Katherine Parkin, Ph.D., Jules Plangere, Jr., Endowed Chair in American Social History and professor in the Department of History and Anthropology, was awarded Best Scholarly Article in Canadian Business History for her article, “The Business of Abortion: Referral Services, Advertising, and Canadian Women’s Access to Abortion in New York State, 1970-1972” (Enterprise and Society, 2024: 1-21), co-written by Sarah Elvins, Ph.D., University of Manitoba. The award was sponsored by The Canadian Business History Association (CBHA/ACHA), Canada’s foremost organization promoting the study of business history.
The winning article has its origins in Parkin’s forthcoming book, “The Abortion Market: Buying and Selling Access in the Era Before Roe” (University of Pennsylvania Press, September 2025). Parkin and Elvins build on our historical understanding of how in the early 1970s Canadian women engaged with legal abortion access in New York. Many have thought that London was the main destination for Canadians, but after 1970 when it was made legal, women flew, hiked, and took the bus into New York to get faster, cheaper legal abortions. Businesses appealed to women in newspapers and magazines to help them get them to clinics that emerged along the border to capitalize on the steady demand from Canadian consumers.
The award for best scholarly article recognizes outstanding contributions to the field and was selected from submissions that demonstrate thorough research and analytical rigor while focusing on Canadian topics or including a Canadian perspective within an international context. The committee particularly prioritized groundbreaking work that pushed the boundaries of the discipline.
Created in 2015, the CBHA/ACHA brings together academics from a wide range of disciplines, archivists and business leaders in the common pursuit of advancing the study and understanding of business history in Canada. Learn more about the CBHA/ACHA at their website.
