“The Rising Generation”: Laying Claim to the Health of Adolescents in English Canada, 1920–70

During the opening years of "Canada's Century," adolescents came to constitute a "youth problem," another of the often-overlapping "social problems" of the day. Medical doctors formed a significant cohort among those authorized to identify such potential threats to the national health, in its every sense. As they successfully professionalized, modernized, and took the reins of a burgeoning child welfare movement, doctors became increasingly interested in adolescents. This essay considers the medicalization of adolescence in English Canada between 1920 and 1970. During this half-century, doctors and other "experts" shaped and shared approaches to the all-encompassing "health" of the young, in collectively theorizing a modern adolescence.