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E-book
Author Comacchio, Cynthia R., 1957-

Title Nations are built of babies : saving Ontario's mothers and children, 1900-1940 / Cynthia R. Comacchio
Published Montreal, Qué. : McGill-Queen's University Press, ©1993

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Description 1 online resource (xv, 340 pages) : illustrations
Contents Contents -- Figures and Tables -- Preface -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Guarded Against Harmful Conditions: The Campaign's Setting -- 3 The Infant Soldier: Early Child Welfare Efforts -- 4 To Glorify, Dignify and Purify: Saving Mothers -- 5 We Want Perfect Parents: Mothers, Medicine, and the State -- 6 A Healthy Programme for Life: The Management of Childhood -- 7 By Every Means in Our Power: Child and Maternal Welfare Services -- 8 Ninety-Nine Percent Child Study Conscious: The Public Response -- 9 Despite the Best Efforts: The Campaign's Effects -- 10 Conclusion -- Appendix -- Notes -- Index
Summary "Nations Are Built of Babies" documents a national campaign by Ontario physicians to reduce infant and maternal mortality in the early twentieth century. Armed with a secure faith in science and aided by the increasingly important position of experts in Canadian society, the medical profession tackled the "national tragedy" of infant and maternal mortality by advocating "scientific motherhood." Canadian mothers were believed to be handicapped by an ignorance that could be remedied only through expert tutoring and supervision of child-rearing duties. Working within a Marxist-feminist framework, Cynthia Comacchio demonstrates that the campaign was part of a conscious plan to modernize Canadian families to meet the ideological imperatives of industrial capitalism. Doctors reasoned that if infants could be saved and their physical, mental, and moral health regulated, the benefits in socio-economic terms would more than offset any individual or state investment
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-334) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Preventive health services for children -- Ontario -- History
Infants -- Health and hygiene -- Ontario -- History
Infants -- Mortality -- Ontario -- History
Maternal health services -- Ontario -- History
Infant Welfare -- history
Child Health Services -- history
Child Rearing -- history
Health Policy -- history
HEALTH & FITNESS -- Children's Health.
HISTORY -- Canada -- General.
Infants -- Health and hygiene
Infants -- Mortality
Maternal health services
Preventive health services for children
SUBJECT Ontario
Subject Ontario
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 95122824
ISBN 9780773563889
0773563881
1282856340
9781282856349
9786612856341
6612856343
Other Titles Saving Ontario's mothers and children, 1900-1940