MacNamara's DP Domestics: Immigration Policy Makers Negotiate Class, Race, and Gender in the Aftermath of World War II

Abstract

The Canadian labor market has always been in need of domestic labor. Throughout Canadian history the great demands for female help in households and on farms were never met. During the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, the choice recruitment area for domestics was, of course, Great Britain. These women would inevitably soon participate in the nation‐building project, helping, as mothers of the nation, populate the country. In the aftermath of World War II, when Canada became an important political agent in the international refugee resettlement regime, bureaucrats from the Ministry of Labour tried to kill two birds with one stone: to bring relief to displaced persons in Europe and to supply the labor market with domestics. After the supply from the DP camps ran dry, administrators from Immigration and Labour tried to tap into new sources in Europe. They reintroduced an Assisted Passage Program to make the offer to come to Canada to work as domestics more attractive. However, the women they had in mind had to meet certain standards, which, alas, neither the women in the DP camps nor the women targeted with the Assisted Passage Program were able or willing to match. How Ottawa bureaucrats and women activists in Canada on the one hand and field officers and women in war‐torn Europe on the other hand negotiated their aims and interests and needs and wants—and thus reshaped Canada's understanding of immigration—is the focus of this article.