This examination of the first all-Canadian, government-sponsored childcare advice literature, written by Helen MacMurchy as Chief of the Child Welfare Division of the newly formed federal Department of Health in the 1920's, investigates divisions within the pubic health movement. MacMurchy's conciliatory role in balancing the interests of organized women's groups who promoted improvements in maternal and infant health, and the diverse professional interests who considered infant and maternal health as one aspect of a larger public health program, are reflected in the advice. The resulting contradictions provide insight into the relationship between feminism and professionalism in the 1920's, and between public health and private medicine. This discussion also illustrates the influence of eugenics on public health, with its often contradictory expectations. Canadian mothers were asked to provide the ultimate in childcare to preserve both the physical and mental health of children, to guard their own precious health, and to continue to have large families - despite serious restrictions on accessibility of medical services.

ISSN 0823-2105

© 2012 Canadian Society for the History of Medicine/
    Société canadienne d'histoire de la médecine