Eugenics
1883 - 1940
ORIGINS
 The word “eugenics”
was coined in 1883 by
Sir Francis Galton
 eu meaning good, and
genes meaning born
Definition
 “The science which deals with all influences
that improve the inborn qualities of a race;
also with those that develop them to the
utmost advantage.”
- Galton, Eugenics: It’s Definition, Scope and
Aims
Ancient History
Plato (ca. 427 – 347 B.C.)
 In The Republic, discusses the need to
supply society with genetically improved
human beings and how this could be done.
Rome and Sparta
 Infanticide to weed out “weak” babies
Two Types of Eugenics
 Positive Eugenics - Measures to increase reproduction in
families with desirable traits (i.e. encouraging the “fit” to
have more children)
 Negative Eugenics - Measures to limit reproduction in
families with undesirable traits (e.g. sterilization via
vasectomy and tubal ligation) Negative eugenics was the
predominant view
Eugenics was influenced by
 Origin of Species: Natural Selection
 “Survival of the fittest”
 Mendel’s studies on the inheritance of traits
(early research on inherited characteristics in
plants)
 Agriculture/Animal Breeding
Mendel’s Influence
 Mendel’s
experiments applied
to animals and
humans
 “Applied genetics”
Father of Eugenics
 Charles Davenport, Founder
of the Eugenics Record
Office, credited with the
popularization of eugenics
 Relied heavily on Mendel’s
work
 Respectable studies on eye
color, hair color, hair texture,
and pigmentation
 BUT, goes on to apply results
to complex human traits, like
intelligence
Scientific Research
 Eugenicists contributed greatly to what we know
about many inherited disorders including:
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Hemophilia (blood does not clot)
Ataxia (lack of co-ordination)
Albinism (lack of skin pigmentation)
Polydatyly (extra fingers)
 The problem was the general belief that all
traits, including behavioral ones, followed
Mendel’s inheritance ratios
Unscientific Research
Eugenics claimed through science they were able to identify……
Undesirables:
 Pauperism
 Alcoholism
 Feeblemindedness
 Promiscuity
 Criminality
Desirables:
 Emotional stability
 Strong character
 Considerateness for other
people
 Intelligence
 Tendency to uphold or
improve moral standards
 The quality which makes
people feel a personal
responsibility for the public
welfare
20th Century Eugenics
 1900 – 1920s, several organizations were formed
The Eugenics Record Office (ERO - Harry Laughlin)
The American Breeders Association (ABA)
The Race Betterment Foundation
The American Eugenics Society
The Galton Society
 International Eugenics Congresses of 1912, 1921 and 1932
Attended by the likes of Alexander Graham Bell and
Winston Churchill
Harry Hamilton Laughlin
 Led the Eugenics Record Office from 1910 1939
 Designed compulsory sterilisation legislation
in the US
 "among the most racist and anti-Semitic of
early twentieth-century eugenicists."
Teaching Eugenics
 Courses offered eugenics in some of
America’s top universities – Harvard,
Columbia, Cornell – by 1914
 Eugenics was a topic in 376 college courses
 High school textbooks preached the
“unfit” vs. “fit”
 Fitter Families Contests in 1920s
US Laws supporting Eugenics
The Laws
 Miscegenation laws against mixing races
-Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, followed by Alabama and
Georgia
 Immigration Laws
- Immigration Restriction Act of 1924
- Limits on Eastern and Southern Europeans (based on IQ tests,
inmate/asylum studies
 Sterilization Laws
- Indiana was first in 1907
- Model Eugenical Sterilization Law (Laughlin, 1922) defines
socially inadequate classes
US Supreme Court Case
The case of Buck vs. Bell
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1924 Virginia had compulsory sterilisation of
the mentally retarded
The superintendent (James Bell) of the
Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and
Feebleminded ordered Carrie Buck (aged 18
– mental age 9) to be sterilised because she
was deemed to be a threat to society. Her
mother (aged 52 mental age 8) was
considered to be a prostitute and immoral.
The problem was taken to the Supreme Court
because it infringed amendments 4 and 5 of
the Constitution.
However, the Supreme Court upheld the
sterilisation order by comparing it to being
vaccinated. The law stayed on Virginia’s
books until 1974.
It legitimised eugenic sterilisation in the USA
Nazi doctors cited this case in their defense
Supreme Court Ruling:
Buck V Bell
“It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting
to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or
to let them starve for their imbecility, society
can prevent those who are manifestly unfit
from continuing their kind…Three
generations of imbeciles is enough.”
– Justice Oliver Holmes
Eugenics Legislative Map
About 60 000 Americans believed to have been sterilized based on
eugenic principles
Eugenics Worldwide
 Movements were founded in France,
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Cuba,
Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and Japan.
 Eugenic sterilization laws passed in Alberta
(1928), Sweden and Norway (1934)
Nazi Germany
 Government adopted Laughlin’s Model
Eugenical Sterilization Law, and by 1933,
sterilize more than 350,000 people
 Laughlin awarded honorary degree from the
University of Heidelberg in 1936 for work in
“the science of racial cleansing”
Nazi Germany
 Hitler’s “Aryan” society
 Marriage Laws of 1935 prohibiting unions
between “Aryans” and Jews and the
eugenically unfit
 ~400,000 sterilized by 1939
 The Final Solution-Wannsee
-killing of 6 million Jews
- 70,000 mental patients
- Gypsies, Slavs, and Social Democrats
Flaws of Eugenics
 Failure to recognize the complexity of human
traits
 Disregard of environmental/social factors
 Skewed results
 Linking undesirable traits with racial and
ethnic groups
 Disregard of effects on genetic diversity
 Flawed IQ testing
 Deemed a pseudo-science: mainly a social
movement
The Fall of Eugenics
 Mainly due to atrocities committed by Nazis
 Emerging evidence against Eugenic claims

Reginald Punnet
 Hardy-Weinberg
 Opposition from the Church