Restoring the Spirit: The Beginnings of Occupational Therapy in Canada, 1890–1930 by Judith Friedland (review)

Labour historians may be forgiven for overlooking Restoring the Spirit: The Beginnings of Occupational Therapy in Canada, 1890–1930 when it was first released. A sympathetic portrayal of an emerging therapeutic discipline as told by one of its practitioners and classified under medical history seems an unlikely place to encounter revealing lessons about Canadian working-class history. Yet, Judith Friedland has written a fascinating and original story of working women with aspirations of a professional identity supporting the efforts of predominantly working-age men with physical and mental health issues to gain access to the labour market. “Ward aides” (ancestors of “occupational therapists”) pioneered the development of the sheltered workshop system that came to define the working experiences of people with disabilities in Canada for most of the 20th century. Friedland relates a highly gendered history of occupational therapy, with male physicians controlling the direction of the profession as a whole while women were generally restricted to frontline service. She suggests these gender dynamics were partly responsible for the loss of an institutional memory carried down through the generations of predominantly female occupational therapists. Indeed, the cover illustration is a poignant reflection of this thesis, presenting a cropped photograph of uniformed Soldier’s Civil Re-establishment ward aides and Ontario vocational officer Professor H.E.T. Haultain on graduation day at the University of Toronto. The original photograph (119) shows Haultain at the centre of the group whereas the cropped version finds him hanging onto the edge of the book’s binding in order to provide a closer portrait of the female graduates.

Restoring the Spirit examines the emergence and development of occupational therapy in Canada, documenting its close connections to other social and political movements that provided new form to the treatment of physical impairment and mental illness. Friedland situates occupational therapy at the cutting edge of social and medical responses to disability in the early 20th century as it provided innovative therapeutic treatments while offering new forms of paid work for women. Directed engagement in various “occupations” as a form of treatment arose from interlocking philosophies in mental hygiene, arts and crafts, and the settlement house movements. The narrative is organized to establish contextual foundation in these movements before moving into the development of occupational therapy during World War I as well as its long aftermath. The book is well organized to accomplish Friedland’s incrementalist narrative of a progressively developing discipline. Many women stepped out into the public sphere by taking advantage of new opportunities in the workforce during this period, filling the ranks of workers in new fields such as occupational therapy. Untrained at first, but later educated in universities to address increased demand for services in addition to a desire for respect, ward aides focused on treating the “whole patient” while building a profession and new identity for working women. As a result, Friedland provides an enthusiastic journey into new historiographical terrain, hoping to introduce contemporary occupational therapists to their discipline’s roots in holistic therapeutic treatment that predated the medical model.

Although not a trained historian, Friedland conducted a rigorous search for archival sources in order to build a confident narrative regarding the pivotal role of women during this early period. She explicitly calls on professional historians to view this publication as a starting point in which to “apply a particular theoretical lens to the analysis and interpretation of the material in the future.” (xvii) Utilizing extensive personal and professional networks in the field in addition to sources available in public archives, Friedland assembled an impressive record of primary source material, including a number of fascinating historical photographs and individual scenarios, despite her stated difficulty tracking down useful records in conventional archival repositories. (xviii) Illustrations throughout the book depict the tools and occupations contemporary to the time period as well as key individuals in her narrative. More direct engagement with these images, such as subjecting them to a material...