通过向优生学委员会推荐以及推广节育材料在艾伯塔省推动优生学方面所扮演的角色。公共卫生护士的贡献也将被纳入，因为他们的许多工作致力于使新移民融入加拿大社会。阶级、性别和种族是本次讨论的核心主题，因为大多数被绝育的人是失业的、来自东欧的女性移民。这二十年代表了护理史上的一个时期，在这个时期，护士的护理职责因她所处社会的态度和价值观而变得复杂。所使用的主要资料来源包括艾伯塔省早期节育护士之一的个人收藏、《加拿大公共卫生杂志》、《加拿大护士》以及艾伯塔省的报纸。
