Megan J Davies
Professor Emerita
Email: daviesmj@yorku.ca
Media Requests Welcome
I taught in York's Health & Society Program from 2003 to 2021. I was very lucky to teach at York in an interdisciplinary health program with such wonderful students. Now I am retired from teaching I find myself still very engaged in public-facing scholarship on mental health, COVID, eldercare and accidents. You can learn more about these projects by visiting the following websites:
https://madnesscanada.com/ https://covidinthehouseofold.ca/
Degrees
Ph.D., History, McGill University, 1984M.A., History, University of Waterloo, 1989
B.A., History, University of Victoria, 1984
Research Interests
- Wellcome Research Fellowship, 2001-2005. - 2001-2005
- Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1995-1998. - 1995-1998
- Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine Doctoral Scholarship, 1990-1991, 1991-1992, 1992-1993. - 1991-1993
- Dean's List, McGill University, 1995. - 1995
- Nominated for Undergraduate Teaching Award, University of Toronto, by the Undergraduate Sociology Students' Union, 1989. - 1989
“After the Asylum: Making Public the Canadian Story,” Post-War Psychiatry in the Western World: Deinstitutionalization and After, Despo Kritsotaki, Vicky Long, Matthew Smith, eds. (London: Palgrave McMillan, 2016.) [Co-authored with Erika Dyck, Leslie Baker, Lanny Beckman, Geertje Boschma, Chris Dooley, Kathleen Kendall, Eugène LeBlanc, Robert Menzies, Marina Morrow, Diane Purvey, Nérée St-Amand, Marie-Claude Thifault, Jayne Melville Whyte, Victor Willis]
“Nature, Spirit, Home: Back to the Land in BC’s Kootenay Region,” Canadian Countercultures and the Environment, Colin Coates, ed. (Calgary: Calgary University Press, 2016)
“Democracy is a Very Radical Idea,” Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies, Brenda LeFrançois, Robert Menzies and Geoffrey Reaume, eds. (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2013.) [Co-authored with Lanny Beckman]
“Stocking the Root Cellar,” Edible Histories, Cultural Politics, Marlene Epp, Franca Iacovetta and Valerie Korinek, eds. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.)
“La renaissance des sages-femmes dans la région de Kootenay en Colombie-Britannique, 1970-1990,” L’incontournable caste des femmes. Histoire des services de soins de santé au Québec et au Canada, M.-C. Thifault (dir.) (Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, Coll. "Santé et société", 2012.)
“Stocking the Root Cellar,” Edible Histories, Cultural Politics, Marlene Epp, Franca Iacovetta and Valerie Korinek, eds. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.)
“Mother’s Medicine: Women, home and health in BC’s Peace River region, 1920-1940,” in Social medicine and rural health in the North in the 19th and 20th centuries, J.T.H. Conner and Stephan Curtis, eds. (London: Pickering and Chatto, Society for the Social History of Medicine Series, 2011) , 15 pp.
“Welfare Amazons or Handmaidens of the State?: Welfare Field Workers in Rural BC, 1935-1942,” in A History of Child and Family Welfare in BC, Diane Purvey and Chris Walmsley, eds. (Calgary: Detselig Press, 2006) , 45 pp.
“Charles Doherty.” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume XIV, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 303-304.
“Kathleen Wood-Legh: A Canadian in Cambridge” in English Canadian Women and the Work of History, Beverly Boutilier and Alison Prentice, eds. (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997) , pp. 254-270. [Co-authored with Colin M. Coates]
“Lavinia Clarke” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography vol. XIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), pp. 201-2.
“‘Services Rendered, Rearing Children for the State’: Mother’s Pensions in British Columbia,” in B. Latham and R. Pazdro, eds., Not Just Pin Money: Selected Essays on the History of Women's Work in British Columbia (Victoria: Camosun College Press, 1984), pp. 249-63.
“Dr. Mary MacNeil” in Ibid., pp. 670-1.
Review of H.C. Northcott and P.J. Milliken, Aging in British Columbia: Burden or Benefit? In BC Studies no. 122 (Summer 1999): 99-100.
“Whose Body? Recent Historiography relating to Women, Health and the Medical Profession.” Gender and History, vol. 9, no. 2 (August 1997): 380-384.
Into the House of Old: A history of residential care in British Columbia (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 247 pp.
“A Humanist in the House of Old: Moyra Jones and Early Dementia Care in Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 50, no. 2, Spring 2017.
“Women Unafraid of Blood: Kootenay Community Midwives, 1970-1990,” BC Studies, no. 183, Fall 2014.
“"Those people known as mental patients...": Professional and Patient Engagement in Community Mental Health in Vancouver, BC in the 1970s” Oral History Forum, vol. 34 (2014). [Co-authored with Geertje Boschma and Marina Morrow]
“Night Soil, Cesspools and Smelly Hogs on the Streets: Sanitation, Race and Governance in Early British Columbia,” Histoire sociale/Social History, November 2005, 39 pp.
“Competent Professionals and Modern Methods: State Medicine in British Columbia during the 1930s,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 76, no 1 (Spring, 2002): 56-83.
“Renovating the Canadian Old Age Home: the evolution of residential care facilities in B.C., 1930-1960,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series, Vol. 12 (2001): 155-175.
“Mapping ‘Region’ in Canadian Medical History: The Case of British Columbia.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, vol. 17, nos. 1-2 (2000): 73-92.
“Old Age in B.C.: the case of the ‘Lonesome Prospector.’” BC Studies no 118 (summer, 1998): 41-66.
May 2009, BC Studies Conference, Victoria, BC, “Nature, Spirit, Home: Back-to-the-Land Childbirth in BC's Kootenay Region.”
February 2008, European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon, refereed, “Countercultural Childbirth : Homebirth and Midwifery in the Kootenay Region of BC, 1970-1990.”
September 2008, Active History: History for the Future Conference, York University, “History of Madness.ca,” power point presentation.
March 2008, University of Glasgow, Centre for the History of Medicine, “Homebirth in the Hills: Counter-Culture Health in British Columbia, 1970-1990.”
November 2008, Ontario History and Social Studies Teacher’s Association (OHASSTA) Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Reaching Inclusivity in History and the Social Sciences: The Challenge!, “Mad History: Mental Health and Historical Empathy in the Classroom,” (co-presenter: Samantha Cutrara).
May 2008, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Personal Choice and Personal Power: Locating Identity in the History of BC’s Homebirth Movement, 1970-1990.”
April, 2007, Women’s History Scotland Conference, refereed, Women in Shetland - Past, Present & Future Conference, Lerwick, Scotland, “Health & the Women of Shetland: Historical themes from the 19th and 20th centuries.”
May 2007, Conference on History of Sickness and Health in Northern Remote and Rural Regions, Memorial University, Newfoundland, “Mother’s Medicine: Women, home and health in BC’s Peace River region, 1920-1940.”
October 2007, Putting Region in its Place: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Health, Healing and Place, Edmonton, Alberta, refereed, “Region and the Transformative Process of Analysis: Health and Place in History.”
February 2007, University of British Columbia School of Nursing, “Shacks & Trees in a Wood: The old age 'home' in BC history.”
May 2005, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Health, Home and Community in the Peace River Region, 1930s.”
March 2005, Health, Heredity and the Modern Home Conference, Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter, “‘Shacks and Trees in a Wood’: the old age ‘home’ in settler British Columbia.”
May 2003, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Night Soil, Cesspools and Smelly Hogs on the Streets: Sanitation, Race and Governance in Early British Columbia.”
June 2002, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Rural Medicine in the Scottish Highlands and Islands before 1939.”
June 2001, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Frontier Sanitation: Public Health in British Columbia at the Turn of the Century.”
May 2001, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Handmaidens of the State: Welfare Field Workers in Rural B.C. in the Interwar Years.”
June 2001, Annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, refereed, “Institutionalizing Old Age: the evolution of residential care facilities in Canada, 1890-1950.”
June 2000, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Community Care or Institutional Care?: Early Welfare State Strategies.”
November 1999, AMS / Hannah Conference: Canadian Medical History at the Millennium: Past Accomplishments, Future Directions, refereed, “Canadian Medical History?: B.C. as a Case for a Regional Perspective.”
November 1999, B.C. Studies Conference, refereed, “Community Public Health or Professional Public Health?: State Medicine in British Columbia during the 1930s.”
May 1998, Annual meeting of the American Association of Medical History, refereed, “Competent Professionals and Modern Methods: State Medicine in British Columbia during the 1930s.”
October 1997, Wellcome Trust Regional Forum, University of Glasgow, “The Lady Medical Officer in Scotland: Careers in Public Health, 1900-1930.”
February 1996, Twelfth Annual Canadian Studies Symposium, Birkbeck College, University of London, “Old Age: A Theme in British Columbian History.”
June 1994, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Health care professionals and changing ideals of institutional care for the elderly: The case of British Columbia.”
October 1994, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Poorhouse to nursing home: the evolution of old age facilities in twentieth-century British Columbia.”
June 1994, “BC and Beyond: Gender Histories” Conference, “‘She is destined to be your right hand man’: Women, Men and B.C.’s Provincial Welfare State.”
November 1992, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Provincial Health Policy for Elderly British Columbians.”
November 1987, Annual meeting of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), refereed, “Women at the New Westminster Insane Asylum.”
“The Women beyond the Gates: Female Mental Health Patients in British Columbia,” in V. Dhruvarajan, ed., Women and Well-being / Les femmes et le mieux-être (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), pp. 53-64.
“Henry Esson Young.” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, forthcoming.
I taught in York's Health & Society Program from 2003 to 2021. I was very lucky to teach at York in an interdisciplinary health program with such wonderful students. Now I am retired from teaching I find myself still very engaged in public-facing scholarship on mental health, COVID, eldercare and accidents. You can learn more about these projects by visiting the following websites:
https://madnesscanada.com/ https://covidinthehouseofold.ca/
Degrees
Ph.D., History, McGill University, 1984M.A., History, University of Waterloo, 1989
B.A., History, University of Victoria, 1984
Research Interests
Awards
- Wellcome Research Fellowship, 2001-2005. - 2001-2005
- Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1995-1998. - 1995-1998
- Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine Doctoral Scholarship, 1990-1991, 1991-1992, 1992-1993. - 1991-1993
- Dean's List, McGill University, 1995. - 1995
- Nominated for Undergraduate Teaching Award, University of Toronto, by the Undergraduate Sociology Students' Union, 1989. - 1989
All Publications
“After the Asylum: Making Public the Canadian Story,” Post-War Psychiatry in the Western World: Deinstitutionalization and After, Despo Kritsotaki, Vicky Long, Matthew Smith, eds. (London: Palgrave McMillan, 2016.) [Co-authored with Erika Dyck, Leslie Baker, Lanny Beckman, Geertje Boschma, Chris Dooley, Kathleen Kendall, Eugène LeBlanc, Robert Menzies, Marina Morrow, Diane Purvey, Nérée St-Amand, Marie-Claude Thifault, Jayne Melville Whyte, Victor Willis]
“Nature, Spirit, Home: Back to the Land in BC’s Kootenay Region,” Canadian Countercultures and the Environment, Colin Coates, ed. (Calgary: Calgary University Press, 2016)
“Democracy is a Very Radical Idea,” Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies, Brenda LeFrançois, Robert Menzies and Geoffrey Reaume, eds. (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2013.) [Co-authored with Lanny Beckman]
“Stocking the Root Cellar,” Edible Histories, Cultural Politics, Marlene Epp, Franca Iacovetta and Valerie Korinek, eds. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.)
“La renaissance des sages-femmes dans la région de Kootenay en Colombie-Britannique, 1970-1990,” L’incontournable caste des femmes. Histoire des services de soins de santé au Québec et au Canada, M.-C. Thifault (dir.) (Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, Coll. "Santé et société", 2012.)
“Stocking the Root Cellar,” Edible Histories, Cultural Politics, Marlene Epp, Franca Iacovetta and Valerie Korinek, eds. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.)
“Mother’s Medicine: Women, home and health in BC’s Peace River region, 1920-1940,” in Social medicine and rural health in the North in the 19th and 20th centuries, J.T.H. Conner and Stephan Curtis, eds. (London: Pickering and Chatto, Society for the Social History of Medicine Series, 2011) , 15 pp.
“Welfare Amazons or Handmaidens of the State?: Welfare Field Workers in Rural BC, 1935-1942,” in A History of Child and Family Welfare in BC, Diane Purvey and Chris Walmsley, eds. (Calgary: Detselig Press, 2006) , 45 pp.
“Charles Doherty.” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume XIV, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 303-304.
“Kathleen Wood-Legh: A Canadian in Cambridge” in English Canadian Women and the Work of History, Beverly Boutilier and Alison Prentice, eds. (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997) , pp. 254-270. [Co-authored with Colin M. Coates]
“Lavinia Clarke” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography vol. XIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), pp. 201-2.
“‘Services Rendered, Rearing Children for the State’: Mother’s Pensions in British Columbia,” in B. Latham and R. Pazdro, eds., Not Just Pin Money: Selected Essays on the History of Women's Work in British Columbia (Victoria: Camosun College Press, 1984), pp. 249-63.
“Dr. Mary MacNeil” in Ibid., pp. 670-1.
Review of H.C. Northcott and P.J. Milliken, Aging in British Columbia: Burden or Benefit? In BC Studies no. 122 (Summer 1999): 99-100.
“Whose Body? Recent Historiography relating to Women, Health and the Medical Profession.” Gender and History, vol. 9, no. 2 (August 1997): 380-384.
Into the House of Old: A history of residential care in British Columbia (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 247 pp.
“A Humanist in the House of Old: Moyra Jones and Early Dementia Care in Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 50, no. 2, Spring 2017.
“Women Unafraid of Blood: Kootenay Community Midwives, 1970-1990,” BC Studies, no. 183, Fall 2014.
“"Those people known as mental patients...": Professional and Patient Engagement in Community Mental Health in Vancouver, BC in the 1970s” Oral History Forum, vol. 34 (2014). [Co-authored with Geertje Boschma and Marina Morrow]
“Night Soil, Cesspools and Smelly Hogs on the Streets: Sanitation, Race and Governance in Early British Columbia,” Histoire sociale/Social History, November 2005, 39 pp.
“Competent Professionals and Modern Methods: State Medicine in British Columbia during the 1930s,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 76, no 1 (Spring, 2002): 56-83.
“Renovating the Canadian Old Age Home: the evolution of residential care facilities in B.C., 1930-1960,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series, Vol. 12 (2001): 155-175.
“Mapping ‘Region’ in Canadian Medical History: The Case of British Columbia.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, vol. 17, nos. 1-2 (2000): 73-92.
“Old Age in B.C.: the case of the ‘Lonesome Prospector.’” BC Studies no 118 (summer, 1998): 41-66.
May 2009, BC Studies Conference, Victoria, BC, “Nature, Spirit, Home: Back-to-the-Land Childbirth in BC's Kootenay Region.”
February 2008, European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon, refereed, “Countercultural Childbirth : Homebirth and Midwifery in the Kootenay Region of BC, 1970-1990.”
September 2008, Active History: History for the Future Conference, York University, “History of Madness.ca,” power point presentation.
March 2008, University of Glasgow, Centre for the History of Medicine, “Homebirth in the Hills: Counter-Culture Health in British Columbia, 1970-1990.”
November 2008, Ontario History and Social Studies Teacher’s Association (OHASSTA) Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Reaching Inclusivity in History and the Social Sciences: The Challenge!, “Mad History: Mental Health and Historical Empathy in the Classroom,” (co-presenter: Samantha Cutrara).
May 2008, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Personal Choice and Personal Power: Locating Identity in the History of BC’s Homebirth Movement, 1970-1990.”
April, 2007, Women’s History Scotland Conference, refereed, Women in Shetland - Past, Present & Future Conference, Lerwick, Scotland, “Health & the Women of Shetland: Historical themes from the 19th and 20th centuries.”
May 2007, Conference on History of Sickness and Health in Northern Remote and Rural Regions, Memorial University, Newfoundland, “Mother’s Medicine: Women, home and health in BC’s Peace River region, 1920-1940.”
October 2007, Putting Region in its Place: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Health, Healing and Place, Edmonton, Alberta, refereed, “Region and the Transformative Process of Analysis: Health and Place in History.”
February 2007, University of British Columbia School of Nursing, “Shacks & Trees in a Wood: The old age 'home' in BC history.”
May 2005, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Health, Home and Community in the Peace River Region, 1930s.”
March 2005, Health, Heredity and the Modern Home Conference, Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter, “‘Shacks and Trees in a Wood’: the old age ‘home’ in settler British Columbia.”
May 2003, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Night Soil, Cesspools and Smelly Hogs on the Streets: Sanitation, Race and Governance in Early British Columbia.”
June 2002, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Rural Medicine in the Scottish Highlands and Islands before 1939.”
June 2001, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Frontier Sanitation: Public Health in British Columbia at the Turn of the Century.”
May 2001, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Handmaidens of the State: Welfare Field Workers in Rural B.C. in the Interwar Years.”
June 2001, Annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, refereed, “Institutionalizing Old Age: the evolution of residential care facilities in Canada, 1890-1950.”
June 2000, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Community Care or Institutional Care?: Early Welfare State Strategies.”
November 1999, AMS / Hannah Conference: Canadian Medical History at the Millennium: Past Accomplishments, Future Directions, refereed, “Canadian Medical History?: B.C. as a Case for a Regional Perspective.”
November 1999, B.C. Studies Conference, refereed, “Community Public Health or Professional Public Health?: State Medicine in British Columbia during the 1930s.”
May 1998, Annual meeting of the American Association of Medical History, refereed, “Competent Professionals and Modern Methods: State Medicine in British Columbia during the 1930s.”
October 1997, Wellcome Trust Regional Forum, University of Glasgow, “The Lady Medical Officer in Scotland: Careers in Public Health, 1900-1930.”
February 1996, Twelfth Annual Canadian Studies Symposium, Birkbeck College, University of London, “Old Age: A Theme in British Columbian History.”
June 1994, Annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, refereed, “Health care professionals and changing ideals of institutional care for the elderly: The case of British Columbia.”
October 1994, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Poorhouse to nursing home: the evolution of old age facilities in twentieth-century British Columbia.”
June 1994, “BC and Beyond: Gender Histories” Conference, “‘She is destined to be your right hand man’: Women, Men and B.C.’s Provincial Welfare State.”
November 1992, BC Studies Conference, refereed, “Provincial Health Policy for Elderly British Columbians.”
November 1987, Annual meeting of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), refereed, “Women at the New Westminster Insane Asylum.”
“The Women beyond the Gates: Female Mental Health Patients in British Columbia,” in V. Dhruvarajan, ed., Women and Well-being / Les femmes et le mieux-être (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), pp. 53-64.
“Henry Esson Young.” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, forthcoming.
