Family Fitter
Eugenicists often used state fairs as an opportunity to push their principles to a large amount of people who might not otherwise be aware of it due to being relatively isolated. Very prominent in these fairs were Family Fitter contests. These contests, much like many early methods of eugenic study, were based in agriculture, where contests were held for the best stock animals such as chicken, cows, and sheep where it was determined which of the most desirable traits an animal possessed. So too it was that way with families, which were separated into size brackets based on the number of children, with the ‘small’ bracket being 1 child, the ‘medium’ one being two to four children, and the large one being five or more. In some states, fairs also judged couples who were childless in a separate bracket. Once in the bracket, families had their pedigrees, physical features, and intelligence measured and given a letter grade on the A-F scale. Families that were rated above a B+ were considered to have a goodly heritage and genealogy, and received medals proclaiming as much. The highest scoring family would receive a silver trophy. These contests helped to create enthusiasm among the population for eugenic policies, as well as it enforced an ‘us and them’ mentality for those who did and did not score highly ("Eugenics Archive").