My PhD examines the impact polio had on Winnipeg nurses and families between 1928 and 1953. The records held at the City of Winnipeg Archives were invaluable to my work. Every day in the summer of 2009, I made my way to the beautiful building on William Avenue to find out how Winnipeg’s Department of Health tried to manage and control this disease that scared so many people for so long.
Between 1928 and 1953 there were at least 6 large polio epidemics in Manitoba. The 1953 polio outbreak, centred in Winnipeg, was the worst in Canadian history. Polio is a viral disease – one for which there is still no cure – only a vaccine. In the early years, mostly children got polio. By the late 1940s, more and more adults were getting polio and the death rates were climbing. Polio mainly affected a person’s limbs – an individual could be left with lingering muscle weakness or even paralysis. It could also affect a person’s respiratory muscles, leaving them unable to breathe.
The City of Winnipeg Health Committee files, City Council Minutes, and Monthly and Annual Health Reports were vital to my research. Held by the City of Winnipeg Archives, these records allowed me to document the spread of the disease and what Winnipeg’s health committee, doctors, and public health nurses faced each polio epidemic.
The last 3 epidemics were marked by severe nursing shortages. Daily headlines melodramatically reported on these shortages and city officials grappled with how to staff clinics and wards. These shortages can be partially explained by the time consuming treatments nurses had to perform. As I found in out in the records held by the city, these shortages were also due to gendered assumptions about women and work.
Nurses were expected to resign when they got married because married women were supposed to stay home. When polio epidemics erupted, former nurses were supposed to volunteer their time – for free – on the wards. In the late 1800s, it was believed that women had a social duty to volunteer their time to care for the sick. The records at the City of Winnipeg Archives show that this belief still existed in the mid-20th century. And they show that things got tense when nurses expected to be paid for the work they did!
Studying illness and disease can tell us so much about the society in which we live. If the records are not accessible we lose the ability to tell our stories. Leaving Winnipeg’s records in a temporary place that isn’t designed for long term storage or accessibility is not the answer.
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