The University of Vermont History Review, Volume XXVIII 2017-2018
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The University of Vermont History Review Volume XXVIII 2017-2018 The UVM History Review is an annual publication of the University of Vermont History Department. It seeks to publish scholarly essays and book reviews of a historical nature written by UVM students and alumni. EDITORIAL BOARD Editor Kiara Day Assistant Editor Hunter Colvin Assistant Editor Stuart Hackley Faculty Advisor Francis Nicosia Faculty Advisor Susanna Schrafstetter Lauren Fedewa Hannah Johnson Jesse Keel Weiqing Kong Samantha Sullivan For ordering information, please contact Kathy Carolin at The University of Vermont History Department 201 Wheeler House 133 South Prospect Street Burlington, Vermont 05405 Cover: “Wheeler House Study,” UVM Building Photos Series, Box 15, Wheeler House: Photos Folder, UVM Special Collections and Archives, Bailey/Howe Library. i TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter from the Editor…………………………………………………………………................. iii The Adams Pedigree and the Pseudoscience in Vermont Eugenics Katherine Becker ………………………………………………………………………... 1 Legion’s Work, France’s Credit: The French Foreign Legion During World War II James Dancho ……………………………………………………………………........... 15 Under the Influence of Domesticity: The Fleming Museum’s Drinking Objects and the American Relationship with Drinking in the Nineteenth Century Wes Dunn……………………………………………………………………………….. 31 Jewish Youth and Education in Nazi Germany: Reversing Integration Sebastian Hanna……………………………………………………………………….... 48 In Concern of Animal Welfare, or with Xenophobic Intent: An Analysis of State-Decreed Bans on Non-Stun Halal Slaughter in Europe and the Threat to Religious Freedom Zachary Heier…………………………………………………………………………… 61 The Precedent of Christian Violence: An Analysis of Bernard of Clairvaux’s Use of Biblical Passages in Support of the Knights Templar Maria Koutsouris………………………………………………………………………... 75 2017 Phi Alpha Theta Inductees, UVM Chapter, Alpha Alpha Psi………………………….….. 89 History Department Faculty News…………………………………………………………...….. 90 Author Biographies…………………………………………………………………….……….. 93 Editor Biographies…………………………………………………………………………..….. 94 ii LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Readers, It is my pleasure to share with you the 2017-2018 University of Vermont History Review. This annual journal showcases exceptional historical research and writing from undergraduate and graduate students. In this volume I am delighted to present six articles from a wide range of historical periods and subject areas, displaying the breadth of study within UVM’s history department. Notable in this collection is the use of diverse historical approaches including local, cultural, social, biographical, and military history. Furthermore, authors have utilized a variety of primary sources including material objects, traditional text sources, and digital content. Overall, this volume speaks to extensive methods of historical inquiry. As chief editor, I am grateful to have worked with an outstanding editorial board whose collaboration and relentless efforts have produced this volume. This group has worked tirelessly to assist the authors with multiple rounds of revision in order to perfect their articles for publication. The board has gone above and beyond to carry out editorial duties, all while juggling their own course loads and busy lives. The editors’ careful attention to detail can be found within the following pages. I’d like to thank both the authors and editors who made this publication possible. In addition, a special thank you to Professor Frank Nicosia and Professor Susanna Schrafstetter for serving as encouraging and knowledgeable faculty advisors for the History Review. Their input has been invaluable. Last, but not least, Kathy Carolin and Kathleen Truax have provided the continuous logistical assistance that all publications require. Kiara Day, 6 June 2018 iii The Adams Pedigree and the Pseudoscience in Vermont Eugenics Katherine Becker Vermonters have always had a distinctive identity. The northern state is shielded by the Green Mountains, home to Lake Champlain, and shares a border with Canada. In 1777, Vermont declared itself an independent republic with universal male suffrage, public schools, and the abolition of slavery, but became the thirteenth state in 1791.1 Vermonters revere a history of rugged individualism shaped by a belief that they live in the untouched, unruly countryside. In the period after World War I, many working-age Vermonters were abandoning their rural farms for cities or the Western frontier and French-Canadians began to inhabit these farms. Although seventy-one percent of Vermonters were Anglo-American, French-Canadians quickly became the largest minority group.2 The feeling that the rural Vermont stock was aged and urbanized became the perfect breeding ground for the eugenicist idea of human betterment to take hold. This essay will examine the methodology of pedigrees, which are similar to family trees, that were compiled as a part of the Vermont Eugenic Survey, beginning in 1925. Specifically, this essay will look at how the research was conducted, who did the research, the racial and economic bias within the research methods, and why families were chosen to be researched. It will also attempt to show how the pedigrees became a tool for the Eugenics Survey to pass the voluntary sterilization law of 1931. Nancy Gallagher’s in-depth research and book on Vermont eugenics, the first and only of its kind, spurred this inquiry. Gallagher’s book not only mentions the pedigrees, but gives an overview of the entire Vermont Eugenics Survey and the founder of the movement in Vermont, Harry (Henry) Perkins.3 Perkins stated that his goal with the Survey was “to make the waste places of the state bloom like a rose.”4 My research complements Gallagher’s book as it scrutinizes one specific pedigree and delves into the methodology and terminology in the pedigree. Gallagher discusses the pedigrees and the social worker that compiled them, but the scope of her book does not allow for the investigation of specific pedigrees, such as the Adams family focused on in this paper. 5 The following case study of the Adams family will examine the pedigree methodology and the bias that influenced the “purely scientific” eugenic study. The Adams pedigree is useful to study because it is one of the Survey’s most substantial and detailed pedigrees, and it reveals the 1 Vermont Historical Society, “1750 to 1820,” Vermont History Explorer, https://vermonthistory.org/explorer/this- day-in-history/vermont-timeline/1750-to-1820. 2 Nancy L. Gallagher, Breeding Better Vermonters: The Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999), 43-45. 3 Gallagher, Breeding Better Vermonters, 72. 4 Ibid. 5 The names of the family members in this study have been altered to protect privacy. 1 Survey’s interest in documenting factors such as miscegenation, French-Canadian decent, and divorce. In light of these interests, this paper shows that prejudice heavily influenced the compilation of the pedigrees, demonstrating how pseudoscience and willful inaccuracy in the research helped to make the case for the sterilization law of 1931. The Emergence of Vermont Eugenics Interest in eugenics in Vermont arose after the Army Draft Board Exams in World War I revealed that Vermont draftees had the second highest defect rate in the nation. The Vermont Eugenic Survey was founded in 1925 in the midst of the population changes and when fears about immigration were widespread. President Calvin Coolidge, a Vermont native, passed the 1924 immigration law that created the quota system in the United States. The 1920s were also a time of economic prosperity and Vermont was looking to become an ideal destination for affluent white vacationers. The Vermont Board of Agriculture released tourist literature that promoted Vermont country life in order to attract a “higher class of people.”6 It was believed that if they marketed the state to the “right people,” it would restore and reinvigorate Vermont’s rural economy. The tourist economy began to grow in 1910 and became an even larger source of revenue for the state after World War I.7 With tourism on the rise in Vermont, the state began to spend more on social services and continued to fear that French- Canadians were replacing the rugged Vermonters that gave the state a sense of identity. These tensions over immigration, race, and the state’s identity created the opportunity for University of Vermont professor Harry Perkins to make his name with the Eugenics Survey. The work done by the Eugenics Survey included the compilation of pedigrees, a plan for rural revitalization called the Vermont Commission of Country Life, the promotion of sterilization legislation, and finally, the Ethnic Survey of Vermont. In 1931, the law for voluntary sterilizations called “An Act for Human Betterment by Voluntary Sterilization” passed in the Vermont State Legislature.8 253 voluntary sterilizations, of which two-thirds were administered to women, were performed between 1931 and 1941. The 1931 sterilization law was Perkins’ second attempt, for his proposal in 1927 had failed. The National Eugenic Movement faced a similar test in 1927 with the Supreme Court Case Buck v. Bell, although in Virginia the involuntary sterilization law was deemed constitutional. In Vermont, the failure of the first sterilization law was a major setback because the “purely scientific study” lost credibility and came to be seen as politically motivated.9 One of the major factors that allowed