Living with a Shrouded Legacy: The History of the American Eugenics Movement

1. Living with a Shrouded Legacy: The History of the American Eugenics Movement Greta Bauer, MPH Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota

2. Science of Eugenics • “the study of agencies under social control, that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally” Sir Francis Galton

3. Origins of Eugenics • Late 19th Century Great Britain • Sir Francis Galton (18??-1911) • Reframing of Darwinian evolution to consider who should survive and reproduce • Consideration of policies to control the birth rate • Endowed Francis Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics at University College London

4. Two Directions of Eugenics • Positive Eugenics • Goal: Increase birthrate among the “fit” • Negative Eugenics • Goal: Decrease the proportion of “unfit” members of a population

5. Positive Eugenics • Encouraged by: • Reproduction viewed as a contribution or detriment to national strength • Higher birthrates of recent US immigrants • Declining birthrates among middle- and upper-class American-born white women • The latter was viewed as “race suicide”

6. Two Directions of Eugenics • Positive Eugenics • Goal: Increase birthrate among the “fit” • Negative Eugenics • Goal: Decrease the proportion of “unfit” members of a population

7. Negative Eugenics • Policies included: • Segregation or sterilization of defective persons • Denying marriages between first cousins and across races • Differential immigration quotas • Eugenic programs overshadowed poverty programs

8. Who is “unfit?” • Popenoe and Johnson of the Human Betterment Foundation • Blind, deaf, insane, feeble-minded, paupers, criminals, epileptics, tramps, prostitutes, and beggars • Also frequently included • Sexually promiscuous, alcoholics, persons with syphilis or tuberculosis

9. Strength of Eugenic Policies • 30 of the 48 states had sterilization laws (voluntary or involuntary) for the feeble-minded • Over 63,000 Americans were sterilized prior to 1964 • Supreme Court justified forcible sterilization on the same grounds as compulsory vaccination laws (1927) • Marriage requirement laws • Differential immigration quotas

10. Proliferation of Eugenic Ideals • National- and state-level laws • Research centers and institutes in universities • Academic eugenics journals • Inclusion in academic work across disciplines • Foundations and societies, conferences • Common topic of articles in popular press • Sex-education books for children and parents • “Fit family” and “perfect baby” contests

11. Eugenics and Birth Control • Eugenic debates framed early 20th c. birth control arguments • Would birth control reduce births by women who “ought” to have children? • Is birth control another eugenic tool for reducing “undesirable” births? • Many black Americans held great distrust for the white birth control advocates

12. Eugenics Legacy • By 1950, formal eugenics lost popularity due to Nazi atrocities and more complex genetic theory, but ideas were integrated beyond this • 1970’s court cases on coerced sterilization • Distrust around reproductive health practices • Provided basis for current racial research • Current genetic science leading to discussion of “the new eugenics”

13. Eugenics demands careful scrutiny of our own research, arguments, political and programmatic policy.