14-dionne quints

The Dionne Quintuplets:
Fortune … But Unfortunate?
History 103
Fall 2004
Themes:
The Great Depression
Parental vs. medical vs. gov’t roles
Tourism and popular culture
French-English relations
Background
Oliva Dionne
Elzire Dionne
The Collapse
“Black Tuesday” 29 October 1929
Effects of the Great Depression
- stocks, production, wages, GNP, imports, exports, all decline
- but unemployment increases to 30% (1933)
- 1:5 Canadians dependent upon government for relief
Hardest Hit … The Prairies
Compounding factors: natural disasters
Central Canada in Depression
Unemployment, but more diversified
economies
Northern Ontario – devastated
because of economy based on
natural resources
Declining Birth Rate
1930 – 13.1 live births per 1000
1937 – 9.7 per 1000
The Dionne Family
The Miracle: 28 May, 1934
Midwives
The Newborns
Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe
Born 1883
U of T med school
To North Bay area
in 1909
Poor country
doctor
Common sense
Dafoe on the Scene
Kept alive on the stove
Oliva’s Panic!
Family from 7 to 12
in one day!
But no one thought
that they would
survive!
The Nurses
Intense Media Attention
Fight for Survival
Louise de Kiriline
The Media Arrive
FILM EXCERPT
Donald Brittain, “The Dionne
Quintuplets” (c1977)
Quints to Chicago World’s Fair?
The Century of
Progress”
Exhibition
“human
creatures
exhibit”?
Oliva signs a
deal
Dafoe and the Chicago Deal
Oliva Dionne
Politics: Mitchell Hepburn
Government Intervention (1934)
David Croll (Minister of
Public Welfare)
parens patriae – father
of the people
Way to defeat the
“perfidious contract”
Guardianship
Parent and child
Guardian and ward
Dionne Family … Separated
Hospital
Publicity
Fred Davis, Official photographer
Dafoe’s Fame
Money
Act for the Protection of the Dionne
Quintuplets, 1937
No longer about
health
Now about
finances
Safety
Quintland
Cashing in – Local Tourism
“A Human Goldmine to their Province”
The Costs
Trust Fund
Financing Quints “Bureaucracy”
Quints as “nationalized property”?
Life for the Quints
Strict Schedule
Observation
Psychological Care
Advertising Darlings
Movies, Trade Mark: big business!
Criticisms Increase: “A Canadian
Tragedy?”
French Canadian Issue
Maurice Duplessis and Fr
Cdn “survival” nationalism in
Quebec
Assimilation?
Association Canadienne
Francaise de l’Education
de l’Ontario (ACFEO)
Dionnes as French Catholic
children!
Dionne Changes Tactics
Plays Franco-Ontarian
card
Changed Context: early 1940s
Commercial value in decline
Second World War (1939-45)
Returning to the Flock
Dionne Family United
Was it really united?
Normal teenagers?
Deaths: Emilie (1954), Marie (1970)
Developments in the 1990s
The Dionne Quints: Family Secrets
“Million Dollar Babies”
1998: Ont. Prov. Govt settlement
Main Themes:
The Great Depression and search for
something positive
Parental roles vs. medical and
government intervention
Living in a “fishbowl”
Tourism and popular culture
French-English relations
Trapped: Denied Childhood?