Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics

Historical Studies of Alberta and Beyond

Frank W. Stahnisch, Erna Kurbegović

• Publisher: AU Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781771992671
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

From 1928 to 1972, the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act, Canada's lengthiest eugenic policy, shaped social discourses and medical practice in the province. Sterilization programs—particularly involuntary sterilization programs—were responding both nationally and internationally to social anxieties produced by the perceived connection between mental degeneration and heredity. Psychiatry and the Legacy of Eugenics illustrates how the emerging field of psychiatry and its concerns about inheritable conditions was heavily influenced by eugenic thought and contributed to the longevity of sterilization practices in Western Canada.

Using institutional case studies, biographical accounts, and media developments from Western Canada and Europe, contributors trace the impact of eugenics on nursing practices, politics, and social attitudes, while investigating the ways in which eugenics discourses persisted unexpectedly and remained mostly unexamined in psychiatric practice. This volume further extends historical analysis into considerations of contemporary policy and human rights issues through a discussion of disability studies as well as compensation claims for victims of sterilization. In impressive detail, contributors shed new light on the medical and political influences of eugenics on psychiatry at a key moment in the field's development.With contributions by Ashley Barlow, W. Mikkel Dack, Aleksandra Loewenau, Diana Mansell, Guel A. Russell, Celeste Tuong Vy Sharpe, Henderikus J. Stam, Douglas Wahlsten, Paul J. Weindling, Robert A. Wilson, Gregor Wolbring, and Marc Workman.

1 John M. MacEachran and Eugenics in Alberta Victorian Sensibilities, Idealist Philosophy, and Detached Efficiency

Henderikus J. Stam and Ashley Barlow

John M. MacEachran (1877–1971) was initially one of the more enigmatic, and eventually one of the more disreputable, characters in the history of Alberta’s long-running eugenics program.¹ The fact that he was also the only Canadian student of German experimental psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920), as well as the founder of the Philosophy and Psychology Department at the University of Alberta, makes him of more than passing interest. Yet officially there is very little that we know about him save for the outward details of his life.² MacEachran was very careful, purposely or otherwise, to leave little behind and it has only been in the last few years that we have come to know more, albeit just a little more, about this seemingly paradoxical yet important figure at the centre of Alberta’s eugenics program.³ He drafted the founding constitution for the Canadian Psychological Association, in 1940, and he remained as head of the University of Alberta’s Department of Psychology until the end of World War II. His reputation as a successful university administrator was nevertheless severely tested after a very public re-examination of his work as the chair of the Alberta Eugenics Board (AEB) from 1929 to 1964. Although MacEachran died in 1971, a lawsuit brought by Leilani Muir against the Government of Alberta in 1995 raised the issue of her involuntary sterilization along with that of almost three thousand others.⁴

In this chapter, we review those details and evaluate the discontinuity between MacEachran’s public role as AEB chair and his place as the founding professor of philosophy and psychology at the University of Alberta. However, we will argue that the discontinuity is not quite as perplexing as it appears on the surface, if we consider MacEachran’s career and philosophy as an outgrowth of a nineteenth-century, Victorian-style world view married to a progressive notion of social engineering. What is truly perplexing is the way in which MacEachran remained resistant to change.

After his death, MacEachran’s role as a pioneer in Alberta’s first university would be overshadowed by his role as the chair of the province’s eugenics board. His portrait (see Figure 1.1) would be removed from the Department of Psychology, and his name removed from a seminar room, and discussions would ensue in both the philosophy and psychology departments (finally separated in the 1950s) at the University of Alberta as to how to re-evaluate his place in the history of the university and province.⁵ This even led to the revocation of the honours associated with MacEachran’s legacy.⁶

MACEACHRAN’S LIFE

The basic outlines of MacEachran’s life are generally well known,⁷ but somewhat more can be gleaned from the transcripts of an interview that MacEachran gave toward the end of his life.⁸ John Malcolm MacEachran was born into a farming family on January 15, 1877, near Glencoe, Ontario. His father, David MacEachran (b. 1850?) had emigrated from Scotland and married Christina MacAlpine (b. 1855?). John MacEachran had two sisters and five brothers, most of whom became farmers, yet he chose to become a teacher after attending what probably was the Model School in Strathroy until the age of eighteen in 1895 (he received what was known then as a first-class certificate). After taking up a teaching post at Ivan, Ontario (just northwest of London) for an unspecified period of time (though likely no more than a year or two), he decided to study at university. Salaries for teachers, especially rural teachers, were relatively low in Canada during the latter years of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century.⁹ MacEachran had decided to go to the University of Toronto but was dissuaded from doing so by a local clergyman, who suggested he should instead study with philosopher John Watson (1847–1939) at Queen’s University.¹⁰ Oddly, MacEachran claimed in a 1970 interview with Roger Myers that he had avoided the University of Toronto and gone to Queen’s because he was “not keen” on Presbyterian doctrine; Queen’s was in fact still dependent on the Presbyterian Church, at least until 1912, whereas the University of Toronto was by this time an openly secular institution.

Figure 1.1 Portrait of John M. MacEachran, ca. 1944, from the University of Alberta’s Department of Psychology. It was removed from the now-renamed MacEachran Conference Room. Likewise, his name was removed from a seminar room at the University of Alberta. Photograph courtesy of the University of Alberta Archives. Accession Number: 1971-217-4-001.

At Queen’s, MacEachran appeared to thrive under Watson’s tutelage, claiming later in life that he did not agree with Watson’s idealism—a peculiar claim given the few writings on philosophy MacEachran left behind.¹¹ Watson was a Scottish philosopher who had received his MA from the University of Glasgow in 1872 and then been appointed to Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario, on the basis of his reputation among the idealist Caird brothers—John (1820–98) and Edward (1835–1908), both professors in Glasgow.¹² As philosophers Leslie Armour and Elizabeth Trott note, Watson was recognized as the major proponent of Canadian idealism and a renowned metaphysician.¹³ Furthermore, he was instrumental in the creation of the United Church of Canada in 1925. MacEachran claimed that Watson received the second PhD that Queen’s had ever awarded, a claim that we could not substantiate and that was unknown to the archivists at Queen’s. MacEachran notes he spent four years with Watson, although this could simply be a reference to the former’s PhD studies.

MacEachran arrived at Queen’s in 1897 and received a master’s degree in 1902. He was appointed a fellow and tutor that year as an assistant to Watson; he received his PhD in 1906. Presumably his doctorate concerned idealist philosophy, particularly the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) in Germany, although his dissertation appears to be lost.¹⁴ In his paper “Twenty-Five Years of Philosophical Speculation” (1932), MacEachran professed his deep respect for Watson’s style of critique and argument. He compared Watson’s critique of hedonist philosophies to David’s victory over Goliath. MacEachran was, in his own words, awed by the way that Watson managed “to dissect and negate each position of these philosophers by using their own arguments against them.” Watson’s style of argument, as well as the ideas he discussed in his textbooks, influenced MacEachran’s own opinions on education. Throughout much of his later writing, MacEachran espoused the value of education, and the power that educators had over society. In a speech entitled “A Dream of Olympus” presented to the Faculty Club at the University of Alberta, in which MacEachran compared professors and teachers to Greek gods, Watson’s influence on his own opinions and philosophical perspectives was evident.¹⁵ Watson advocated the virtues of self-discipline in his writings and MacEachran appeared to have carried these virtues forward into his own writing on education. Publicly at least, MacEachran showed nothing but respect for Watson and emulated his rather formal and grandiloquent style of writing.

After graduating from Queens, MacEachran wished to take up the study of psychology in Germany.¹⁶ In 1906, he left for Berlin (later he would recall this to be 1902, but that was clearly another mistake). He does not say with whom he wished to study but it is likely that he would have wanted to either meet or study with Carl Stumpf (1848–1936), the renowned philosopher and psychologist who founded the Institute of Psychology at the University of Berlin in 1900. According to Thomas Nelson, based on an interview with MacEachran, the latter and Stumpf were unable to establish an amiable research relationship and MacEachran remained in Berlin for only nine months.¹⁷ In his 1970 interview with Myers, MacEachran refers to an unnamed professor in Berlin (likely Stumpf) who had asked him, “What training have you had?,” presumably referring to his training in psychology. MacEachran said that he replied, “I have had none.” However, in his dissertation—published in Leipzig in 1910—he mentions that he attended lectures with Friedrich Paulsen (1846–1908), Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908), Alois Riehl (1844–1924), Erich Schmidt (1853–1913), Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848–1931), and Heinrich Woelfflin (1864–1945), in addition to Stumpf. These were important figures in early twentieth-century German intellectual life: Paulsen was one of the most notable students of experimental psychologist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–87); Pfleiderer was an influential liberal theologian; Riehl was a neo-Kantian philosopher who succeeded Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) in his university professorship in 1905; Schmidt had the chair of German language and literature in Berlin; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was a renowned classicist; and Woelfflin was an art historian and critic.

In 1907, MacEachran went to Leipzig to study with Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig. The elder Wundt was by this time already seventy-five years old. Between 1876 and 1919, Wundt supervised a total of 186 dissertations at Leipzig, of which 33 were American.¹⁸ Although his recollections are sparse, MacEachran completed a thesis with Wundt on pragmatism in German (Pragmatismus).¹⁹ We know very little of his time in Leipzig, other than the odd anecdote he repeated from time to time about Wundt (for example, about Wundt’s poor hearing). It does appear that MacEachran spent at most two years in Leipzig, leaving in 1909, but some of this time was taken up travelling to other cities in Europe.

When he approached Wundt to determine whether he could study with him, MacEachran wanted Wundt to give him “an Arbeit in psychology.” Yet according to MacEachran, Wundt then said, “No, you are not a psychologist. You are a philosopher. You had better take something on philosophy.”²⁰ Although recalled more than sixty years after the fact, it was true that Wundt was writing his ten-volume Voelkerpsychologie at the time and was no longer actively engaged in experimental psychology research. Furthermore, MacEachran indeed had no training in psychology. Apparently, MacEachran himself suggested the topic of pragmatism and Wundt finally agreed—“because they didn’t know anything about pragmatism in Germany.”²¹ In 1907, while MacEachran was writing his thesis on pragmatism, American philosopher William James (1842–1910) coincidentally published his own book on the subject, of which MacEachran was quite critical.²² In 1910, MacEachran finished his thesis. It was published by Leipzig University under the title Pragmatismus: Inaugural-dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwuerde der hohen philosophischen Fakultaet (Pragmatism: Inaugural dissertation for the completion of the doctorate for the higher philosophical faculty). At Leipzig, MacEachran also later thanked Karl Gotthard Lamprecht (1856–1915), Johannes Volkelt (1848–1930), and Wilhelm Wirth (1876–1952) as his professors in his dissertation. This was not irrelevant to his dissertation nor presumably to his development as a scholar. Lamprecht had founded the Institut fuer Kultur- und Universalgeschichte at the University of Leipzig and thus was supportive of Wundt’s new work on the Voelkerpsychologie. Volkelt was an anti-positivist philosopher, and Wirth was one of Wundt’s assistants.

A number of commentators on MacEachran, including Nelson and Myers, have referred subsequently to MacEachran as a “pragmatist,” presumably both in its colloquial sense, as someone who is practical and reasonable, as well as in its philosophical sense.²³ However, MacEachran’s thesis was in fact a critique of pragmatism, not a sympathetic appraisal. Although he claimed that he had thought of going to study with William James, and he used James’s shorter version (the 1892 Briefer Course) of the Principles of Psychology in his early teaching career, MacEachran concludes his thesis by noting that pragmatism may have been seen as “a new humanism” and a “new Renaissance in the philosophy,”²⁴ but much of the pragmatist principles were already to be found in the philosophies of the Greek philosophers Protagoras (481–411 BC) and Socrates (ca. 470–399 BC), as well as in the German idealists Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), and even Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). MacEachran was particularly critical of pragmatism’s conception of truth.²⁵ He later described James’s writing as flippant and opportunistic.²⁶ Nevertheless, MacEachran provided a complete account of the pragmatic perspective. His conclusion was that while the “Pragmatists had affirmed that there was no one truth . . . so it turned out that there was no one Pragmatism.”²⁷ According to MacEachran, Wundt was very pleased with the thesis and the examination was quick and successful. MacEachran had succeeded in completing his second PhD. However, instead of remaining in Europe (MacEachran was fluent in German, and likely French as well) or taking up a position at an established American university where psychology’s reputation and growth was now ascendant, MacEachran chose to go to Edmonton, Alberta, a very small Prairie city with a population then of approximately twenty-three thousand people.²⁸ He remained there for the rest of his life, save for a brief foray as paymaster of the 196th (Western Universities) Battalion serving in France during World War I.²⁹ Ap...