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The Sociological Roots of Eugenics Demographic, Ethnographic and Educational Solutions to the Racial Crises in Progressive America

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The Sociological Roots of Eugenics Demographic, Ethnographic and Educational Solutions to the Racial Crises in Progressive America The Sociological Roots of Eugenics Demographic, Ethnographic and Educational Solutions to the Racial Crises in Progressive America Michael Kohlman Editor’s note: This paper is adapted from “The An- Introduction thropology of Eugenics in America: Ethnographic, Race-Hygiene and Human Geography Solutions to My current research primarily explores the educa- the Great Crises of Progressive America,” first pub- tional programs and impacts of the eugenics move- lished in the Alberta Science Education Journal, ment in North America from its Progressive Era as- volume 42, number 2. cent through its purported rapid decline after World War II. Eugenics education was a top priority for the disciples of Sir Francis Galton, the celebrated founder Abstract of the “science of race-betterment.” In America, the seminal ideas of Galton and other pioneers combined This paper explores the directors, popularizers and with pre-existing Nativist or Nordic biases and prior educators of the sociological aspects of the American strains of scientific racism, such as Samuel Morton eugenics movement in the Progressive Era. Human and the American School of Anthropology. In the first geography (especially the fledgling discipline of half of the “American Century,” public eugenics demography), sociobiology (human fertility and so- education for the burgeoning middle classes and cial hygiene) and ethnology (pedigree studies and professional groups, and formal courses for future racial characteristics) were considered important generations who would inherit the onus of “racial “roots”’ of the “tree” of the applied science of eugen- civic duty” were both seen as vital to the success of ics (see Figure 1). This essay concentrates on a few the movement. primary theorists of the American eugenics movement Popular eugenics education progressively pervaded during the progressive-era—especially for their influ- America, becoming prominent in fairs, museum ex- ence in the areas of demography, fertility and im- hibits, public lectures and even “eugenic” church migration policies, as well as related educational sermons (Rosen 2004). Formal education was also a initiatives—before the excesses of Nazi race hygiene crucial resource in the evangelization and politiciza- indelibly branded eugenics as a racist pseudoscience. tion of this widespread social movement. During the I conclude with a brief look at recent eugenic revivals interwar period, hundreds of colleges, universities and recapitulations. and normal schools offered eugenics courses (Cravens 1978, 53). High schools often embedded eugenics 12 One World in Dialogue, Volume 3, Number 2, 2015 units within “civic biology,” home economics or campaigns of Nazi race-hygiene programs that cul- social hygiene courses (Kohlman 2012). In Alberta, minated in the Holocaust (Cravens 1978; Kevles racial eugenics was also prevalent, once the immigra- 1995; Kline 2001). However, the transmission of tion pattern switched away from primarily Nordic “liberal” or “progressive” neo-eugenic memes con- regions to Eastern and Southern Europe, just before tinued, with historical associations to eugenics being World War I (Grant 1933). Alberta went on to launch sanitized (Kevles 1995). Many of the leaders in the an ambitious eugenic sterilization program, pioneered eugenics movement were influential social scientists, by the United Farmers of Alberta and expanded by as well as educators, administrators and public health the Social Credit government in the 1930s (Grekul professionals. From the natural sciences, such as 2002, 2008). In British Columbia, the main threat to evolutionary biology and genetics; to social sciences Anglo-Saxon homogeneity and hegemony was seen such as anthropology, psychology and sociology; to to be immigration from the Orient (McLaren 1990). curriculum and educational policy, eugenics was After the Nuremburg Trials revealed the racial bias based on the melding of a broad range of fields, whose of American-style eugenics, organized eugenics went harmonious combination (see Figure 1) was foreseen underground or was rebranded as social biology, as leading to scientifically-based societal efficiency family planning, genetic counselling and so forth, to and progress, and the evolution of “the Overman” avoid the links with the euthanasia and sterilization (Bobbitt 1909). Figure 1: The Eugenics Tree, from a poster for the Second International Congress of Eugenics, held at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, September 22–28, 1921. This image was very popular and often reproduced to illustrate the truly interdisciplinary nature of the applied science of eugenics. One World in Dialogue, Volume 3, Number 2, 2015 13 Eugenics: A New Science— and publications, if not their agendas, the institutions they created survive to this day (Kevles 1995, 251– A New Religion 52). But nowhere else (with the eventual exception The abridged creation story of eugenics begins of Nazi Germany) would Galton’s orthodox religion with the acknowledged founder of eugenics, Francis of eugenics bear such prodigious followers as that Galton (celebrated polymath and cousin of Charles scion of Puritanism that had colonized the new shores Darwin), and his influential protegé, Karl Pearson of British North America more than a century earlier. (pioneering statistician of biometrics). Galton re- This transplantation across the Atlantic occurred vealed the “definition, scope and aims” of eugenics quickly and with great vigour. to a distinguished audience of his British peers at the Unlike the primarily class-based eugenics of Galton first meeting of the Royal Sociological Society at and his British cohorts, the seminal ideas took on a London University in May 1904. It was duly noted much more race-based tone in America, synergistically that Professor Karl Pearson, FRS, occupied the chair. combining with pre-existing Nativist and Nordicist Influential clergy, scientists, business magnates and sentiments, a proud history of scientific racism and 1 several ladies of high birth were in attendance. “Eu- racial segregation in the South and powerful social- genics,” Galton pronounced “is the science which efficiency and social-hygiene movements in a country deals with all influences that improve the inborn on the verge of Great Power status. Only a generation qualities of a race, also with those that develop them or two removed from a largely rural, agrarian society, to the utmost advantage” (Galton 1904, 1). Galton America was transformed into the world’s greatest ended his address with an agenda for the future and industrial power by World War I, and reaped a rich an appeal to “make eugenics a familiar academic harvest in new academic, scientific, social and technical question, a subject for serious study,” one that fields (Bland 1977). Many hardline eugenicists were deeply suspicious of laissez-faire industrial capitalism, must be introduced into the national conscience, and its demographic and sociological effects on the like a new religion. It has strong claims to become nation, especially for “native-Americans.”2 an orthodox religious tenet of the future, for eugen- ics cooperate with the workings of nature by secur- ing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races. What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruth- Scientific Authority for lessly, man may do providently, quickly, and American Eugenics kindly. (Galton 1904, 5) Some of the most influential leaders of American Galton and his protegés created the new science eugenics were academic researchers and educators of biometry as their divining rod, and were the leaders who lent their considerable reputations and creden- of the British eugenics movement for decades (Bowler tials to the movement and to related educational 2003, 259). The Galton School initially engaged in a initiatives. American apostles of Galton’s biometrics feud of sorts with Mendel’s British and American and Mendel’s genetics joined with professors of acolytes, at least until the experimental evidence for evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology and Mendel’s laws operating in human heredity became sociology. Collectively, these academics lent scien- too great to ignore (Ludmerer 1972, 45). The biome- tific authority to the protoeugenical seedlings from tricians primarily studied continuous traits, such as the Clean Living Movement, following on the heels intelligence, and preferred quantitative statistical of the brutality and social dislocation of the American analysis of large populations rather than the qualita- Civil War. These reputedly precise and empirical sci- tive experimental study of discontinuous traits in ences validated and legitimized eugenics as a rational individuals favoured by the Mendelians. Galton and and progressive social movement, just as Charles Pearson founded a journal, Biometrika, in 1902. Darwin’s scientific theories validated the pre-existing Galton lived to see eugenics and Galton societies form social Darwinism of Thomas Malthus and Herbert throughout the Empire, in America and around the Spencer (Bowler 2003). world. He was knighted in 1909 and upon his death, Capturing the imaginations of a new wave of in 1911, University College at London founded a American doctoral students graduated from newly Galton Eugenics Professorship and the Galton Bio- established research universities, such as Harvard and metric Laboratory, with Karl Pearson as its head Columbia, genetics, biometrics and demographics (Kevles 1995, 35–38). Although they have largely seemed to offer the same sort
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