Delivering Motherhood

Maternal Ideologies and Practices in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Katherine Arnup, Andrée Lévesque, Ruth Roach Pierson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781032833828
• eBook ISBN: 9781040125069
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Feminism & Feminist Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, motherhood in Canada, as elsewhere in the western world, became contested terrain. Male medical practitioners vied with midwives, and midwives with nurses, while reform-minded middle-class women joined with the eugenically minded state officials in efforts to control the quantity and quality of the population. As reproduction gained in importance as a political as well as a religious issue, motherhood became the centre of debate over public health and welfare policies and formed the cornerstone of feminist and anti-feminist, as well as nationalist and pacifist ideologies.

Originally published in 1990, Delivering Motherhood (now with a new preface by Katherine Arnup) is the first comprehensive study on the history of this complex development in Canada, where control over the different stages of reproduction, from conception, to delivery, to childcare, shifted from the central figure of the mother to experts and professionals. The contributions range from the treatment of single mothers in Montreal in the Depression to La Leche League in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

This book will be an essential read for students and researchers of women's studies, feminist studies, women's history, and sociology.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Orginal Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Preface to the Reissue
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Ruth Roach Pierson, AndréLévesque and Katherine Arnup
• Chapter One ‘Motherhood Issues’ in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
• Chapter Two ‘The Case of the Missing Midwives’: A History of Midwifery in Ontario From 1795-1900
• Chapter Three The Different Stages of the Elimination of Midwives in Quebec
• Chapter Four Childbirth In Ontario: The Transition From Home To Hospital In The Early Twentieth Century
• Chapter Five The Confinement of Women: Childbirth and Hospitalization in Vancouver, 1919-1939
• Chapter Six Deviants Anonymous: Single Mothers at the Hopital De La Misericorde in Montreal, 1929-1939
• Chapter Seven Discoveries and Dissimulations: The Impact of Abortion Deaths on Maternal Mortality in British Columbia
• Chapter Eight Women's Involvement in the Canadian Birth Control Movement of the 1930S: The Hamilton Birth Control Clinic
• Chapter Nine Mothering in a Newfoundland Community: 1900-1940
• Chapter Ten Educating Mothers: Government Advice for Women in the Inter-War Years
• Chapter Eleven Schools for Happiness: Instituts Familiaux and the Education of Ideal Wives and Mothers
• Chapter Twelve The La Leche League: A Feminist Perspective
• Chapter Thirteen ELLEN KEY: MATERNALISM AND PACIFISM
• Chapter Fourteen Desperately Seeking Babies: New Technologies of Hope and Despair
• Index