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On 23 November 1944 Gordon Bates, the general director of the Health League of Canada, told delegates at the twenty-fifth annual meeting of the organization that preventative medicine relied on the continued interest of the Canadian public. Attitudes toward public health, according to Bates, favoured the procurement of curative facilities and services, leaving untapped preventative medicine’s potential and foiling the best laid plans of the league to promote the health of Canadians during and after the ongoing Second World War.[1] For Bates and the league, the chief wartime threats to the health and moral welfare of the nation were the “sinister diseases,” namely syphilis and gonorrhea, which if left untreated and unchecked could “result in ultimate failure — perhaps even damage to the body politic.”[2] This alarmist tone, when coupled with the consensus within the league that preventative medicine was the best salve for Canada’s perceived health problems, provided all the impetus needed to launch an extensive wartime public education campaign meant to shed light on venereal disease and the ways in which “irregular” sexuality contributed to its spread.[3]

The term “preventative medicine,” still in use today, connotes a proactive approach to healthcare that seeks to mitigate incidences of illness through education, modifying lifestyle choices, and early diagnosis, all informed by a robust understanding of the environmental, socio-political, and economic factors that are determinants of health.[4] The league’s own measure of preventative medicine was ostensibly in line with this definition though, as Catherine Carstairs, Bethany Philpott, and Sara Whilmshurst argue, it incorporated notions of citizenship, morality, and individual culpability into its prophylaxis programs.[5] This fusion of public health concerns and moral cultivation reflected broader anxieties concerning sex and sexuality in Canada. Heather Stanley posits that Victorian moral reformers understood safeguarding sexual morality as a way of expressing citizenship, since it signalled one’s willingness to recognize the importance of protecting the future of the race by monitoring the bodies of its prospective mothers.[6]

The organization that was to become the Health League had been founded in the wake of the Great War as a result of the dominion-provincial venereal disease conference of 1919, and its initial aim was to drum up support for anti-venereal disease measures and to distribute venereal disease propaganda. Initially called the Canadian National Council for Combating Venereal Disease (until 1922, when it was renamed the Canadian Social Hygiene Council), the organization’s focus on venereal disease as a medical problem was coupled with a perspective that stressed the importance of the family unit and personal moral conduct in ensuring the health of the nation.[7] Gordon Bates, the league’s leader, was undoubtedly of a mind to marry the moral rhetoric of earlier reform movements with a medical perspective. Active in both medicine and social causes prior to the First World War, Bates ultimately charted an early course for the league that would see it staunchly defending the importance of morally informed medicine right up until its decline in the 1960s and 1970s.[8]

Ottawa was keen to work with the Canadian Social Hygiene Council, and the federal government provided funding to the council. In 1925, the entirety of federal money earmarked for anti-venereal disease education was allocated to the council, and throughout most of the 1920s, the federal government came to rely on the council as a vehicle for public education.[9] Yet as the postwar enthusiasm for anti-venereal disease campaigns waned, the Canadian Social Hygiene Council was forced to adapt to survive. Renamed again in 1935, the Health League of Canada broadened its interest in public health issues during the 1930s to include matters such as industrial health, milk pasteurization, and anti-diphtheria drives.[10] The league nevertheless maintained an active interest in venereal disease control and education, and with the coming of the Second World War, the stage was set for it to resume the campaign against the public health threat that it was initially created to address.

The league’s wartime anti-venereal disease campaign turned to film to rekindle moral anxieties surrounding sex and sexually transmitted infections. The interwar years were fraught with financial difficulty for the league, and through the process of expanding its activities to include new public health causes that would attract funding, the organization was discussing issues that were difficult to frame as explicitly moral. Furthermore, the league was forced to confront the reality that medical advances were winning the fight against venereal disease, and it worried that this and the emergence of a consumer culture that embraced self-gratification would lead Canadians to see this public health issue as a purely medical matter without a relevant moral dimension.[11] In this context, the league used films and supplementary materials to reemphasize the role of morality in public health campaigns, forging anew a prescriptive moral-medical model for understanding sexuality and sexual health that could be lent a sense of urgency by war.

The phrase “moral-medical model” hearkens to Frank Mort’s Dangerous Sexualities; Mort uses the concept of the “medico-moral” to assist in classifying “narratives that link our beliefs about health and disease to moral and immoral notions of sex.”[12] While Mort’s work concerns discourses of health and disease in England from 1800 to the middle of the twentieth century, his focus on the relationship between medical knowledge and sexual regulation remains profoundly relevant when discussing the moral-medical model of venereal disease education that the league embraced during its wartime public health campaign. Given the league’s use of film throughout the course of the Second World War, film studies scholar Annette Kuhn’s use of the term “medico-moral” to help define the genre of venereal disease education films is also important. Kuhn proposes that a consistent medico-moral message, namely that medically wrought cures and spiritual salvation were intrinsically related, prevailed in venereal disease films.[13]

My own decision to favour “moral-medical” in lieu of the “medico-moral” terminology used by Mort and Kuhn is largely an attempt to convey the importance of the former concept—morality—in informing the medical rhetoric of wartime anti-venereal disease campaigns. Morality was not a secondary concern appended to medical causes, at least not where the league was concerned. On the contrary, the league saw medicine as a relative newcomer to discussions over which morality had long held dominion. The moral-medical model adopted by the league presumed that moral and spiritual truisms regarding sexuality were among the core pillars upon which Canadian society had been built; medicine’s role was to strengthen and protect these older foundations.

This article also draws upon film historian Eric Shaeffer’s work describing the character archetypes of early venereal disease films, largely to argue how rote the materials used by the league at film and lecture events were. Shaeffer identifies five major character types present in films of the period, ranging from the Innocent—typically a young, impressionable, and ignorant person—to the Corrupter, who is primarily responsible for waylaying the Innocent and generally embraces vice wholeheartedly.[14] While the films used by the league did not always deploy characters perfectly fitting each archetype Shaeffer describes, they did so with enough frequency that one can safely say that the organization was hardly breaking new ground in using the materials that it did. The fact that the narrative elements and characters of films like No Greater Sin and The End of the Road so closely resemble those present in other venereal disease films from the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s suggests that the league was not complementing novel messages; instead, it was revitalizing older rhetoric. Like venereal disease film producers and distributors, the league never really managed to escape the inherent contradictions in its self-stated mission. While it might have espoused ostensibly liberal views on the importance of broadly available sexual education, the league’s reliance on stock characters from the venereal disease film genre demonstrates how conservative its views on sexuality really were.[15]

The subject of Canadian venereal disease education during the Second World War has not been entirely neglected by historians. Jay Cassel’s work on the topic of venereal disease control in Canada remains a valuable resource when approaching the topic. Yet Cassel’s own narrative concludes just prior to the Second World War, and his focus is more squarely on the circulation of knowledge regarding venereal disease among doctors than on the content of their educational efforts.[16] Complementing Cassel’s work is Ruth Roach Pierson’s research on wartime anxieties surrounding challenges to traditional notions of femininity. Pierson does directly consider the content of venereal disease educational content, though her examination is largely confined to materials used in military circles.[17] Still, Pierson’s willingness to grapple with the core messages and gendered nature of military anti-venereal disease efforts has informed some of the analysis here.

The recent publication of Carstairs, Philpott, and Wilmshurst’s monograph on the league has aimed a spotlight squarely on the organization’s philosophies and activities, and the authors do dedicate part of a chapter to discussing its wartime venereal disease campaign. While this chapter does discuss the centrality of film and lecture events in the league’s wartime work, the authors’ focus is mostly centred on the general characteristics of the organization’s educational efforts, highlighting individual items or events only briefly. Thus, this article’s narrower focus on the specifics of film and lecture events highlights their role in shaping and spreading the league’s messages about the relationship between health and sexual morality, providing a glimpse of what everyday Canadians were being told about morality, sexuality, and health by one of the most active public health organizations of the period. Furthermore, the inherently conservative messaging present in the league’s materials hints at the extent to which the ideology of its leadership influenced the information on offer to Canadians through the presentation of a homogenized and idealistic moral-medical view of sexuality.

To War, Once More: The League Returns to the Fray

One month after Canada declared war, the league (primarily via Gordon Bates’s participation) found itself holding a seat at the Ontario Department of Health’s venereal disease conference, held at the Academy of Medicine in Toronto. Though Bates did not present a paper at the conference, he did contribute to discussions regarding prospective measures to control venereal disease. Unsurprisingly, Bates sought to impress upon his colleagues the importance of education in the fight against venereal disease, insisting that both civilians and soldiers alike would benefit from knowledge about these diseases: this view had long been held by the league, and Bates’s reassertion of it at the conference was very much in line with his organization’s goals.[18] Bates also asserted that the sex trade had expanded during the interwar years, the implication being that sex work was grievously injurious to the present cause of venereal disease control.[19]

Both of these contentions fundamentally summarized the league’s approach to venereal disease control and education during the Second World War. Providing educational materials and services was a core pillar of the league’s work since its founding, and blaming the sex trade for Canada’s venereal disease woes was conventional wisdom within its ranks. With regard to the sex trade and its perceived role in the spread of venereal disease, Bates was by this point a seasoned commentator; in 1917, he emphatically wrote in the Public Health Journal that “[the prostitute] is a menace to every innocent home in the country” and that controlling sex work was “a challenge to every citizen who cares for the welfare of his community.”[20] While Bates was but one voice within the league, the organization’s willingness to spread his message was evidenced by its adoption of educational materials that plainly decried sex work, suggesting that his assertion was typically taken at face value by its membership. Bates was also hardly going out on a limb in suggesting that sex work was at least one obvious part of Canada’s venereal disease problem, a belief that echoed those of organizations like the American Social Hygiene Association.[21]

While Bates desired a renewed effort against venereal disease, the league was decidedly more sluggish in beginning its wartime anti-venereal disease activities. The closing months of 1939 were relatively quiet for the league, though by April 1940, preparations were being made for the launch of significant campaigns in numerous Canadian cities. These preparations primarily entailed contacting potentially interested cinemas and local business leaders to secure venues for mixed film/lecture events and to ensure that the seats at said events would be filled.[22] The league evidently believed that the true value of such gatherings was in their capacity to entertain audiences while delivering sound medical information that would promote public health consciousness among attendees.

Though film and lecture events hardly represented the entirety of the league’s activities, they were crucial in shaping and propagating its messages concerning the relationship between bodily health and sexuality. The league’s decision to embrace film reflected both its optimism toward the utility of entertainment in health education and its tacit acceptance of a consumer culture that it might otherwise have condemned as promoting pleasure seeking and self-gratification. As pointed out by John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman (and also referenced in Eric Schaefer’s work on the history of exploitation films), the interwar period saw the emergence of a consumerist ethic that embraced making decisions and purchases based on a desire to seek pleasure.[23] Concerns over how such societal changes stood to liberalize sexuality fuelled the creation of “exploitation” films in the sexual education genre, which “critiqued the emerging status-quo” while, ironically enough, tapping into that same status quo to create works that fused moral messaging with “titillating spectacle.”[24] In short, the league understood that changes in the mentality of consumers necessitated adopting an approach to public education that appeased entertainment-hungry Canadians. A growing desire on the public’s part to seek readily available amusement was, for the league, a development that could be used to its advantage: conservative views on sexual health and morality that might otherwise be seen as outmoded could, through film, be thrust into the spotlight once again.

Dedicated as the league was to launching a concerted anti-venereal disease campaign in 1940, its decision to herald this undertaking with well-publicized film viewings introduced a number of problems. Chief among these was the fact that the league was immediately faced with the task of finding a suitable film to show. While the league had access to Damaged Lives, which had seen extensive use in the 1930s, it ultimately decided against using this film with civilians, perhaps because some degree of the medical information presented in the film had become obsolete.[25] Thus, while Damaged Lives would continue to be shown to troops, the league opted to open its first major anti-venereal disease campaign of the war with The End of the Road, an ostensibly odd choice given the film’s age. Produced by the American Social Hygiene Association and released to civilian audiences in 1919, The End of the Road was a silent film in the age of “talkies,” films with synchronized sound. Despite this, the league decided to hedge its bets on a revival of The End of the Road, and the film began screening at Toronto’s Massey Hall on 26 December 1940.[26]

In the league’s estimation, the initial revival of The End of the Road in Toronto was a rousing success. Over fifteen thousand of the city’s residents saw the film between 26 December and 11 January, a number that the league supposed would be greater still if not for the fact that this date range fell between Christmas and New Year’s.[27] The league’s report on the showings mentions that complimentary admissions were extended to soldiers, nurses, police officers, and patients in provincial venereal disease clinics, an indication that the league believed educating those more likely to encounter venereal disease and contend with its effects (either personally or professionally) was a winning strategy.[28]

The limiting effects of the holidays notwithstanding, it is fair to presume that far more than the fifteen thousand Torontonians who went to see The End of the Road during its return run were exposed to the league’s activities. The league spent nearly one thousand dollars advertising their brief inaugural campaign in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Daily Star, and the Toronto Evening Telegram, and these newspapers occasionally featured reports of speaker addresses. Literature sales, besides helping to fund what was otherwise a marginally profitable endeavour, ensured that well over nine thousand pamphlets went home with moviegoers.[29] The league was also in communication with local clergy, and representatives from the social service arms of both the United Church and the Church of England endorsed the campaign and approved a pulpit announcement for clergymen in the city.[30]

The End of the Road largely conveyed the same core messages as those put forward by the league, perhaps as a result of having been made by an American organization that embraced similar rhetoric. The film tells the stories of two young white American women, Mary Lee and Vera Wagner, both beginning to navigate their own burgeoning sexuality. Mary, the more morally upright of the two women, is educated in matters of sexual health by her mother and is therefore prepared to confront sexual temptation. By contrast, Vera is ignorant of the dangers inherent to premarital sex and takes boundless joy in entertaining the advances of her “regiment of admirers.” Exacerbating this youthful ignorance is the careless advice of Vera’s mother, who suggests that the teenage Vera begin courting older and successful men to secure financial comfort for the Wagner family.[31]

In the end, Vera’s immorality and ignorance prove to be her undoing. While working the counter at a department store, she falls for the charms of a “hard worker in a non-essential industry — the sowing of wild oats.” Their trysts result in Vera contracting syphilis, though the direness of her situation is alleviated when she meets with Mary (now a nurse) and Dr. Bell, who convinces her to undergo medical treatment. The film ends with Mary and Dr. Bell meeting (and confessing their love for one another) in a war-torn Europe, both having been driven by patriotism to volunteer during the First World War.

Though this is admittedly a very barren summary of The End of the Road’s plot, it nevertheless does help to outline several moments and characters in the film that served to forward the league’s core anti-venereal disease messages, including the importance of both a moral and medical education in protecting Canadians from syphilis and gonorrhea. As mentioned, Mary benefits from an early exposure to the “facts of life” curated by her wizened mother; even as a child, Mary is aware of “where babies come from,” becoming frustrated when her peers repeat sanitized renditions of childbirth. Precisely because she was educated in matters of sexual health and morality, Mary has the prescience and drive to educate and assist those around her; she is the very model of health citizenship espoused by the league. Though Mary does not neatly fit into one of the character archetypes outlined by Schaefer (being an Innocent character who nonetheless proves incorruptible), her role as a recipient of education is meaningful. For the league, the ideal health citizen was one who emulated Mary by remaining morally and sexually pure, seeking the advice of a trained physician when matters of bodily and spiritual health became unclear.[32]

If Mary’s character was one the league hoped Canadians would aspire to emulate, Vera’s was more a representation of how the league envisioned the uneducated masses. As a poorly educated and ignorant young woman, Vera’s misfortunes in the film are expected, if not entirely deserved. A near-perfect rendition of the Innocent archetype, Vera’s function in the film is to be another recipient of venereal disease education, though unlike Mary, her schooling is reparative rather than preventative.[33] As a victim of misinformation, audiences were expected to feel sympathy for Vera’s plight while also understanding that they occupied “a precisely identical position of ignorance and moral corruptibility.”[34] Vera’s mother, on the other hand, was expected to be an object of the audience’s scorn for both failing to educate Vera about the dangers of promiscuity and encouraging her to find a wealthy man to latch onto. The portrayal of a woman seeking out a wealthy suitor, trading sexual favours for a measure of security, was not a novel invention of The End of the Road. Film scholar Lea Jacobs describes seeking security through promiscuity as a commonplace behaviour of fallen women in both nineteenth-century literature and twentieth-century films.[35] As a character fitting both the Corrupter and Parent archetypes, the mother’s primary role in the film is to provide questionable information to impressionable characters, indirectly orchestrating their downfall at the hands of sin and disease.[36] Vera’s mother is also meant to convey to audiences the notion that silence on matters of sexual health and morality is antiquated and therefore has no place in a medically modern society, though again, this seemingly liberal message must be considered alongside the otherwise conservative views on sexuality forwarded by the league.

In choosing to employ these archetypes, the film’s creators deployed models of female culpability that were deeply entrenched in venereal disease propaganda. Moral reformers had long relied upon the notion that saving women laid low by sin, sex, and venereal disease was an objective of the utmost importance, though the saviour’s willingness to be of assistance did not absolve individual women of their perceived personal failings.[37] The fallen woman was imagined as both victim and perpetrator, a corrupted paragon who stood to drag down others around her if left unchecked. Ruinous, too, was the woman who, after her fall, became a trove of harmful information for impressionable youths. While Vera and her mother might be presented differently in The End of the Road, in combining their characters, one finds a synthesized portrayal of the rote talking points moral reformers and sex educators used to describe the dangers of unchecked female sexuality. Ignorance and ill-parenting might set a woman on the wrong path, but promiscuity was ultimately the result of character failure in the individual woman.

Figure 6.1

Advertisement for The End of the Road shown in the Globe and Mail, 26 December 1940.

Source: File 12, vol. 130, MG28-I332, Library and Archives Canada

-> See the list of figures

The End of the Road was, in short, a useful stopgap film for the league, an older flick to launch its campaign while it sought out newer offerings. Where the film fell short was in providing any useful medical information concerning venereal disease to audiences, despite earlier advertisements stressing its value as a source of “true information concerning venereal diseases, their causes, effects and prevention” (claims about the film’s medical value are made in numerous materials: see Figure 6.1 for an example).[38] The film’s most significant depiction of venereal disease’s impact on the human body comes from a scene where Dr. Bell and Mary are attempting to convince Vera to submit to treatment for syphilis. Wandering the grounds of an asylum tending to syphilitic patients, Vera is horrified to see open syphilitic lesions; the camera lingers on these for a few moments, giving audiences the opportunity to share in Vera’s revulsion. This scene stirred up controversy when the film was due for release to civilian audiences in 1919, and some early reviewers accused the film of being overly graphic.[39] These scenes were undoubtedly intended to capitalize on the visceral fear of audiences, an approach deemed “frank and startling” by one reviewer.[40]

Despite the league’s insistence that Torontonians should make every effort to take in one of the film’s many screenings at Massey Hall, The End of the Road was primarily shown to gender-segregated audiences. Of the inaugural campaign’s twenty-eight screenings, only eight catered to mixed audiences, and half of these occurred on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day (perhaps to boost attendance figures, unsuccessfully in this case).[41] The league did not permit youths under the age of sixteen to attend screenings, though this decision might be seen as somewhat ironic given The End of the Road’s self-proclaimed focus on venereal disease as a problem primarily plaguing younger individuals and its focus on younger characters. The league held that educating parents was the most acceptable and fruitful approach to furthering its cause, with the aim being to send savvy parents home equipped with the tools they needed to speak with their children about venereal disease and sexual morality. This approach likely had its roots in the successful league campaigns of the 1930s, particularly its popular anti-diphtheria drives, which focused on educating parents and providing them with the information and moral impetus to immunize their children.[42]

“The Finest Means of Delivering Messages”: Mid to Late War Film Events

Despite the film’s perceived utility in launching the league’s first Second World War anti-venereal disease campaign, The End of the Road was showing its age by the 1940s. By the end of 1941, the league began to consider adopting No Greater Sin as the primary film for its educational campaigns, in part due to the recommendations of liaisons from other organizations.[43] Another matter factoring into the league’s debate over adopting No Greater Sin were the terms offered by Columbia Pictures, who assured the league that it would not be liable to pay for the film if it did not bring in the $27,500 it was purchased for.[44] These considerations, coupled with a pressing need for a contemporary “talkie” film, persuaded the league that No Greater Sin was the right pick for its wartime campaign, and by the spring of 1942 the organization was ready to bring it to Canadian cinemas.[45]

No Greater Sin went on to be used far more widely than The End of the Road. Shown first in March 1942, by May of the following year the league estimated that roughly three-quarters of a million Canadians had seen the film, excluding private and military viewership.[46] Alongside the film, the league distributed 150,000 pieces of literature, an impressive total when one considers that the Ontario government itself distributed two hundred thousand pieces of literature in 1942.[47] League-sponsored screenings were held throughout Canada, and while much of the organization’s effort was directed toward Ontarians, No Greater Sin also brought out thousands in other provinces.[48] The league advertised screenings as aggressively as their means would allow by buying advertisements in local newspapers and printing “pay stuffers” for companies to distribute to their employees.[49] The league also contacted health authorities, clergymen, and prominent citizens ahead of screenings, hoping that local actors could work to generate free publicity and enlist the support of enthusiastic volunteers. Medical health officers were frequently sought out to solicit endorsements and assistance ahead of screenings, and provincial health authorities could usually be relied upon to serve as a liaison between the league and local health officials.[50] The league also directly sought the participation of theatre owners by asking that they provide staff to operate literature sales booths during their events, though in smaller venues this was occasionally an unsuccessful bid.[51] Where theatres could not or would not provide staff for literature sales, the league turned to other voluntary groups for assistance. Women’s organizations such as the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire were frequent helpers at league film events, and they also provided chairpersons or lecturers for female audiences.[52]

Beyond May 1943, the league continued to sponsor showings of No Greater Sin, and it would not be unreasonable to suppose that over a million Canadians saw the film by the war’s end. While the league did not account for military viewership when compiling its own figures, the evidence suggests that it was commonly shown in many units, with several depots and ten Canadian Women’s Army Corps units rating it as their favourite venereal disease education picture.[53] No real attempt was made to alter the formula of film and lecture events, and there was little indication that public enthusiasm for anti-venereal disease propaganda was drying up. When the league decided to show the film at Toronto’s Massey Hall in October 1944, it once again managed to secure a mayoral endorsement, and immediately following the film, campaign representatives from the municipal government (including the medical officer of health and two members of the city’s police force) met with the league to discuss the city’s venereal disease problem and to hear a report concerning the success of the recent screening.[54]

If attendance is any indication, Canadians appreciated the league’s choice of No Greater Sin, though the film was not without its critics. Dr. Charles Appelbe, the medical officer of health for Parry Sound, wrote to his colleagues and the league that the film was an excellent attempt to generate interest in venereal disease control, but that young people in his audience felt it lacked any concrete information about the symptoms and effects of syphilis infection.[55] Some venues were quite reluctant to show this sort of film, though the league did occasionally beseech local health authorities to intercede and persuade hesitant owners that the film was not salacious and benefitted public health.[56] In Stouffville, Ontario, one proprietor conceded that these films were important and admitted to having shown them before, but emphatically stated that he would no longer do so because the “silly remarks” of the audience were embarrassing to his wife and daughter, who worked alone on the ground floor of the venue.[57] Despite the league’s insistence that their events were of the utmost importance, some audiences were willing to have fun at the organization’s expense, and this may have occasionally made booking theatres difficult.

Figure 6.2

Advertisement for No Greater Sin from Welland, Ontario, in 1942.

Source: File 11, vol. 139, MG28-I332, Library and Archives Canada

-> See the list of figures

Internal criticism from league members was also forthcoming and usually focused on the film’s presentation rather than the film itself. Mabel Ferris, the assistant director of the league, felt that advertisements for the film might have overly stressed the educational aspects of the presentation, reducing interest among Canadian audiences that were “not anxious to be educated.”[58] A report from the league’s Social Hygiene Division disagreed with this assessment, going so far as to claim that the advertisements circulating in newspapers were already too “theatrical” in nature and expressing concern that the emphasis on sin in the film’s title and advertisements was antithetical to the league’s goals (see Figure 6.2).[59] These divisions do help reveal conflicting sentiments regarding how to best approach league film and lecture events, though the league generally saw No Greater Sin as a success, and it would continue to use this film in civilian circles for the remainder of the war.

While The End of the Road’s plot is tangentially a wartime one, No Greater Sin is a film that explicitly deals with the perceived dangers of venereal disease during a time of global conflict. The film is set in an unnamed American city near a military base. Into this environment strides Dr. Cavanaugh, a physician who has recently been made a municipal health commissioner. Dr. Cavanaugh, a progressive and competent professional of the Crusader archetype, is appalled by the city’s syphilis problem, especially given its proximity to a military base. The good doctor is also incensed that a local mafia-run brothel is covertly operating as a dance hall and that this establishment has escaped the attention of the law and citizenry due to prudishness and disinterest. Cavanaugh vows to bring down this establishment, believing that the introduction of strong moral and medical guidance will see the town through this crisis of health.

In choosing to portray the fictional city’s woes as at least in part the result of an illicit sex trade, No Greater Sin’s writers sought to rekindle among audiences the sentiment that sex workers were a serious threat to public health, doubly so when they were permitted to ply their trade near critical military installations. The message forwarded by the film is exceedingly clear: sex work was as much a threat to the war effort as it was a moral scourge. Joan Sangster’s observation that sex workers in wartime Canada were often described as both victims of an uncaring underworld and brazen predators in their own right also comes to mind when considering this element of No Greater Sin’s plot, though it is worth noting that the sex workers in the film are barely afforded any screen time or meaningful contribution to the plot besides fulfilling their role as background antagonists.[60]

Running parallel to this plot is a secondary story centred around the relationship woes of Bill and Betty, two working-class white youths on the cusp of marriage. While Bill and Betty are shown to be a great match for one another, their potential marriage is spoiled by the news that Bill has contracted syphilis from previous carousing. Afraid of telling Betty about his infection, Bill consults with a quack physician who promises an expensive, fast-acting cure. Feeling ashamed and afraid, Bill squanders his life savings on what proves to be a false cure and, fully convinced he is well, goes through with his plans to marry Betty. When Bill and Betty both exhibit symptoms of a syphilis infection, they finally approach Dr. Cavanaugh, who is stern and sympathetic in equal measure. Cavanaugh suggests the newlyweds begin treatment immediately, but the matter is complicated when Bill’s rage drives him to confront the quack doctor. Mortified at the prospect of being publicly exposed as a scammer, the quack attempts to murder Bill in his office but is himself killed in the ensuing struggle. Ashamed of his infection and unwilling to admit to his prior immorality, Bill falsely maintains that he murdered the quack doctor, though a trial establishes both his innocence and his illness. Despite going free, Bill disappears for a time to undergo proper treatment for his infection, eventually reuniting with Betty and living happily ever after.

No Greater Sin was undoubtedly formulaic in its use of typical character and plot archetypes for films of this sort. While a gulf of over twenty years separates No Greater Sin from The End of the Road, both films tell similar stories, making use of the same archetypes to drive across largely unchanged moral and medical messages. Indeed, the fact that No Greater Sin played it safe with its core messaging made it attractive to the league. In positing that premarital sex was immoral, public education was important, and the sex trade was a dangerous scourge in modern society, No Greater Sin comes across as a film that could have very well been produced by the league itself. Unlike The End of the Road, which confined its medical message to simple exhortations to seek professional help in cases of infection, No Greater Sin put some effort into ensuring audiences knew what medical procedures they might encounter should require treatment. Viewers would have walked away from the film knowing what a Wasserman test entailed and assured that the process of taking blood samples while administering the test was quick, painless, and effective.[61] Through the misfortunes of Bill and his experiences with a quack doctor, the film reminded its audience that over-the-counter remedies for venereal disease did not exist and that they should not fall prey to those who would suggest otherwise. Though this message did serve the interests of increasingly professional medical practitioners, it was also sound advice that reflected the realities of treatment at the time.

By portraying Bill and Betty as sympathetic sufferers, No Greater Sin also sought to destigmatize treatment and testing or, at the very least, posit that the genuinely repentant could still live as healthy, respectable citizens. This message was common enough in previous venereal disease education films, though it was taken a step further in No Greater Sin, where Dr. Cavanaugh’s crusade includes a call for every citizen in the area to take a Wasserman test regardless of their character or class. “Dragnet” approaches to testing had been attempted in American cities, with mixed results. In 1937, Chicago began offering free tests to individuals after questionnaires indicated overwhelming support for this measure, resulting in a dramatic reduction in syphilis rates.[62] Yet Chicago was an exceptional case, and more typical measures included passing legislation that required prospective couples to produce a negative Wasserman test before being granted a marriage license. Poor enforcement, differing requirements based on gender, and uneven standards rendered these laws only partially effective while greatly elevating the role of the state in family life.[63] Regardless, the league was itself in favour of premarital blood testing in Canada, and the call for Wasserman testing’s acceptance in No Greater Sin complemented the organization’s goal to see the provinces enact such laws.[64]

Still, it would be misleading to praise the educational value of No Greater Sin without caveat. While the film did demystify blood testing, it also offered little in the way of other medical advice beyond avoiding immoral sexual relationships and promptly contacting a legitimate physician if one failed to do so. Furthermore, in one instance, the film offered medical advice that was blatantly incorrect, suggesting that one could contract venereal disease from sharing drinking glasses, a pronouncement which stood in stark contrast to contemporary medical knowledge and conflicted with the other educational materials provided by the league.

Dr. Cavanaugh’s insistence that syphilis was not a moral issue also stood at odds with No Greater Sin’s unsympathetic depiction of the sex trade, which the film blamed for military unfitness and civilian woe. Unlike Bill, who is given the benefit of the doubt despite his failings, sex workers in No Greater Sin are castigated for their role in promoting moral and medical unfitness, their crimes deemed more damning than the gullibility and temporary moral lapses of the male protagonist. To some extent, this inconsistency is unsurprising: much of the literature on crime and sex delinquency during the 1930s and 1940s found only especially problematic male behaviours worrisome, whereas general promiscuity was considered a serious condition among girls and women.[65]

“The Most Important Part of the Whole Performance”: Lectures, Pamphlets, and Supplementary Information at League Events

Even a cursory examination of the films shown at league events confirms that they were meant to raise awareness about venereal disease rather than provide information about the signs and symptoms of infection. However, examining the films on their own does not provide a full picture of what the league hoped to accomplish with its cinema events. Through the medium of film, the league hoped to draw in Canadian audiences looking to be amused and shocked: via lectures and pamphlets, it sought to provide more substantive information to attendees after the credits finished rolling. The tradition of pairing films with an accompanying medical lecture was not particularly novel. When The End of the Road was used to kickstart the 1920 educational drive of the Canadian National Council for Combating Venereal Disease, there was no expectation among organizers that the film would be shown without a lecture.[66] Indeed, even before film was widely used in education campaigns, lectures and visual aids (usually “magic lantern” slides or posters) went hand in hand. Brief lectures would occasionally be held during the intermission of a “double header” showing; this was the case in Toronto when No Greater Sin showed at the Imperial Screen Theatre, and it was most likely a strategy to ensure that the audience sat through lectures.[67]

The lecturers themselves were primarily professional volunteers drawn from the medical community (themselves often, but not always, league members), though occasionally individuals in law enforcement or social work circles were invited to give presentations.[68] Lectures began with a brief address by an appointed chairman, usually a prominent citizen who was not a physician or directly involved in anti-venereal disease work, introducing syphilis and gonorrhea.[69] Though these introductory remarks primarily consisted of a list of the social and familial consequences of venereal disease, this was sufficient to drive home the second half of the address, which stressed the need for Canadians to support the league’s call for widespread blood testing and increased attention to the moral character of the dominion.[70] With these talking points duly delivered, the chairman was expected to introduce the medical lecturer for the event and their informational presentation.

Regardless of whether they were for men, women, or mixed audiences, the league’s medical lectures typically began with a crash course in human reproductive anatomy. Despite the professional tone of these presentations, and one sample lecture asserting that they had “nothing to do with the moral phases of this problem,” this introductory section was meant to show what exactly “illicit sexual contact” stood to disrupt.[71] Nevertheless, the medical information that followed was far more substantive than that contained in films employed by the league. A description of the most common symptoms of gonorrhea and syphilis, accompanied by images for reference, warned Canadians what to look out for if they should engage in premarital or extramarital sexual relations.

Most useful of all to audiences were talking points meant to demystify the process of treatment by explaining what it comprised for men, women, and children. Audiences were reminded that with proper and prompt medical attention, cases were usually resolved with ease, though lectures featured warnings aplenty about the dangers of deferring treatment to the point where syphilis or gonorrhea infections became more serious.[72] Couched in terror-inducing warnings to remain moral and avoid becoming “human wreckage” was genuinely practical medical advice; through these lectures, Canadians encountered a tangible manifestation of the moral-medical model.[73]

Though the league had access to a swath of pamphlets and brochures, it typically distributed three particular items during its film and lecture events: An Open Letter to Young Men, Healthy, Happy Womanhood, and Tell Your Children the Truth. As might be ascertained by their titles, each pamphlet catered to a specific demographic of Canadians, though the fact that they could be purchased as a bundle does suggest that the league believed families would benefit from perusing them together. An Open Letter to Young Men, and Happy, Healthy Womanhood both stressed the importance of living chastely and pursuing sex only within the confines of marriage, though their authors approached these matters from differing angles. In the pamphlet for men, sexual self-restraint is equated with civility and masculinity: the man who is overly keen to pursue his desires outside of marriage stains his honour and that of the women with whom he lies. Some patriarchal sympathy is even extended to sex workers, and the pamphlet’s author suggests that it is the duty of men to help sex workers seek a path toward redemption.[74] The pamphlet hearkens to Victorian notions about sexual desire that assumed that the “active” role in partnering naturally belonged to men and that it was men who set the cadence in courtship.[75]

Happy, Healthy Womanhood, by contrast, makes no mention of sex work or its supposed impact on Canadian public health. Reading like guidance from a seasoned, matronly mother, the league’s pamphlet for women proudly states its thesis without much delay: that “upon healthy womanhood depends to a large extent happy motherhood.”[76] Women’s health, according to the pamphlet, is largely an alchemical blend of understanding one’s body and their moral and civic duty to bear healthy children for the continuity of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is on matters of physical wellness that the author first turns to, and innocently enough they choose to first describe the benefits of exercise, a balanced diet, “erect carriage,” and wearing loose-fitting, comfortable clothing.[77] A brief diversion to explain the merits of beauty and popularity is also offered, though these two things are said to come naturally as the result of physical fitness and cleanliness.

The emphasis on peer acceptance and attractiveness further reinforces the “coming of age” qualities of this publication, though the fact that league film events typically admitted none under the age of sixteen raises the question of how much this message would have resonated with older audiences. Then again, the advice in Happy, Healthy Womanhood was not so different from that offered to young women elsewhere. Catherine Gidney argues that universities in interwar Canada began to emphasize the importance of ingraining morality and respectability among female students through sport and other activities. Character training became seen as not only a way to create good students but also a method of preparing women for motherhood and, in more exceptional circumstances, long-term participation in the workforce.[78] Team sports, etiquette in dining halls, and social interaction were given moral meaning, in that they ingrained in young women a spirit of sacrifice, citizenship, and participation that could be reconciled with traditional notions of femininity.[79] Happy, Healthy Womanhood drew upon the concept that matters like hygiene, posture, and attitude contributed to a woman’s sense of femininity, and that femininity was ultimately dependent upon adherence to morally prescribed gender norms.

In terms of directly discussing the signs and symptoms of venereal disease infection, An Open Letter to Young Men is far more explicit and informative than Happy, Healthy Womanhood, though the latter pamphlet actually makes reference to the existence of public health clinics and the importance of visiting them without delay should one have an illicit sexual experience.[80] Both works assume that their readers are unmarried, young adults, explaining the existence of the third pamphlet intended to educate married parents. Tell Your Children the Truth revels in the fact that it is a Health League publication, as evidenced by its introduction outlining the aims, achievements, and allies of the organization. The interwar pedigree of the pamphlet is made manifest in the way it seeks to explain the merits of eugenics as a public health consideration, though the distinction should be made that the eugenicist rhetoric employed here is very much of the “positive eugenics” variety.[81] Like Happy, Healthy Womanhood, Tell Your Children the Truth supposes that “healthy” is a state of being achieved by the alignment of physical and moral wellness and cultivated by good habits and proper guidance. The role of parents, therefore, is to ensure that their children “inherit” none of the “socially undesirable instincts” that make for unhealthiness.[82] The advice on offer in the third pamphlet essentially boils down to reminding parents that talking to children about the moral value of a proper perspective on sex is worthwhile and that doing so with a “scientific vocabulary” free of euphemisms and allusions is the best method for doing so.[83]

The question remains to what extent the methods and materials used in league events differed from contemporary anti-venereal disease programs, such as those organized by civilian governmental agencies or the military. Carstairs, Philpott, and Wilmshurst describe some of the criticism levied against the league’s use of certain materials during the war, including occasional comments from provincial health officials that the league was overly concerned with discussing the moral aspects of the venereal disease problem.[84] Is it therefore fair to conclude that the league was unique in choosing to embrace a moral-medical approach to venereal disease education? On the contrary, much of the content on offer in the league’s film and lecture events was thoroughly unexceptional; categorically denying the strict separation of morality and medicine was the norm rather than some antiquated model embraced only by conservative voices. Lecture outlines used by non-league actors still maintained that things like “vulgar and licentious talk” contributed to the spread of venereal disease and warned audiences to avoid people of ill repute who might otherwise serve as a source of corruption.[85] Furthermore, for every medical official who saw moral injunctions as ineffective, there was one who maintained that Canadians must not be allowed to forget the place of good character in the fight against venereal disease. Writing for the Nova Scotia Medical Bulletin, J. S. Robertson (a divisional medical health officer in the province) noted that the provincial education plan relied on “moral training,” stressing that “illicit sex adventures must be condemned from both a moral and medical point of view.”[86]

Materials from provincial bodies also did not always shy away from using moral pleas in anti-venereal disease messaging. For example, the Ontario Department of Health’s pamphlet Information About Two Serious Diseases emphasized the importance of treatment alongside its condemnations of “promiscuous sexual contact” and “unsavoury community conditions,” including the prevalence of brothels.[87] Promiscuity was commonly decried in similar materials, a moral perspective that recognized sex as only safe when enjoyed in the context of heterosexual marriage. While some provinces did attempt to emphasize the medical aspects of venereal disease control more actively, as was the case in British Columbia, deliberate attempts to wholly extricate morals from sexual education were less common than the moral-medical approach.[88]

Conclusion

While the league was enthusiastic about the potential of its film and lecture events, it is clear that they are best summarized as raising awareness and fostering moral panic while providing only some useful medical advice. Undoubtedly, the league’s film and lecture events dragged venereal disease out into the public spotlight by appealing to the public’s desire to be entertained and, perhaps, slightly titillated. Yet by poring over the materials used at these events, it also becomes clear that the information proffered to Canadians was not strictly clinical, though this approach was not unique to the league’s campaigns. In reminding their audiences that sex was only morally and medically viable within the confines of heterosexual marriage, the league condemned expressions of sexuality that did not abide by this standard and negotiated a place for morality alongside modern medicine. Furthermore, the league’s insistence that sex work was a key factor in spreading illness encouraged campaigns to persecute women in that trade, counteracting the organization’s attempts to teach that men and women alike were equally liable for cultivating good health and morality.

When the league did turn to discussions of symptoms and treatment, it favoured providing just enough information to cause concern. The impact of venereal disease on a person’s ability to become a parent certainly played on the emotions and ambitions of young Canadians, though it did little to help an individual identify whether they themselves might be infected. Similarly, while the league never shied away from the fact that venereal disease was often treatable, especially in cases where it was diagnosed promptly, there is little evidence that its film and lecture events offered directions to clinics or much detail of what treatment entailed. In brief, the league’s activities certainly raised awareness about aspects of the venereal disease problem, though they less often provided Canadians with any further insight into the matter. In many ways, this barebones education embodied the core spirit of the moral-medical model: Canadians needed to know just enough about sex to understand that living an upright life was the best prophylaxis of all.