The Canadian Studies Program is pleased to announce that returning graduate fellow Lydia Matthews has received an Edward E. Hildebrand Research Fellowship for Summer 2025.
Lydia is a PhD candidate in the Department of History. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, public health, and immigration at the turn of the 20th century. She is particularly interested in public health campaigns against prostitution and how such campaigns, in conjunction with various hygiene reform projects, helped to delineate a transnational understanding of social citizenship.
Lydia’s research will explore connections between the Canadian National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases (CNCCVD) and American attempts to eliminate the spread of sexually transmitted diseases during World War I. Her research will center on local anti-prostitution efforts and their enforcement in British Columbia at both the municipal and provincial level. The Hildebrand Fellowship will support her travel to Ottawa to conduct archival research at the Library and Archives Canada, as well as to the Vancouver City Archives and Vancouver Police Museum & Archives.
Lydia holds a bachelor’s degree in English and history from Vassar College and master’s degrees in women’s and gender studies and history from Brandeis University.