"The Evils with Which We are Called to Grapple": Élite Reformers, Eugenicists, Environmental Psychologists, and the Construction of Toronto's Working-Class Boy Problem, 1860-1930

Since the 19th century Toronto’s working-class bad boys have been subjected to intense scrutiny and control. The deviant and criminal conduct that brought working-class juvenile offenders to police and court attention did not change significantly over the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, how their conduct was understood and governed was in a constant state of change and adjustment. This paper explores how Toronto’s working-class bad boys were represented and governed by elites, reformers, juvenile justice officials, medical experts, and university trained psychologists from 1860 to 1930. More specifically, it demonstrates how the 19th-century male juvenile offender, judged the product of injurious circumstances, was reinvented by eugenicists as the mentally deficient subject of the late 1910s and again (re)defined as an environmental psychiatric subject after 1925. These representations often overlapped, were discontinued, conflicted, and were in constant tension. Despite theoretical and practical differences, elites, eugenicists, and environmental psychologists were all particularly troubled by working-class male delinquency. Resume Depuis le 19e siecle, les mauvais garcons de la classe ouvriere de Toronto ont ete soumis a une etude minutieuse et a un controle severe. Le comportement aberrant et criminel par lequel les jeunes delinquants de la classe ouvriere avaient attire l’attention de la police et de la cour n’a pas change de facon remarquable a la fin du 19e siecle et au debut du 20e siecle. Toutefois, la facon dont leur comportement etait compris et gouverne etait dans un etat de changement et de redressement constant. Cet article explore la facon dont les mauvais garcons de la classe ouvriere de Toronto etaient representes et gouvernes par les elites, les reformateurs, les representants de la justice applicable aux jeunes, les experts en medecine et les psychologues universitaires de 1860 a 1930. Plus precisement, il demontre la facon dont les jeunes hommes delinquants du 19e siecle ont ete reinventes comme deficients mentaux a la fin des annees 1910 et redefinis par la suite comme objets psychiatriques environnementaux apres 1925. Ces representations etaient souvent chevauchees, discontinuees, opposees et en tension constante. En depit des differences theoriques et pratiques, les elites, les eugenicistes et les psychologues environnementaux etaient tout particulierement troubles par la delinquance des jeunes hommes de la classe ouvriere.