“Race Science” in a Changing World

Looking to Science  In this new modern world, people looked to science to justify their ideas about who was “in” and who was “out”  First scientists to respond were American, not European  1800’s a white surgeon from Philadelphia, Samuel Morton, hypothesized that there was a link between brain size and race.

Looking to Science  Also added the idea that each race is fixed, different from each other, and incapable of being changed.

Paul Broca  From France and built on Morton’s work  Believed only “compatible” races would produce fertile or what he called “eugensic offspring”  Warned against race mixing  Had powerful effects when governments applied them to everyday life.

Charles Darwin  1859, Charles Darwin, a British biologist published The Origin of the Species. Each species competes for space and nourishment to survive and only the strong survive to reproduce themselves  Herbert Spencer, a British writer, applieced Darwin’s ideas to society Social Darwinism

Ernst Haeckel  German biologist  Divided humankind into races and ranked them  Taken with the idea of Eugenics- breeding “societies best with best” as a way of keeping the “German race” pure.

Francis Galton  Cousin of Charles Darwin  In 1883, he coined the term racial hygiene or eugenics the strategy aimed at improving the genetic qualities of a population through controlled reproduction

Citizenship and European Jews  The tightening link between nationalism and race in the late 1800’s had a profound effect of the way European Jews defined their identity.  Before, Jews who converted were no longer outsiders

Citizenship and European Jews  Racists turned the “Jewish problem” into a permanent problem  Neither assimilation or conversion to Christianity altered one’s race  Jews were now a separate, evil, and inferior race.