Eugenics was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton to mean “well born” It was the combinations of Mendelian genetics and agricultural breeding positive eugenics  encouraged "fit" families to have more children negative eugenics  Set in place for "unfit" families to have few or no children at all Did not take into account environmental factors, only bad genes.

Early Popularity Many prominent Americans saw eugenics as a progressive solution to social problems  Theodore Roosevelt  Alexander Graham Bell  Luther Burbank (the California seed producer)  Henry Fairfield Osborn (president of the American Museum of Natural History)  David Starr Jordan (first president of Stanford University)

Founders of Eugenics

Francis Galton ( ) Born to upper class British family 9th child and youngest child Earned bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 1844 from Cambridge University

GALTON’S RESEARCH Hereditary Talents and Character (1865)  Physical and Mental Characteristics were inherited  Acquired Characteristics were not inherited  High intelligence was no associated with physical weakness Hereditary Genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences (1869)  normal distribution and mean deviation used to show variability in math scores.  family trees to show how generations of families produced eminent people.

Charles Benedict Davenport Born in Graduated from Harvard with a PhD in Biology 1910 Became director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Eugenics Record Office was founded at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory  financially supported by Mary Williamson Averell John Harvey Kellogg Carnegie Institution of Washington

Davenport’s Research Human heredity  Mendelian school of genetics Miscegenation  gave stats for biological and cultural degradation following interbreeding between whites and blacks

Henry Herbert Goddard Earned PhD under G. Stanley Hall at Clark University 1906 Became director of the Training School for the feeble minded at Vineland, New Jersey “The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble Mindedness”

Kallikak Family Study Compared two sides of a New Jersey family ‘Kallikak’ came from Greek  kalos= good  kakos= bad Take home message: Feeble minded people will produce more feeble minded people if they are allowed to breed with regular people.

Normal Side Feeble Side

Three Levels of Classification 1910 Goddard proposed a system for classifying individuals with mental retardation based on IQ. Moron IQ of Mild mental Retardation Imbecile IQ of Severe and Moderate Retardation Idiot IQ of 0-25 Profound Mental Retardation

Restricting Immigrants 1913 Ellis Island – Intelligence Testing 80% of Immigrants as "feeble-minded” 83% of Jews 80% of Hungarians 79% of Italians 87% of the Russians

Harry Hamilton Laughlin Born 1889 Gradated from First District Normal School (Truman State University) Later interested in breeding and got in contact with Davenport and joined him 1917 he earned his Doctor of science from Princeton in Cytology

Immigration Act of 1924 Restricted numbers of immigrants from "undesirable" racial groups Laughlin asked to testify in support of the bill.  Stats on "excessive" insanity among immigrants from southern Europe and eastern Europe.

Sterilization Laughlin help with compulsory sterilization legislation states passed sterilization laws  In 1907, Indiana was first to pass the laws Laughlin help clarify and rewrite the laws Soon 18 more states passed sterilization laws.

Sterilization cont. Candidates for Sterilization  Feeble Minded People  The Insane  Criminals  Epileptics  Alcoholics  Blind Persons  Deaf Persons  Deformed Persons  Indigent Persons

Upheld in Court Carrie Buck  The first person in Virginia ordered to be sterilized  Lawsuit ensued against the state Laughlin and other ERO scientists testified at the trial in support of her sterilization The state won the case  It went to the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the laws that Laughlin helped write. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”  Five months later Carrie Bell was sterilized  between 1907 and 1963 when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized

Eugenics and Nazism  400,000 Germans were sterilized  Rockefeller fellowships allowed German genetic researchers to travel to U.S. medical laboratories for collaboration. Euthanasia programs were setup to kill tens of thousands disabled persons

Modern Eugenics Falling away after revelations of Nazi abuses Human Genome Project ( ) Designer Babies Genius Sperm Bank Egg Donors get $3500

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