Hi,

I'm interested in the history of psychology in Canada. From my cursory readings of material in Canadian Psychology it seems that the roots here are quite different to those of our American neighbours - and yet I never discussed this in my undergraduate history of psychology course. Would anyone be able to recommend further readings in this area for me? From what I understand, it seems that there is increasing pressure for professional psychologists (in particular) to conform to a more American model of service delivery. Is anyone aware of any specific evidence in the literature documenting this trend?

Thanks!

-- Lorna Scott (h56pg@unb.ca), January 23, 2002

Answers

You can start with

History of academic psychology in Canada Mary J Wright; C Roger Myers 1982 Toronto: C.J. Hogrefe

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), January 23, 2002.

As Hendrika says, the Wright & Myers book is the place to start. After that, have a look at the 1992 special issue of Canadian Psychology on the history of Canadian psychology, on-line at http://www.cpa.ca/history/history.html.

There was also a special issue of the History & Philosophy of Psychology Bulletin a few years back with articles on 19th-century Canadian philosopher-psychologists George Paxton Young (Toronto), John C. Murray (McGill), and John Watson (Queen's). See:

Tolman, C. W. (1999). The philosophical origins of psychology in Canada. History and Philosophy of Psychology Bulletin, 11, p. 3.

Ian Nicholson, just up the hill from you at St. Thomas U., might have back-issues. Otherwise, try the current Editor, Thomas Teo, at York (tteo@yorku.ca). You could also look at Joan Whitman Hoff's article, "Crisis of Canadian Identity as Explored Through Canadian Philosophy" (http://www.lhup.edu/library/InternationalReview/canadian.htm)

Also, you might have a read my article on the founding of the psychology lab at the Univeristy of Toronto (http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Abbott/intro.htm). I will also have an article in the upcoming issue of Canadian Psychology about James Gibson Hume, who ran the Toronto philosophy dept. (incl. psychology) for 30 years. There are also a number of documents by early University of Toronto psychologists available on-line at the Classics in the History of Psychology website: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/topic.htm#toronto

Finally, I. Woodbridge Riley of your own University of New Brunswick was approved as a member of the APA at the 1903 meeting in St. Louis. He seems to have been the first Canadian Maritimes member of the APA, and by my count, the fifth Canadian in the APA (after Hume and Abbott of Toronto, Mills and Murray of McGill), seventh if you count Baldwin and Kirschmann, who weren't Canadian, but were both at Toronto when they joined the APA. He was quite active in both the A Psych. A and the A Phil. A. At the 1904 joint meeting of both associations, he presented "Recent Theories of Genius" at the Psych meeting and "Deism in America" at the Phil meeting. In 1905 at Penn. (again a joint meeting) he gave "Early American Psychology" at the Psych. meeting and "Influence of American Political Theories on the Conception of the Absolute" at the Phil. meeting. In 1906 (joint meeting of A Psych. A, A Phil. A, and AAAS), he presented "Benjamin Rush, M.D. on Mental Disease" to the psychologists and "Cadwallader Colden of King's College" to the philosophers. You might want to follow this up a bit. It might make an interesting little Canadian Psychology piece. There might be primary material about him available at the UNB archives.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), January 23, 2002.

One other figure who might interest you is John Malcolm MacEachran, who founded the department of philosophy, psychology and sociology at the University of Alberta early on in the last century and acted as its chair until about 1959-60. Leo Mos (at U. Alberta) tells me he was a Wundt student in Philosophy, completing a dissertation on American pragmatism. (Leo says he tried to find this work at Karl Marx University in Leipzig, but it apparently burned along with the building years ago.) A copy appears to be at the University of Toronto however: CALL NUMBER: B 832 .M25 ROBA

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AUTHOR: MacEachran, John Malcolm, 1878-

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TITLE: Pragmatismus; eine neue Richtung der Philosophie

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PUBLISHED: Leipzig Dieterich 1910

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PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 86p.

MacEachran chaired the Alberta Eugenics Board (consisting of several physicians and selected others) for many years and approved, it turns out without actually seeing, the boys/girls whose "neuterizing" he approved. He apparently wrote very little (one or two public addresses and several review articles), but taught numerous courses in philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), January 24, 2002.