Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-11T05:11:34.927Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Training Women for a New “Women's Profession”: Physiotherapy Education at the University of Toronto, 1917–40

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Ruby Heap*
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In 1929 the University of Toronto inaugurated a two-year diploma course in physiotherapy. This decision, the university stated, had come “in response to requests of organizations and individuals interested” in the establishment of such a course. Indeed, the course resulted from the sustained efforts of a group of energetic women during the previous decade. These women were committed to building a new “women's profession” in the health sector. In Canada the occupation of physiotherapy emerged from the Great War, as part of the federal government's commitment to the rehabilitation of returning wounded and disabled soldiers. Founded in 1920, the Canadian Association of Massage and Remedial Gymnastics (CAMRG) was a direct outgrowth of the communication links, social bonds, and relationships that were formed by those pioneer practitioners who served during wartime, the large majority of whom were women. The CAMRG leaders then set out to establish high educational standards for practitioners. Hence, they promoted the creation of a university-level course, which was perceived as a direct path toward professional status.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the History of Education Society 

References

1 University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Bulletin of Information on the Two Years' Course in Physiotherapy (Toronto, 1929), 3, University of Toronto Archives (hereafter UTA).Google Scholar

2 The CAMRG became the Canadian Physiotherapy Association (CPA) in 1935.Google Scholar

3 The outbreak of World War II opened a new phase in the history of physiotherapy education in Canada with the reorganization of training at the University of Toronto and the establishment of a second program at McGill University in 1943.Google Scholar

4 For examples of recent literature, see Stewart, Lee, “It's Up to You”: Women at UBC in the Early Years (Vancouver, 1990); Ford, Anne Rochon, A Path Not Strewn with Roses: One Hundred Years of Women at the University of Toronto, 1884–1984 (Toronto, 1985); Gillett, Margaret, We Walked Very Warily: A History of Women at McGill (Montreal, 1982); Collin, Johanne, “La dynamique des rapports de sexes à l'université, 1940–1980: Une étude de cas,” Histoire sociale/Social History 19 (Nov. 1986): 365–85; LaPierre, Jo, “The Academic Life of Canadian Coeds,” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation 2 (Fall 1990): 225–45; Neatby, Nicole, “Preparing for the Working World: Women at Queen's during the 1920s,” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation 1 (Spring 1989): 53–72; Kiefer, Nancy and Pierson, Ruth Roach, “The War Effort and Women Students at the University of Toronto, 1939–45,” in Youth, University, and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education , ed. Axelrod, Paul and Reid, John G. (Kingston, 1989), 161–83; Fingard, Judith, “College, Career, and Community: Dalhousie Coeds, 1881–1921,” in ibid., 26–50; Pedersen, Diana, “‘The Call to Service’: The YWCA and the Canadian College Woman, 1886–1920,” in ibid., 187–215; Prentice, Alison, “Scholarly Passion: Two Persons Who Caught It,” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation 1 (Spring 1989): 7–27; Prentice, , “Bluestockings, Feminists, or Women Workers? A Preliminary Look at Women's Early Employment at the University of Toronto,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, n.s., 2 (1991): 231–61; Kinnear, Mary, “Disappointment in Discourse: Women University Professors at the University of Manitoba before 1970,” Historical Studies in Education 4 (Fall 1992): 269–87.Google Scholar

5 On the efforts of Canadian nursing leaders to establish university-based nursing education in the early years of the twentieth century, see Stewart, , “It's Up to You”, ch. 2; Kirkwood, Rondalyn, “Blending Vigourous Leadership and Womanly Virtues: Edith Kathleen Russell at the University of Toronto, 1920–1952,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin canadien d'histoire de la médecine 11 (1994): 175–205. The Canadian literature also includes Innis, Mary Q., ed., Nursing Education in a Changing Society (Toronto, 1970); Jardine, Pauline O., “An Urban Middle-Class Calling: Women and the Emergence of Modern Nursing Education at the Toronto General Hospital, 1881–1914,” Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine 17 (Feb. 1989): 176–90; Cohen, Yolande and Dagenais, Michèle, “Le métier d'infirmière: Savoirs féminins et reconnaissance professionnelle,” Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 41 (Fall 1987): 155–77; Daigle, Johanne, “Devenir infirmière: Les modalités d'expression d'une culture soignante au XXe siècle,” Recherches féministes 4 (1991): 67–86. Nadia Fahmy-Eid has examined extensively the professional training of physiotherapists, dietitians, and medical technologists in Quebec since the mid-nineteenth century. See Fahmy-Eid, Nadia and Charles, Aline, “Savoir contrôlé ou pouvoir confisqué? La formation professionnelle des filles en technologie médicale, réhabilitation et diététique à l'Université de Montréal, 1940–1970,” Recherches féministes 1 (1988): 5–29; Fahmy-Eid, Nadia and Collin, Johanne, “Savoir et pouvoir dans l'univers des disciplines paramédicales: La formation en physiothérapie et en diététique à l'Université McGill, 1940–1970,” Histoire sociale/Social History 22 (May 1989): 35–63; Fahmy-Eid, Nadia and Piché, Lucie, “Le savoir négocié: Les stratégies des associations de technologie médicale, de physiothérapie et de diététique pour l'accès à une meilleure formation professionnelle, 1930–1970,” Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 43 (Spring 1990): 509–34.Google Scholar

6 Graham, Duncan Mrs., “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: An Historical Sketch,” Journal of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association 1 (Nov. 1939): 9; idem, “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: Recollections and Reflections,” ibid. 22 (Apr. 1970): 57; Gault, Helen M., “The Enid Graham Memorial Lecture,” Physiotherapy Canada 33 (Sep./Oct. 1981): 289.Google Scholar

7 On American physiotherapy's early development, see Scully, Rosemary M. and Barnes, Marylou R. et al., eds., Physical Therapy (Philadelphia, 1989), 29.Google Scholar

8 Larkin, Gerald, Occupational Monopoly and Modern Medicine (London, 1983), 9299, quotation on 95.Google Scholar

10 McLennan, J. S., What the Military Hospitals Commission Is Doing (Ottawa, 1918), 23, 8–9; Harvey Agnew, G., Canadian Hospitals, 1920 to 1970: A Dramatic Half Century (Toronto, 1974), 55 ; Morton, Desmond and Wright, Glenn T., Winning the Second Battle: Canadian Veterans and the Return to Civilian Life, 1915–1930 (Toronto, 1987), 17–18.Google Scholar

11 Minutes of the Military Affairs Committee, 15 Nov. 1915, Department of Veterans' Affairs, RG 38, vol. 225, National Archives of Canada (hereafter NAC), Ottawa; Report from Dr. Alfred T. Thompson to the Military Hospitals Commission, 15 Nov. 1917, file 8610, Department of Veterans' Affairs, RG 38, vol. 225, NAC; Minutes of the Military Hospitals Commission, 10 Nov. 1915, 5, and 29 Apr. 1916, RG 38, vol. 225, NAC; Harris, Robin S., A History of Higher Education in Canada, 1663–1960 (Toronto, 1976), 298–99; “Esther Asplett,” Journal of the CPA 22 (Apr. 1970): 67.Google Scholar

12 Bott, E. A. to Massey, Colonel, 2 May 1917, and Deputy Minister, Department of Militia and Defence, to Colonel Vincent Massey, 14 July 1919, A80-0030/22: Book of Hart House, UTA; Stewart Wallace, W., A History of the University of Toronto (Toronto, 1927), 189; University of Toronto, President's Report (1918), 9.Google Scholar

13 The Early Days,” Journal of the CPA 22 (Apr. 1970): 64.Google Scholar

14 University of Toronto, President's Report (1917), 11; and ibid. (1918), 9–10; Graham, , “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: An Historical Sketch,” 910; “The Early Days,” 64; Graham, , “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: Recollections and Reflections,” 57.Google Scholar

15 Bledstein, Burton J., The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York, 1976); Larson, Magali Scarfatti, The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis (Berkeley, Calif., 1977), xvii. Other major works that characterize the “sociology of the professions” include Freidson, Eliot, Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge (New York, 1970); Johnson, Terence J., Professions and Power (London, 1972). More recent studies include Freidson, Eliot, Professional Powers: A Study of the Institutionalization of Formal Knowledge (Chicago, 1986); and Abbott, Andrew, The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago, 1988). Influential historical studies include, in addition to Bledstein, Burton, The Culture of Professionalism , Rothman, David J., The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Boston, 1971); and Wiebe, Robert H., The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

16 See Brumberg, Joan Jacobs and Tomes, Nancy, “Women in the Professions: A Research Agenda for American Historians,” Reviews in American History 10 (June 1982): 275–76; and Witz, Anne, Professions and Patriarchy (London, 1992), 39–69. See also the comments by Mary Ann Dzuback in her “Professionalism, Higher Education, and American Culture: Burton J. Bledstein's The Culture of Professionalism,” History of Education Quarterly 33 (Fall 1993): 375–85.Google Scholar

17 See, for example, Cott, Nancy F., The Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven, Conn., 1987), 217; Rossiter, Margaret W., Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982); Glazer, Penina Migdal and Slater, Miriam, Unequal Colleagues: The Entrance of Women into the Professions, 1890–1940 (Philadelphia, 1986); and Ehrenreich, John H., The Altruistic Imagination: A History of Social Work and Social Policy in the United States (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985). For a recent discussion of these themes in the Canadian context, see Baines, Carol, “The Professions and an Ethic of Care,” in Women's Caring: Feminist Perspectives on Social Welfare , ed. Baines, Carol, Evans, Patricia, and Neysmith, Sheila (Toronto, 1993), 36–72; and “Introduction,” in Caring and Curing: Historical Perspectives on Women and Healing in Canada , ed. Dodd, Dianne and Gorham, Deborah (Ottawa, 1994), 2–5.Google Scholar

18 See Melosh, Barbara, “The Physician's Hand”: Work Culture and Conflict in American Nursing (Philadelphia, 1982), ch. 1; Reverby, Susan, Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850–1945 (Cambridge, Eng., 1987), ch. 7; Vicinius, Martha, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Chicago, 1985), ch. 3; Davies, Celia, “Professionalizing Strategies as Time-and-Culture-Bound: American and British Nursing, circa 1893,” in Nursing History: New Perspectives, New Possibilities , ed. Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe (New York, 1983), 47–63; Petitat, André, Les infirmières: De la vocation à la profession (Montreal, 1989), 59–62; Kergin, Dorothy J., “Nursing as a Profession,” in Nursing Education in a Changing Society, ed. Innis, 46–63; Kinnear, Julia L., “The Professionalization of Canadian Nursing, 1924–1932: Views in the CN and the CMAJ,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin canadien d'histoire de la médecine 11 (1994): 153–74; and Cohen, Yolande and Bienvenue, Louise, “Emergence de l'identité professionnelle chez les infirmières québécoises, 1890–1927,” ibid., 119–51. In Canada, nurses regrouped in 1908 in the Canadian National Association of Trained Nurses, which became the Canadian Nurses' Association in 1924. Both groups focused their energies on the establishment of registries of trained nurses. In Ontario, similar efforts were conducted by the Graduate Nurses' Association of Ontario, established in 1904. Important gains were made in the 1920s. A Nurses Registration Act was adopted by the provincial government in 1922, and three years later the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario was incorporated. See Riddell, Dorothy G., “Nursing and the Law: The History of Legislation in Ontario,” in Nursing Education in a Changing Society , ed. Innis, , 19–24.Google Scholar

19 Graham, , “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: An Historical Sketch,” 1011; Report of the Secretary-Treasurer, CAMRG, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 1921, Archives of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association (hereafter ACPA), Toronto.Google Scholar

20 Constitution and By-Laws of the CPA, Mar. 1920, i, ACPA; Black, Adam, “Salvaging War's Waste,” Red Cross Magazine (Oct. 1917), 100; Wilson, Robert, “The Role of Physiotherapy in the Treatment of the Returned Invalided Soldier,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 8 (1918): 700–702.Google Scholar

21 Editorial,” Journal of the CAMRG 1 (1923), and 2 (Mar. 1924).Google Scholar

22 Graham, , “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: An Historical Sketch,” 1112. The 1920 charter specified that active membership would be reserved to those “graduates of a course in physiotherapy who shall have satisfied the requirements of the Executive Committee and of the Examining Board” and to graduates of the British Chartered Society of Massage and Medical Gymnastics who had resided in Canada for six months and who also held certificates in electrotherapy. Constitution and By-Laws of the CPA, Mar. 1920, 1; Cartwright, , “History of the CAMRG,” 5.Google Scholar

23 Province of Ontario, Statutes, 15 George V, ch. 49, 14 Apr. 1925.Google Scholar

24 Chiropractors, chiropodists, drugless therapists, and osteopaths were also classified as drugless practitioners. A “masseur” was defined as “any person who practices therapy by means of manipulations, mechanics, hydro, thermo, helio or electrical methods, for the treatment of any ailment, disease, defect or disability of the human body.” Ontario Gazette 59 (16 Jan. 1926): 77.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 7778.Google Scholar

26 In the case of physiotherapy, self-government meant majority and direct representation of physiotherapists on any central body set up to control the affairs of the profession.Google Scholar

27 Report of the Secretary-Treasurer, CAMRG, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 1927, and Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 29 Jan. 1926, ACPA.Google Scholar

28 Report of the Educational Secretary, CPA, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 30 Jan. 1937, ACPA.Google Scholar

29 McKillop, A. B., Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario, 1791–1951 (Toronto, 1994), 324; Harris, , A History of Higher Education in Canada, 259–61; Axelrod, Paul, Making a Middle Class: Student Life in English Canada during the Thirties (Montreal, 1990), 7–11.Google Scholar

30 On the development of women's education at the University of Toronto during this period, see Ford, , A Path Not Strewn with Roses, 4657. Despite its initial mandate, the program in household science fostered the development of dietetics, another female-dominated occupation embarked on its own professionalization drive. Kathleen King, M., “The Development of University Nursing Education,” in Nursing Education in a Changing Society , ed. Innis, , 69–70.Google Scholar

31 University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Printed Materials, University Extension, Bulletin no. 1, 1921–1922, 3, A73-0018, UTA; Wallace, , A History of the University of Toronto, 194; Greenley, James G., Sir Robert Falconer: A Biography (Toronto, 1988), 253–57; McKillop, , Matters of Mind, 351.Google Scholar

32 Interview with Levesconte, Helen P., senior lecturer, rehabilitation medicine, University of Toronto, by Valerie Schatzker, 25 Nov. 1975, B76-0008, UTA.Google Scholar

33 University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Committee Minutes, 26 Sep. 1929, A75-011, UTA; Senate and Senate Committee Minutes, 11 Oct. 1929, vol. 16, A68-0012, UTA; “Enid Graham (née Finley),” Journal of the CPA 22 (Apr. 1970): 68.Google Scholar

34 University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Two-Years' Course in Physiotherapy (1929–30), 3, UTA.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 1; President's Report, 1930, CAMRG, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, ACPA; “Development,” Journal of the CPA 22 (Apr. 1970): 70; CAMRG, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 27 Jan. 1933, ACPA; University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Committee Minutes, 14 Jan. 1932, 20 Feb. 1932, 9 Nov. 1933, A75-011, box 1, UTA.Google Scholar

36 Government of Canada, Census of Canada, 1931 (Ottawa, 1932), 9: 63; Canada, Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Canada Year Book, 1933 (Ottawa, 1934), 1,000.Google Scholar

37 In 1934, 29 percent of Ontario hospitals reported such departments, while the proportion of public general hospitals offering physiotherapy services dropped from 77 percent to 70 percent. This trend reflects the higher number of private hospitals offering such services that year. Canada, Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Canada Year Book, 1931 (Ottawa, 1932), 1,000; and ibid., 1936 (Ottawa 1937), 1,013; Report of the Educational Secretary, CPA, Annual General Meeting, 26 Jan. 1935, ACPA.Google Scholar

38 Graham, , “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: An Historical Sketch,” 1213.Google Scholar

39 Ibid.Google Scholar

40 Specific and reliable statistics on working conditions during the CPA's formative years are not available. However, Kathleen McMurrich recalls that the CPA had to fight to obtain a monthly salary of $65.00 for the first University of Toronto graduates. “Kathleen I. McMurrich,” Journal of the CPA 22 (Apr. 1970): 76, 67; Report of McKean, H. A. Mrs., convenor, Dominion Publicity Committee, CPA, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 25 Jan. 1936, ACPA; “Esther Asplett,” Journal of the CPA 22 (Apr. 1970): 67.Google Scholar

41 Canada, Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Canada Year Book, 1942 (Ottawa, 1943), 893. By 1940, 32 percent of all hospitals had such departments, and 76 percent of public hospitals were offering these services; Report of the Educational Secretary, CPA, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 29 Jan. 1938, ACPA; University of Toronto, President's Report (1936), 96; CPA, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 29 Jan. 1938, ACPA; University of Toronto, Office of the Registrar, A73-0051, box 229, UTA; The Varsity, 29 Sep. 1939, UTA; University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Committee Minutes, 19 Sep. 1939, A75-011, box 1, UTA; University of Toronto, President's Report (1940), 101.Google Scholar

42 Men formed only one-thirteenth of the CAMRG membership at the beginning of the decade. CAMRG, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, Jan. 1931, ACPA. Information concerning male members could not be found in the available records. In 1922 the CAMRG reported among its members sixteen masseurs who had lost their sight during the war. CAMRG, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, Jan. 1922, ACPA; University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Two-Year Courses in Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy (1937–38), 8, UTA; University of Toronto, Office of the Registrar, Toronto Star, 3 July 1940, A73-0051, box 229, UTA.Google Scholar

43 Graham, , “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: An Historical Sketch,” 12. The Faculty of Arts required five subjects of Honour Matriculation in addition to Pass Matriculation; CPA Bulletin (June 1936), ACPA; CAMRG, working paper, undated, box 1938–39, ACPA.Google Scholar

44 Lillian Pollard,” Journal of the CPA 1 (Nov. 1939): 12, 22 (Apr. 1970): 71; University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Two-Year Courses in Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy (1933–34), 3, UTA. Massage was used as the preliminary to, or the sequence of, other methods of treatment. Gymnastics covered a wide field, including posture training and exercises for curvature of the spine, muscle training for infantile paralysis or for nerve injuries caused by fracture or disease. University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Two-Year Courses in Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy (1937–38), 8, UTA; UTA, President's Report (1936), 14.Google Scholar

45 University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Committee Minutes, 9 Apr. 1931, A75-011, UTA; University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Two-Year Courses in Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy (1933–34), 9.Google Scholar

46 An official CPA brochure published in the late 1930s stated that “members realize that in order to be successful accuracy of diagnosis is essential and for this reason they are obliged to undertake treatment only under medical direction.” CPA brochure, no date, box 1938–39, ACPA.Google Scholar

47 Interview with Levesconte, , 8283.Google Scholar

48 University of Toronto, Department of University Extension, Two-Year Courses in Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy (1931–32, 1939–40), UTA.Google Scholar

49 Report of the Educational Secretary, CPA, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 29 Jan. 1938, ACPA; University of Toronto, President's Report (1937), 14; Graham, , “Canadian Physiotherapy Association: An Historical Sketch,” 13.Google Scholar

50 Report of the Educational Secretary, CPA, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 30 Jan. 1937, ACPA.Google Scholar

51 CPA Announcements and Reports: Drugless Practitioners' Act of Ontario,” Journal of the CPA 1 (May 1940): 15.Google Scholar

52 McMurrich, Kathleen, “Physiotherapy: An Historical Sketch,” Canadian Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy Journal 4 (1937): 4.Google Scholar