From Galton to Globalization: the Transatlantic Journey Of
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FROM GALTON TO GLOBALIZATION: THE TRANSATLANTIC JOURNEY OF EUGENICS A DISSERTATION IN History and Social Science Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by ANNA DERRELL B.A., University of Missouri-Kansas City M.A., University of Missouri-Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri 2021 © 2021 ANNA THERESA DERRELL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FROM GALTON TO GLOBALIZATION: THE TRANSATLANTIC JOURNEY OF EUGENICS Anna Theresa Derrell, Candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2021 ABSTRACT How did eugenics go from an idea in Britain to a movement in America? That was the question this dissertation originally set out to answer. Also, of interest was how the theory of eugenics went from the fringes to becoming mainstream. Who were the key figures in this transatlantic journey? How were the ideas transmitted and ultimately transformed? How did eugenics become one of the many fads of the 1920s? It was accepted not only as science, but popular science, science made for mass consumption by the public. Through the lens of four biographical essays, this dissertation traces the journey and transformation of eugenics by telling the stories of four men who helped create it, shape it, revolutionize it, and promote it. What is most interesting is that all four of the men looked at in this study are known, among intellectual circles at least, but not namely for eugenics. One is known as an inventor, one is known as a statistician, one is known as a biologist, and the last is known as an economist. All four were essential to the history of eugenics. Perhaps the most important finding of by this research, however, is how eugenics does not necessarily have to be racist. This dissertation argues that racism is not inherent to eugenics, as it is often assumed to be. It is true that eugenics did go hand and hand with white supremacism, but the principle of race iii is not fundamental to the theory of eugenics. What is, is the factor of socio-economics. Racism can be separated from eugenics, but classism cannot be. iv The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, have examined a dissertation titled “From Galton to Globalization: The Transatlantic Journey of Eugenics,” presented by Anna T. Derrell, candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, and certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. Supervisory Committee Lynda Payne, Ph.D., Committee Chair Department of History Linwood Tauheed, Ph.D., Co-Committee Chair Department of Economics Diane Mutti-Burke, Ph.D. Department of History Matthew Osborn, Ph.D. Department of History Theresa Torres, Ph.D. Department of Sociology v CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................ iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ................................................................................................. vii INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ viii Chapter 1. “WELL-BORN”: THE LIFE OF SIR FRANCIS GALTON AND THE FOUNDING OF EUGENICS ............................................................................. 1 2. “GOODNESS OF FIT”: THE LIFE OF KARL PEARSON AND EVOLUTION OF EUGENICS.................................................................................. 27 3. “THE HIDDEN FIGURE”: THE LIFE OF CHARLES B. DAVENPORT AND TRANSATLANTIC JOURNEY OF EUGENICS ........................................... 60 4. “TEACHERS AND PREACHERS”: THE LIFE OF IRVING FISHER AND MAINSTREAMING OF EUGENICS ............................................................. 97 5. CONCLUSIONS...................................................................................................... 131 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 134 VITA .................................................................................................................................... 140 vi ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 2.1 Standard portrait of Sir Francis Galton ......................................................................... 43 vii INTRODUCTION The term “eugenics,” roughly translated to mean “well-born,” was coined by English aristocrat, inventor, and aspiring scientist Francis Galton in 1883, one year after the death of his well-known cousin, Charles Darwin. A mere forty years later, eugenics had developed from being a fringe theory in Britain to a normalized and applied popular science worldwide. This interdisciplinary dissertation will analyze how eugenics evolved simultaneously with medicine as a science and profession, gaining not just acceptance, but popularity. It will discuss the journey of eugenics from its birthplace in Britain in 1883 to America, where it first became an applied pseudo-science. I argue that the primary reason eugenics was able to evolve from an intellectual concept to an applied popular science by the 1920s was through the formation and legitimization of the discipline of science itself, especially in the fields of statistics and medicine. The last American eugenics law was taken off the books in 1979, meaning that the overt social and racial policy of regulating human breeding has only recently entered the realm of history. As a historical problem, research has not to date been done on how eugenics became such a popular practice by the third decade of the twentieth century. This may in part be due to scholars describing eugenics as an extreme practice and not the accepted norm. An examination of the history, however, says otherwise. By the 1920s eugenics was a popular movement in both America and northern Europe. Some might label it as just a “fad” of the decade, and there is some evidence to support that.1 Yet this begs the question of how eugenics became a matter of fashion and style. In my dissertation I want to examine the rise of eugenics. How did it go from a fringe theory to a mainstream one? By what avenues was it 1 Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944), 161. viii normalized and popularized? I argue that two things made eugenics as attractive as it was by the 1920s: science and media. Eugenics was a popular science, meaning that it was promoted as scientific and that is how it was legitimized, but it was also more accessible to the general public than science usually was. It was the subject of art, magazine articles, movies, and other forms of media that promoted it to people as a social good. It was also taught in medical schools (Galton, eugenics’ founder, was originally trained in medicine) and became a popular theory among many academics in different fields including economics, statistics, social work, and political science. The link between eugenics and medicine has been explored in some works, but my dissertation will go further by analyzing the historical relationship of eugenics to the rise and popularization of social sciences. This dissertation has four chapters. The first will focus on Sir Francis Galton and his work leading up to and following his coinage of the word “eugenics.” This chapter will give the historical context for when eugenics was founded and show how Galton originally sought to legitimize his theory. It will also examine whether Galton’s original concept of eugenics was actually the same as what it would become as an applied science and why that may or may not be. Key to understanding Galton is an understanding of the Victorian era and its principles, especially among the middle and upper classes, which Galton belonged to. My research will show that eugenics, as Galton originally designed it, was steeped in classism and Victorian believes of rigid hierarchies. Also critical to the development of Galton’s “eugenics” was an expedition he took to Africa, which is where the element of race will first come into play. Due to that crucial experience in Galton’s life, I will argue that even if he did not intend it to be as brutality racist as it would become, race was a principal factor in ix eugenics. As we will see later though, eugenics does not have to be a racist theory. The second chapter will focus on Galton’s successor and arguably more influential developer of eugenics, Karl Pearson. The argument will be made in this chapter that Pearson’s eugenics were harsher than Galton’s original concept and it would be Pearson’s vision that ultimately got applied. Pearson was almost obsessed with giving eugenics scientific authority and how he sought to do that will be discussed in the second chapter. Pearson was a complicated man, both personally and intellectually, and championing eugenics gave him something solid and, as he saw it, “clean” to focus his attention on. That issue of cleanliness, of physical and moral hygiene, would become a repetitious theme of the eugenics movement and while it is first articulated by Pearson, it too can be traced back to the same Victorian principles that Galton used in originally designing eugenics. It is also an issue of classism, because to the Victorian upper class, the lower classes were seen as intently unclean. Words such as “dirty,” “filthy,” “contaminated,” and “tainted” were all used in association with the poor. Pearson would turn eugenics into a campaign to clean society and the only way to do that was to get rid of the poor. The third chapter will