Kaufman, A. R.
Kaufman, A. R.

Kaufman, A. R.

"If we breed from the bottom instead of the top we are courting disaster."

Alvin Ratz Kaufman (1885-1979) was a wealthy industrialist, and controlled rubber production in Canada. He is best known for his active role in birth control campaigns in Canada, making him a controversial figure. Kaufman was born in Berlin (later Kitchener), Ontario to an entrepreneurial family which controlled the Ratz and Kaufman Planning Mill, the Berlin Rubber Company, and the Berlin Rubber Manufacturing Company. Kaufmann began working for his father at Merchants’ Rubber Company in 1903.

He believed birth control was a means of helping out the poorest of his workers, who usually also had the largest families. Kaufman was a member of the Eugenics Society of Canada. In addition to birth control, he supported sterilization as a means of solving societal problems, including poverty.

Nicknamed “Canada’s Mr. Birth Control,” Kaufman helped secure laws to protect the sale and distribution of contraceptives. Concerned with the plight of the workers he had lay off during the depression, he focused on birth control as part of a solution to their financial challenges. He was chairman of the Kitchener Planning Board for 36 years, and was a member of the Kitchener Hospital Board, staunch member of the Zion Evangelical Church congregation, and on the founding Board of Governors of the University of Waterloo.

Kaufman founded the Parents’ Information Bureau in 1929, before birth control was legal in Canada, to distribute birth control information. He ran the bureau from 1930 until his death in 1972. The economic crisis in the 1930s had made birth control a respectable option. The Parents’ Information Bureau sent nurses to visit poor families who wrote asking for information about affordable contraception. Kaufman employed nurses who did regular health checks on the families of his employees, and disseminated birth control information upon request. One of his field workers, Dorothy Palmer, was arrested in 1936 for advertising birth control methods. In a landmark trial, with Kaufman’s support, Palmer was acquitted, after the court determined that her birth control work was a “public good.”

Kaufman typifies the male-dominated, politically active, eugenicist birth control movement. He began his birth control work when he discovered that his unskilled seasonal workers were in the greatest poverty and also had the largest families. He concluded that the most constructive help was through birth control. Kaufman supported sterilization both because of his staunch belief that the elite classes needed to control the population. Because of his control over rubber production in Canada, Kaufman was also interested in birth control because he wanted to capitalize on the manufacturing of contraceptives.

A member of the Eugenics Society of Canada, Kaufman believed that sterilization was the best method of preventing social problems such as infant and maternal mortality, venereal disease, prostitution, alcoholism, crime, “feeblemindedness”, and juvenile delinquency. Kaufman arranged for a number of sterilization operations for his employees, and was active in lobbying for legalization of eugenic sterilization. During the Depression, it has been speculated that his male workers were retained only on the condition that they got a vasectomy. In a 1977 interview he claimed that between 1930 and 1969, 1000 male sterilizations were performed in his rubber plant.

-Sheila Gibbons

  • [A.R. Kaufman Fonds]. (1929-1979). [Textual records and photographs]. University of Waterloo Archives, Waterloo, Canada.

  • Dodd, D. (1985). The Canadian Birth Control Movement: Two Approaches of the Dissemination of Contraceptive Technology. Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, 29(1), pp. 53-66.

  • Hogan, D. B. (2011). What’s Behind a Name: The Kaufman Prize of the Canadian Geriatrics Society. Canadian Geriatrics Journal, 14 (3).

  • MacDougall, H. A. (1990). Activists and Advocates: Toronto’s Health Department, 1883-1983. Toronto: Dundurn Press.

  • McLaren, A., & McLaren, A. T. (1986). The Bedroom and the State: The Changing Practices and Politics of Contraception and Abortion in Canada . Toronto: McCelland and Stewart.

  • Revie, L. (2006). More than Just Boots! The Eugenic and Commercial Concens behind A.R. Kaufman’s Birth Controlling Activities. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 23 (1), pp. 119-143.

Kaufman, A. R.

Kaufman, A. R.

"If we breed from the bottom instead of the top we are courting disaster."

Alvin Ratz Kaufman (1885-1979) was a wealthy industrialist, and controlled rubber production in Canada. He is best known for his active role in birth control campaigns in Canada, making him a controversial figure. Kaufman was born in Berlin (later Kitchener), Ontario to an entrepreneurial family which controlled the Ratz and Kaufman Planning Mill, the Berlin Rubber Company, and the Berlin Rubber Manufacturing Company. Kaufmann began working for his father at Merchants’ Rubber Company in 1903.

He believed birth control was a means of helping out the poorest of his workers, who usually also had the largest families. Kaufman was a member of the Eugenics Society of Canada. In addition to birth control, he supported sterilization as a means of solving societal problems, including poverty.

Nicknamed “Canada’s Mr. Birth Control,” Kaufman helped secure laws to protect the sale and distribution of contraceptives. Concerned with the plight of the workers he had lay off during the depression, he focused on birth control as part of a solution to their financial challenges. He was chairman of the Kitchener Planning Board for 36 years, and was a member of the Kitchener Hospital Board, staunch member of the Zion Evangelical Church congregation, and on the founding Board of Governors of the University of Waterloo.

Kaufman founded the Parents’ Information Bureau in 1929, before birth control was legal in Canada, to distribute birth control information. He ran the bureau from 1930 until his death in 1972. The economic crisis in the 1930s had made birth control a respectable option. The Parents’ Information Bureau sent nurses to visit poor families who wrote asking for information about affordable contraception. Kaufman employed nurses who did regular health checks on the families of his employees, and disseminated birth control information upon request. One of his field workers, Dorothy Palmer, was arrested in 1936 for advertising birth control methods. In a landmark trial, with Kaufman’s support, Palmer was acquitted, after the court determined that her birth control work was a “public good.”

Kaufman typifies the male-dominated, politically active, eugenicist birth control movement. He began his birth control work when he discovered that his unskilled seasonal workers were in the greatest poverty and also had the largest families. He concluded that the most constructive help was through birth control. Kaufman supported sterilization both because of his staunch belief that the elite classes needed to control the population. Because of his control over rubber production in Canada, Kaufman was also interested in birth control because he wanted to capitalize on the manufacturing of contraceptives.

A member of the Eugenics Society of Canada, Kaufman believed that sterilization was the best method of preventing social problems such as infant and maternal mortality, venereal disease, prostitution, alcoholism, crime, “feeblemindedness”, and juvenile delinquency. Kaufman arranged for a number of sterilization operations for his employees, and was active in lobbying for legalization of eugenic sterilization. During the Depression, it has been speculated that his male workers were retained only on the condition that they got a vasectomy. In a 1977 interview he claimed that between 1930 and 1969, 1000 male sterilizations were performed in his rubber plant.

-Sheila Gibbons

  • [A.R. Kaufman Fonds]. (1929-1979). [Textual records and photographs]. University of Waterloo Archives, Waterloo, Canada.

  • Dodd, D. (1985). The Canadian Birth Control Movement: Two Approaches of the Dissemination of Contraceptive Technology. Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, 29(1), pp. 53-66.

  • Hogan, D. B. (2011). What’s Behind a Name: The Kaufman Prize of the Canadian Geriatrics Society. Canadian Geriatrics Journal, 14 (3).

  • MacDougall, H. A. (1990). Activists and Advocates: Toronto’s Health Department, 1883-1983. Toronto: Dundurn Press.

  • McLaren, A., & McLaren, A. T. (1986). The Bedroom and the State: The Changing Practices and Politics of Contraception and Abortion in Canada . Toronto: McCelland and Stewart.

  • Revie, L. (2006). More than Just Boots! The Eugenic and Commercial Concens behind A.R. Kaufman’s Birth Controlling Activities. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 23 (1), pp. 119-143.