Research Catalog

Title

The age of light, soap, and water : moral reform in English Canada, 1885-1925 : with a new introduction / Mariana Valverde.

Author

Valverde, Mariana, 1955-

Publication

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, c2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 205 p. : ill., ports.; 22 cm.

Summary

"The turn of the last century saw a great wave of moral fervour among Protestant social reformers in English Canada. Their targets for moral reform were various: sex hygiene, immigration policy, slum clearance, prostitution, and “white slavery.” Mariana Valverde’s groundbreaking The Age of Light, Soap, and Water examines the work and the ideas of moralist clergy, social workers, politicians, and bureaucrats who sought to maintain – or create – a white Protestant Canada. The morality idealized by evangelical, feminist, and medical activists was not, as is often assumed, completely repressive and puritanical. On the contrary, the self-defined social purity movement at the centre of this book talked endlessly about sex in order to create a health sexuality among both native-born and immigrant Canadians. Sexual health was linked to racial purity, and both of these were in turn linked to efforts to abolish urban slums by means of symbolic as well as physical “light, soap, and water.” Back in print with a new introduction by the author, this classic work offers fascinating insights on the social history of Canada."--pub. desc.

Series Statement

Canadian social history series

Uniform Title

Canadian social history series

Subject

• Social problems > Canada > History
• Problèmes sociaux > Canada > Histoire
• Sex Education > history
• Moral Development > history
• Sex > history
• Gender Identity > history
• Canada > Moral conditions > History
• Canada > Social conditions > 1867-1918
• Canada > Social conditions > 1918-1930
• Canada > Conditions morales > Histoire
• Canada > Conditions sociales > 1867-1918
• Canada > Conditions sociales > 1918-1930

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

The work of allegories -- Moral and social reform -- The white slavery panic -- Racial purity, sexual purity, and immigration policy -- The city as moral problem -- Philanthropy, the state, and moral regulation.

ISBN

• 9780802095954
• 080209595X

OCLC

• 225773934
• SCSB-10837325

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library