The Dominion of Youth: Adolescence and the Making of Modern Canada, 1920 to 1950.

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

When you think of adolescence you think of the time young people 13–19 live at home, get into tiffs with their parents, attend high school, join their peers at various sport tournaments or maybe concerts and school dances, and date—maybe even go steady. Many also work at part-time, low-paying jobs, either to help their families or more likely to save money to spend on themselves, on clothes or the latest music. Finally, some even participate heavily in organizations—possibly a church youth group, or maybe the YM-YWCA.

’Twas not always thus according to Comacchio, an historian at Wilfrid Laurier University. Using an astonishing array of sources from most parts of the country—although Ontario sources predominate—Comacchio makes a convincing case that the notion of adolescence, at least as we understand it today, came slowly into Canadian consciousness starting in the 1920s and continuing until the 1950s, about the same time as the country itself seemed to be transitioning from a younger past into a more mature future. To be sure, there is an English-Canadian emphasis in the book and minorities such as francophone or Aboriginal youth are not explicitly studied. Further it is “ordinary” adolescents that are her target, not the ones who become “deviant,” despite the fact that many adults saw all youth as “problems.”

Why, one might ask, were the 1920s so pivotal in the creation of adolescence as we know it? Comacchio adduces several factors, not the least of which were the writings of major experts such as U.S. psychologist Granville Stanley Hall, who brought the notion into focus.

Meanwhile, the country itself was transitioning from a largely rural nation to a more urban nation with fewer opportunities for parents to pass on employment opportunities to their offspring.

Typically social historians have studied gender, class, race, religion, culture, and region and it is refreshing to see a historian analyze the past with age as the key focus. This is a wonderful book that does what many do not—shake preconceptions of the past and reorient one’s sense of reality.