In the latter half of the 19th century, scientific exploration reached new frontiers and aims, leading to an explosion of scientific material. Most notably among these new theories was that of evolution, proposed by Charles Darwin in his 1859 work On the Origin of Species, in which he proposed that the species extant in the world were not, in fact, static things that had been created specifically as what they were, but rather that through many thousands of years they had come to be as they were through natural selection, wherein members of a species most apt to survive would pass on their genetic code more successfully than their peers, thus subtly changing the future of the species’ prominent traits. In one of his later works, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, that mankind would, undoubtedly, benefit from selective and controlled breeding (Smith).
Years after that, Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin’s and a fairly prominent figure in his own right, coined the term “eugenics,” which described a movement whose goals were the control and study of human reproduction in order to strengthen heredity, which was assumed by eugenicists to be the source of nearly all characteristics of a person, both physical and psychological (Leonard 208). In his own words, taken from his article from the American Journal of Sociology “Eugenics: Its definition, Scope, and Aims,” “eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage”(Galton). Galton proposed that the government should incentivise the union of the fittest individuals in society through the use of government funds (Farber). The idea soon spawned a movement, with the main proponent base being the swelling number of progressive reformers.
Years after that, Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin’s and a fairly prominent figure in his own right, coined the term “eugenics,” which described a movement whose goals were the control and study of human reproduction in order to strengthen heredity, which was assumed by eugenicists to be the source of nearly all characteristics of a person, both physical and psychological (Leonard 208). In his own words, taken from his article from the American Journal of Sociology “Eugenics: Its definition, Scope, and Aims,” “eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage”(Galton). Galton proposed that the government should incentivise the union of the fittest individuals in society through the use of government funds (Farber). The idea soon spawned a movement, with the main proponent base being the swelling number of progressive reformers.
The largest undertakings of the movement in America began in 1910, when Charles B. Davenport, a prominent eugenicist, was granted an initial $45,000, roughly 1.1 million dollars adjusted for the inflation rate today, by the Carnegie Institution, he moved quickly to set up an organization that would later serve as the epicenter for Eugenics in America: the Eugenics Record Office. The goal of this facility was the acquisition and compiling of data associated with eugenics, and served as such until 1939, when funding was finally revoked by Carnegie. Other founders of the Eugenics Record Office were diverse, including John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of Kellogg’s Breakfast Cereal, E. H. Harriman, a railroad executive, and the American Breeder’s association, a eugenic society that had previously lacked extensive funding (Farber).
Far from being a fringe movement, eugenics were widely accepted as the truth, and held with high regard in academic circles and elite. A prime example of this is David Starr Jordan, the Cornell-educated president of Stanford University from 1891 to 1913, who was the head of the branch of the American Breeder’s Association in the largest part responsible for the funding and pushing of eugenic research. Similarly, many of the political elite were proponents of eugenic policies and practices. Such individuals include Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill, who believed that government intervention was necessary for the wellbeing of the human race as a whole.
Prominent in the theory of eugenics was the concept of “race suicide,” which held that the Anglo-Saxon race, purported to be the superior, was exercising discretion in reproduction, unlike the scores of so-called inferior races, such as Asians, Blacks, Jews, and Slavs, who, due to this, were outbreeding the superiors, ‘diluting’ the good genes. This, contrary to Darwin’s idea of survival of the fittest, stated that mankind was in a state of elimination of the fittest, which rendered the eugenic ideals harder to reach as time went on, were no suitable actions taken. As such, many tried to push governmental policies to make the Anglo workers more enticing to hire. One example of this is minimum wage, a policy pushed for in large part by Woodrow Wilson’s Commissioner for Labor, Royal Meeker, which was initially based around the theory that if employers had to pay workers at the very least a set amount, they would hire the Anglo workers as opposed to cheaper immigrant labor (Leonard).
Far from being a fringe movement, eugenics were widely accepted as the truth, and held with high regard in academic circles and elite. A prime example of this is David Starr Jordan, the Cornell-educated president of Stanford University from 1891 to 1913, who was the head of the branch of the American Breeder’s Association in the largest part responsible for the funding and pushing of eugenic research. Similarly, many of the political elite were proponents of eugenic policies and practices. Such individuals include Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill, who believed that government intervention was necessary for the wellbeing of the human race as a whole.
Prominent in the theory of eugenics was the concept of “race suicide,” which held that the Anglo-Saxon race, purported to be the superior, was exercising discretion in reproduction, unlike the scores of so-called inferior races, such as Asians, Blacks, Jews, and Slavs, who, due to this, were outbreeding the superiors, ‘diluting’ the good genes. This, contrary to Darwin’s idea of survival of the fittest, stated that mankind was in a state of elimination of the fittest, which rendered the eugenic ideals harder to reach as time went on, were no suitable actions taken. As such, many tried to push governmental policies to make the Anglo workers more enticing to hire. One example of this is minimum wage, a policy pushed for in large part by Woodrow Wilson’s Commissioner for Labor, Royal Meeker, which was initially based around the theory that if employers had to pay workers at the very least a set amount, they would hire the Anglo workers as opposed to cheaper immigrant labor (Leonard).
Whereas Galton primarily espoused what is today called ‘positive eugenics,’ or the encouragement for certain people to reproduce with one another to improve the species, the eugenic policies that were instated into state laws were almost entirely what is now called ‘negative eugenics,’ where instead of the ‘superiors’ reproducing more, the ‘feeble’ are prevented from reproducing, most commonly through forced sterilizations (Smith). In 1914, Harry Laughlin, the assistant director at the Eugenics Record Office, published a model sterilization law that he hoped states would adopt. In it, he targets for sterilization “... [the] feeble-minded; insane, (including the psychopathic); criminalistic (including the delinquent and wayward); epileptic; inebriate (including drug-habitués); diseased (including the tuberculous, the syphilitic, the leprous, and others with chronic, infectious and legally segregable diseases); blind (including those with seriously impaired vision); deaf (including those with seriously impaired hearing); deformed (including the crippled); and dependent (including orphans, ne'er-do-wells, the homeless, tramps and paupers)” (Laughlin).
By 1925 almost half of the states had sterilization laws in one form or another, and many had based theirs off of Laughlin’s template (Smith). In a pivotal moment for eugenics, the 1927 supreme court case Buck v. Bell upheld Virginia’s forced sterilization laws by a staggering margin of eight votes to one. The lopsided verdict increased the rate of sterilizations and the passage of sterilization laws across the United States (Wolfe). By 1936, over 60,000 forced sterilizations of the poor, black, feeble, and promiscuous had been performed across the United States, nearly all being involuntary (Farber).
Before long, the American practice of eugenics spread to Europe, most notably Germany. In Germany, American eugenicists were praised for their efforts to uphold racial purity, with one such example being Charles Davenport, the director of the Eugenic Research Office, who held two honorary editorial board spots on the two most prominent German racial purity and hygiene journals. Overseas research funding was pouring into the country as well, with Rockefeller even funding Josef Mengele prior to his appointment to head scientist of Auschwitz (Black). The Nazis based their extensive sterilization program on California’s, which had resulted in over a third of forced sterilizations nationwide. For as devastating as the state’s policies were, the Nazi policies drawn directly from them were far more severe, causing anywhere from between 360,000 to 375,000 sterilizations in their brief stint in power. Additionally, euthanasia via gas chamber, the main method of mass extermination in the concentration camps, was an idea drawn from eugenic researchers working under the Carnegie Institution in 1910 as a method of removing undesirables from the gene pool (Farber). So far was the extent to which the Nazis drew from American applications of eugenic policies, the verdict of Buck v. Bell was used as a defence of concentration camp pseudoscientific and genocidal actions, albeit unsuccessfully during the Nuremberg Trials (Wolfe). Additionally, in Mein Kampf, published in 1925, the then political upstart Adolf Hitler himself demonstrated a deep knowledge and reverence towards the American laws and implementation of eugenic policies. In fact, the Nazi party built much of its ideals concerning racial hatred upon the success and shoulders of American research and popular science (Farber).
Though made most infamous in history through its application through Hitler’s regime, the eugenic movement was born and incubated in America. It was sustained and purported by America’s greatest minds and political leaders, and given a trial run on America’s own citizens. Were it not for work and funding from all across the United States, eugenics may not have gained such incredible global prominence and magnitude, nor may it have left its scar irrevocably upon history.
By 1925 almost half of the states had sterilization laws in one form or another, and many had based theirs off of Laughlin’s template (Smith). In a pivotal moment for eugenics, the 1927 supreme court case Buck v. Bell upheld Virginia’s forced sterilization laws by a staggering margin of eight votes to one. The lopsided verdict increased the rate of sterilizations and the passage of sterilization laws across the United States (Wolfe). By 1936, over 60,000 forced sterilizations of the poor, black, feeble, and promiscuous had been performed across the United States, nearly all being involuntary (Farber).
Before long, the American practice of eugenics spread to Europe, most notably Germany. In Germany, American eugenicists were praised for their efforts to uphold racial purity, with one such example being Charles Davenport, the director of the Eugenic Research Office, who held two honorary editorial board spots on the two most prominent German racial purity and hygiene journals. Overseas research funding was pouring into the country as well, with Rockefeller even funding Josef Mengele prior to his appointment to head scientist of Auschwitz (Black). The Nazis based their extensive sterilization program on California’s, which had resulted in over a third of forced sterilizations nationwide. For as devastating as the state’s policies were, the Nazi policies drawn directly from them were far more severe, causing anywhere from between 360,000 to 375,000 sterilizations in their brief stint in power. Additionally, euthanasia via gas chamber, the main method of mass extermination in the concentration camps, was an idea drawn from eugenic researchers working under the Carnegie Institution in 1910 as a method of removing undesirables from the gene pool (Farber). So far was the extent to which the Nazis drew from American applications of eugenic policies, the verdict of Buck v. Bell was used as a defence of concentration camp pseudoscientific and genocidal actions, albeit unsuccessfully during the Nuremberg Trials (Wolfe). Additionally, in Mein Kampf, published in 1925, the then political upstart Adolf Hitler himself demonstrated a deep knowledge and reverence towards the American laws and implementation of eugenic policies. In fact, the Nazi party built much of its ideals concerning racial hatred upon the success and shoulders of American research and popular science (Farber).
Though made most infamous in history through its application through Hitler’s regime, the eugenic movement was born and incubated in America. It was sustained and purported by America’s greatest minds and political leaders, and given a trial run on America’s own citizens. Were it not for work and funding from all across the United States, eugenics may not have gained such incredible global prominence and magnitude, nor may it have left its scar irrevocably upon history.