Structure for the Research Paper

Working Title

The Doctor’s Dilemma: The tenuous balance between the public and private faces of a nineteenth century rural Ontario medical life revealed through a material culture analysis of the doctor’s house

Using the primary and secondary presented throughout this web site, I have developed a structure and an approach for my research paper.

Objective of the Paper

Clearly, the doctor's house is a significant place, laden with layers of meaning for people in the community and for the inhabitants of the houses. The exercise of this paper is to peel away the layers and attempt to make sense of the doctor's house as a remnant of architectural history but, more importantly, to understand the complex responses of people and how they interacted with the house, physically and symbolically, and what this interaction reveals about the nature of a rural medical practice in the nineteenth century.

The Thesis of the Paper

Although an analysis of design and structure is important for placing the doctor’s house in a broader architectural context, it is the relationship between architectural structures and human activities that is integral to the material culture analysis presented in this paper. It is the social context, constructed through historical research about the community, the doctor’s family, and the nature of medical practice during the nineteenth century that illustrates greater cultural meaning. The relevance of drawing a connection between what is symbolic about the physical structure, the degree to which the structure influences and indicates a significant role in the culture of a community, and for the individuals who lived in the structure becomes apparent. Further, an interpretation of these influences and activities can be accessed through an examination of the physical structure of the house which reveals tensions between the professional space of the doctor’s office and the private space of the domestic areas based on how and why these space were used by the doctor and his family.

This paper will suggest several reasons for this tension based three areas of investigation: one, on trends and changes in medical practice throughout the nineteenth century; two, the movement towards professional standards by medical practitioners and the subsequent competitive nature of practices; and three, the importance of social status, image and reputation for the doctor and his family in the local community and among the doctor’s medical peers. The three areas of investigation are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

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