Eugenics, Pt. 2
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Eugenics, Pt. 2 8.31 Lecture - LPS 60 Review: Eugenicists claim to be supported by which two scientific theories? Scientific theory Application by Eugenicists Natural Selection -----------> Darwinian Morality (“Might makes right”) Hard Heredity ------------> Genetically-determined Social fitness Review: Eugenicists claim to be supported by which two scientific theories? Scientific theory Application by Eugenicists Natural Selection -----------> Darwinian Morality (“Might makes right”) Hard Heredity ------------> Genetically-determined Social fitness 1. Darwinian Morality “One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.” “The question was then forced upon me: Could not the race of men be similarly improved? Could not the undesirables be got rid of and the desirables multiplied?” - Francis Galton, "Hereditary Talent and Character" in MacMillan's Magazine Vol. XII (May - October 1865). London Poster, 1910s 2. Genetically-determined social fitness The following groups are deemed socially ‘unfit’: epileptics, depressed, poor (paupers), criminals, alcoholics, blind, deformed, deaf, feeble-minded Galton (1869) focuses on intelligence. Laughlin (1922) includes all of these groups and more under the label “socially inadequate”. London Poster, 1910s “Eugenics...is capable of becoming the most sacred ideal of the human race, as a race; one of the supreme religious duties… Once the full implications of evolutionary biology are grasped, eugenics will inevitably become part of the religion of the future” - Julian Huxley, Eugenics Review (28:1), 1936 Huxley was a biology professor at King’s College London & the Royal Institution as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London; he’s said to be the founder of the “modern evolutionary synthesis”. Some Foundational Scientific Texts Galton’s Hereditary Genius (1869), Record of Family Faculties (1884) Dugdale’s The Jukes: A Story in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity (1877) Pearson’s The Groundwork of Eugenics (1909), Davenport, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911) Goddard, The Kallikak Family (1912) and Feeble-Mindedness (1914) 3 minutes with your neighbor: What is an historical example of each of the four legal methods used in the U.S. to enforce negative eugenics? Eugenics Laws 1. Marriage Laws 2. Segregation Laws 3. Sterilization Laws 4. Immigration Laws Eugenics Laws 1. Marriage Laws 2. Segregation Laws 3. Sterilization Laws 4. Immigration Laws 1924 Immigration Act The 1924 national quotas restricted Jews, Italians, Africans, and outright banned Asians and Arabs. In 1920, the “Expert Eugenics Agent” of the U.S. House Committee on Immigration & Naturalization, biologist Harry H. Laughlin, testified that the American gene pool was being polluted by a rising tide of intellectually ‘defective’ immigrants as shown by “scientific research” like Goddard’s. Hitler on the U.S. in 1927: “There is currently one state in which one can observe at least weak beginnings of a [race-based] conception [of citizenship]. This is of course not our exemplary German Republic, but the American Union… The American Union categorically refuses the immigration of physically unhealthy elements, and simply excludes the immigration of certain races. In these respects America already pays obeisance, at least in tentative first steps to the characteristic völkisch conception of the state.” - Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1927 Institutions U.S.-sanctioned Eugenics 1903 - Willet M. Hays founds American Breeders Association “to study [Mendel’s] laws of breeding and to promote the improvement of plants and animals by the development of expert methods of breeding.” 1906 - Hays (Ast. Sec. of Agriculture) founds the Heredity Commission, an advisory group to Roosevelt. “Race suicide” In 1905, Roosevelt gave a speech called “On American Motherhood” in which he warned of “race suicide” among Anglo-Saxons. “Race suicide” In 1905, Roosevelt gave a speech called “On American Motherhood” in which he warned of “race suicide” among Anglo-Saxons. White women were encouraged to give birth, and birth control came to be seen as unpatriotic. U.S.-sanctioned Eugenics 1903 - Willet M. Hays founds American Breeders Association “to study [Mendel’s] laws of breeding and to promote the improvement of plants and animals by the development of expert methods of breeding.” 1906 - Hays (Ast. Sec. of Agriculture) founds the Heredity Commission, an advisory group to Roosevelt. U.S.-sanctioned Eugenics 1903 - Willet M. Hays founds American Breeders Association “to study [Mendel’s] laws of breeding and to promote the improvement of plants and animals by the development of expert methods of breeding.” 1906 - Hays (Ast. Sec. of Agriculture) founds the Heredity Commission, an advisory group to Roosevelt. 1907 - Heredity Commission adds a Eugenics Section including Charles Davenport, Alexander Graham Bell, and the president of Stanford. Harry H. Laughlin and Charles Davenport at the ERO in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. U.S.-sanctioned Eugenics 1903 - Willet M. Hays founds American Breeders Association “to study [Mendel’s] laws of breeding and to promote the improvement of plants and animals by the development of expert methods of breeding.” 1906 - Hays (Ast. Sec. of Agriculture) founds the Heredity Commission, an advisory group to Roosevelt. 1907 - Heredity Commission adds a Eugenics Section including Charles Davenport, Alexander Graham Bell, and the president of Stanford. 1910 - Davenport founds the Eugenics Record Office to do the eugenics research for this commission. Harry H. Laughlin and Charles Davenport at the ERO in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Who is Charles Davenport? Charles Davenport (1866-1944) Harvard Professor of Zoology; 64 scientific societies 1910 - At the Eugenics Record Office he studies inheritance of alcoholism, feeble-mindedness, criminality, intelligence, depression, race crossing 1911 - Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, which becomes a standard college and med school textbook 1912 - Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1925 - President of Intrntnl Fed. of Eugenics Orgs 1930s - Editor of Nazi scientific journals Eugenics Record Office (1910) Funded by railroad money and the Carnegie Institute after Roosevelt started his Heredity Commission. The Eugenics Record Office (1910) was seen as the center of scientific research on eugenics by most scientists until the late 1930s. Collection of Trait Pedigree Records at Eugenics Record Office, NY (1921) (Records on 100,000s of U.S. citizens; Instrumental in passing many sterilization laws.) 1910 Example of Trait Pedigree Record ERO (MSC77, SerI, Box 38, A:3164) Harry H. Laughlin Charles B. Davenport Field Worker Training Class of 1913 Field Workers would get jobs in state hospitals, colonies, and asylums, but would come back for the Annual Meeting of the ERA Eugenical News was the central journal of the U.S. eugenics movement, 1916-1953 Second International Eugenics Congress, NY, 1921 Hosted by Eugenics Record Office, gave rise to American Eugenics Society American Eugenics Society Founded 1922 after Second International Congress on Eugenics in New York. Harry H. Laughlin, president of AES American Eugenics Society Founded 1922 after Second International Congress on Eugenics in New York. Publisher of many books and journals, placed displays at State Fairs, awarded prizes for best eugenics sermons; main advocate for eugenics laws in the U.S. Letter from Field Secretary, American Eugenics Society to Fair Associations asking education exhibit space State Fair Display in Philadelphia State-sanctioned Eugenics State-sanctioned Eugenics State-sanctioned Eugenics Model Eugenical Sterilization Law The American Eugenics Society president published a book in 1922, Eugenical Sterilization in the U.S. Harry H. Laughlin “The Pope and Eugenics: A Reply to the Encyclical” by Roswell H. Johnson, eugenicist, Human Betterment Foundation, 1931 1907: Roosevelt’s Heredity Commission 1910: Eugenics Record Office, NY 1921: International Eugenics Congress, NY 1922: American Eugenics Society 1928: Human Betterment Foundation, CA Eugenics Journals 1. Eugenical News (1916-1953; began with ERO, moved to AES in 1922) 2. Eugenics, A Journal of Race Betterment (1928-1931) 3. Eugenics Quarterly (1954-1970) 4. Eugenics Review (1909-1914) 5. Bibliographica Eugenica (1927-1934) State-sanctioned Eugenics 1. Roosevelt’s Heredity Commission (1907) Willet M. Hays (Ast. Sec. of Agriculture; president of American Breeders’ Association) founds this eugenics advisory group. In 1907, Charles B. Davenport and many others join the group. In 1910, Carnegie Institute founds the Eugenics Record Office, where Davenport can do the research for this commission. 2. “Expert Eugenics Agent” for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization 1921-1931 - Harry H. Laughlin, a top figure at the American Eugenics Society and Eugenics Record Office, is given this title. U.S. Laws Eugenics Laws 1. Marriage Laws 2. Segregation Laws 3. Sterilization Laws 4. Immigration Laws Eugenics Laws 1. Marriage Laws 2. Segregation Laws 3. Sterilization Laws 4. Immigration Laws Eugenical Marriage Laws Eugenical Marriage Laws In 1896, Connecticut banned marriage for people who were “epileptic, imbecile, or feeble-minded… when the woman is under forty-five years of age.” Eugenical Marriage Laws In 1896, Connecticut banned marriage for people who were “epileptic, imbecile, or feeble-minded… when the woman is under forty-five years of