Eugenics in Canada: a Historiographical Survey
Eugenics in Canada: a Historiographical Survey

Summary/Abstract: While Canada has a rich and complex eugenics history, historians did not begin to unearth it until the 1990s, when Angus McLaren published the only overview Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885–1945. Since McLaren’s landmark study, historians have primarily focused on the history of sexual sterilization legislation prior to 1945. In particular, the Sexual Sterilization Act (1928) in the province of Alberta has been closely analyzed by scholars, who have placed the eugenics movement in the province within the larger context of social reform movements. Historians have also drawn scholarly attention on eugenics in the second half of the twentieth century focusing on Alberta’s long eugenic history, as well as connecting the early movement in Canada with the current discussion about reproductive rights and choice. Th is article provides a historiographical overview of the approaches (legal, social, cultural)employed by Canadian historians to map Canada’s eugenic history

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