Ideology and Experience: Public health nursing and the Ontario Rural Child Welfare Project, 1920–25

In October 1920, the provincial Board of Health of Ontario sent 16 public health nurses to the northern and rural parts of the province to "educate" mothers in an attempt to lower the unacceptably high infant mortality rate. This research examines the relationship between the official perceptions and actions of the Board in relation to the child welfare project and the actual experiences of the nurses in two small communities, Kenora and Bowmanville. It will be argued that knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient means to better health. The Board's focus on "health education," however delivered by the nurses, would not erase the effects of poverty, nor replace the lack of expert care for confinements or serious illness. Health education was a facile solution to the serious problem of the lack of permanent human and material resources, particularly in Northern and Eastern Ontario. Specific research at the local level is necessary to establish public health measures as effective agents of social change.