Racialising the Nation?
Eugenics Society, Heredity in Man
(1937)
• Presenter Julian Huxley (left-wing biologist,
brother of Aldous Huxley who projected
dystopian eugenic vision in 1932 Brave New
World)
• Emphasis on dangers of mental deficiency and
differential fertility for whole population in
future
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyCI8PM
mWAQ
A Tolerant Society?
• Britain a home for political exiles (eg Karl Marx) and those fleeing
persecution in 19th century (Jewish pogroms)
• 19th century absence of restrictions against immigration
• Jewish immigration 1880-1920 estimated at 120,000
• Assimilation of eg Anglo-Jewry (Benjamin Disraeli becomes
Conservative leader and Prime Minister)
• Britain does not need to make itself a nation in 19th century, in
contrast to many of her European counterparts, and therefore
concepts of race as the basis for nation which come to fore in the
period have less purchase (in fact they could reveal divisions)
• Instead, a focus on national character, of which tolerance is seen as
a central feature.
• Polygenism rather than monogenism.
the question …
• Lecture will ask whether this side-lining of race
persisted in the 20th century, or whether the first
decades of century saw a shift in the relationship
between race and nation, even a ‘racialising’ of the
nation?
• It asks therefore whether Britain stood apart and in
contrast to the increasing importance of ideas of race
to nation in the early 20th century (which we
particularly associate with fascism ‘the racial state’).
• Or has a relationship between race and nation been
hidden because it took a different form.
The role of Empire
• Britain different because of the profound importance of Empire
• Places Britain’s in the colonies face-face with questions of race difference;
projects these back via the imperial imagination. Dominance of
hierarchical ideas about civilisation. These help to justify the imperial
project. Dominance of cultural/historical models over biological.
• But rarely presents a direct challenge domestically (contrast to
immigration post WWII – no large scale immigration from Empire until
second half century), and therefore enables a distancing from racism.
• When it comes to ideas of nation, justifies need for imperial rule
(benevolent/developmental project).
• The idea of all being subjects of the British Empire is at the same time
inclusive.
• Contrast to French imperial project of turning colonies into satellites of
France itself.
• In sum, via Empire race is fundamentally important but at the same time
to some extent hidden and displaced
The races of Britain
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John Beddoe, The Races of Britain
(1862)
Physical anthropology (including
head shapes)
Some role in late 19th century interest
in national difference within Britain
(popular portrayal of the Irish).
Some link to local folklore study
But does not lead to fundamental
divisions within
Instead main site for physical
anthropology is justifying imperial
rule over other peoples (eg compare
brains of Australian aborigines and
Africans to mental defectives)
The impact of Jewish immigration
• 120,000 1880-1914
• Mainly poor; concentrate in
areas such as East End of
London
• Tension with Anglo-Jewry
• Difficulties of assimilation
• Emerge as a perceived social
problem
• 1905 Aliens Act: blocks entry
to criminals, insane, and those
unable to demonstrate an
ability to support themselves
and their dependents
‘decently’
Race and Politics
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WWI Anti-German outbreaks
Concern about Black immigrants in port
towns as a threat to the way of life and in
relation to employment: Seaman’s Acts 1920
and 1925
Rise of race concern in white dominions
leading to 1914 Nationality Act: a British
subject anywhere is a British subject
everywhere, but each self-governing
dominion could decide to whom it would
grant citizenship
Interwar fascism: British Union of Fascists
formed 1932 (leader Oswald Mosely). Antisemitic. Clashes with local Jewish population
and anti-Fascists at Cable Street in East End,
1936)
Fascism a foreign import or has British roots?
(Dan Stone, Breeding Superman: Nietzsche,
Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and
Interwar Britain.
Rejection of politics of race in mainstream
(or translation)?
Decline of scientific racism?
• Julian Huxley (biologist) and A.C. Haddon
(anthropologist), We Europeans (1937):
peoples are hugely mixed, not races (counter
to Nazi use of race/nation discourse). Yet not
the same as discounting heredity (or eugenics)
• Shift to more complex multi-factorial models
of genetics (away from Mendelian): counters
simplistic models of inheritance, but eg Nazis
to the fore in this new genetics
The health of the race
• A race and nation discourse does exist, and does
become increasingly important but is largely in
relation to the health of the race (rather than
concern about other races).
• In this sense, nation might be seen as being
racialized in this period: turned into something
that is coming to be understood, measured,
worried about, and even manipulated in terms of
demography, eugenics, and fitness.
Why is there a move towards thinking
about nation as a unit of racial fitness?
• International competition,
concern about British
struggle to defeat Boer’s in
South Africa: the ‘Quest for
National Efficiency’
(Geoffrey Searle)
• Link to campaigns for
greater military force,
mobilisation of the
population, even
conscription (clashing with
liberal values)
• Mobilisation of boys in
scouting (1908-)
Viewing the population in new ways
• The rise of the survey: Charles
Booth, Life and Labour of the
People in London (1889-): 35%
poverty
• Seebohm Rowntree, Poverty: A
Studyof Town Life (1901) estimate
of living costs, poverty, funds for
nutrition, primary and secondary
causes
• The role of voluntary
organisations, social work, and
the emerging state
• Tables, charts, maps;
constructions of a norm; the
abnormal (and superior)
• Emergence of new problems and
targets
Anxieties about deterioration
• Revelation of scale of poverty
• Concern about secondary/moral causes and
what lies behind this
• Exposure of unfitness among recruits
• 1904 Inter-Departmental Committee on
Physical Deterioration
• Cost and causes of unemployment,
pauperism, recidivism, alcoholism, insanity
Solutions (i)
• Environmental (main response to 1904
Interdepartmental Committee on Physical
Deterioration)
• School medical service/inspection (1907)
• Maternal welfare (importance of breeding a fit
generation)
• Origins of welfare state (importance of
maternalism)
Solutions (ii)
• Hereditary
• Pessimism regarding recidivism; failure of
workhouse test to end pauperism; apparent
persistence and concentration of social problems
in slums and families
• Eugenics (founded in England by Francis Galton
(half-cousin of Charles Darwin) in 1883 – not a
foreign import): science of improving the human
race by study and control of breeding.
Attractions of eugenics
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Appears to explain persistence of
social problems
Suggests that throwing more money
at problems will not solve: problems
inborn (attractive for those who
oppose expansion of state)
Suggests that those rising to top
(middle-classes) deserve this status
(rather than aristocracy): inherited
ability rather than inherited wealth.
Appears modern, has gloss of
science: attractive to professionals,
medicine, statist intellectual (even on
the left).
Emergence of a eugenics movement
centred on the Eugenics Society and
its journal the Eugenics Review
Eugenic strategies and targets
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Concern about differential class
fertility (demographic transition and
decline of birth-rate first in middle
class and among professionals.
Therefore tries to encourage these
groups to breed more (the path to
family allowances): ‘positive
eugenics’
Stopping the ‘degenerate’ from
breeding: ‘negative eugenics’: main
target ‘mental defectives’ via
segregation of ‘feeble-minded’: the
Mental Deficiency Act of 1913:
creation of ‘colonies’ (and institutions
eg for ‘inebriates’ (proposals for
sterilisation but not implemented).
How seriously should we take
eugenics?
• Mental Deficiency Act depends on arguments about
social inefficiency more than claims of eugenics
regarding heredity (part of welfare state trajectory)
• Sterilisation not politically viable (by 1930s made
harder by German example; but also concerns about
the liberty of the subject; Catholic opposition; labour
concern about attack on working class; shift in demo)
• To what extent does a faith (and understanding of
nation in racial terms) extend beyond members of
Eugenics Society?
Entry in popular culture or mockery?
From health of the race to the welfare
state
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National fitness campaigns
Peckham Health Centre: total health
Origins of welfare state
Family allowances
From mental deficiency/illness to
mental health/hygiene/welfare (cf
importance of morale, national
character, and education as a tool of
mental health by WWII in opposition
to Nazism)
In education, the focus on mental
ability becomes central in vision of
ladder of opportunity, meritocracy,
and tripartite system
In health, move towards acceptance
of a national health service: health
increasingly central in defining the
nation?