Emma Mathews
In the early twentieth century, eugenics as a scientific concept and practice took the United States by storm. From leading experts in biology to politicians to professors, Americans wanted to “purify” their country by removing people they deemed “unfit.” Eugenicists believed that traits like “criminal tendencies” and disabilities, especially mental disabilities, were passed on genetically, and that people with these traits shouldn’t exist. Policies were enacted across the country to this effect. The practice of eugenics centered around preventing “the unfit” from reproducing, often through incarceration and/or forced sterilization, and people of color were disproportionately targeted.
Transcript – The Pseudoscience of Eugenics
Hello, and welcome to The Pseudoscience of Eugenics, where I’ll be discussing the history of the eugenics movement in the United States: its roots, its practices, and its persistence to this day.
In the early twentieth century, a new scientific thought known as “eugenics” was taking the United States by storm. From leading experts in biology to politicians to professors, Americans thought they could “purify” their country by removing people they saw as “defective.” Also called “race improvement,” eugenics gave American leaders an opportunity to put their racist and ableist beliefs into practice. But where did this idea come from? How was it practiced? And where does it still exist today?
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was the original inspiration for the eugenics movement. It described how populations could change over time through the process of natural selection. Individuals who had advantages over others could reproduce more, so that in subsequent generations the population would have more individuals with those positive traits. Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin, coined the term eugenics in 1883 to describe his idea of improving the human population through selective breeding. Galton thought that if people who he saw as “higher quality” could be encouraged to have more children, and if people he saw as “lower quality” could be prevented from doing so, then over time the population would only have those “higher quality” people. Of course, his ideas of “high” and “low quality” people were blatantly racist, classist, and ableist, as was the implementation of eugenics around the world.
Eugenicists had become obsessed with the idea that almost every trait, from personality to disabilities to “criminal tendencies,” could be passed down genetically. One Dr. W. F. Chenoweth, in 1926, claimed that, quote, “science has demonstrated that man’s mentality is entirely dependent on heredity.” In a pamphlet released by the American Eugenics Society, the list included “criminals, paupers, insane, feebleminded, epileptics,… and other defectives.” And if all these traits could be biologically inherited, argued eugenicists, all people who have these traits should be prevented from having children.
How were people prevented from having children? Primarily through surgical sterilization – both voluntary and involuntary. In What Is Eugenics? by Leonard Darwin, the author argues for, quote, “voluntary sterilization stimulated by some carefully regulated pressure.” Well, “pressure” is one way to put it. In some states, sterilization became a mandatory requirement for people deemed “defective” before they could get married. The procedure was often required before release from prison or other state-run facilities. According to Darwin in 1928, “all allowed to leave the [California] State Asylum have been sterilized in recent years. A considerable number of girls have been sent by their parents to this institution in order to be sterilized.” Sterilization was done to people of color, especially women of color, at vastly disproportionate rates. In many cases, women were sterilized without their knowledge or consent while under anesthesia for other operations, including for childbirth. This was especially true for immigrants and women who did not speak English, who were often made to sign forms they did not understand and receive surgeries they did not want. Sterilization programs were often centered in poor areas, and public hospitals sometimes offered sterilization procedures without providing access to other forms of contraception. The sterilization programs in the United States mirrored those carried out in Nazi Germany, with some American eugenicists praising the Nazis’ policies of forced sterilization. In addition to sterilization, eugenicists pushed for restrictions on immigration and incentives for wealthier families to have more children – policies the Trump administration has been putting into place.
Eugenics was wildly popular in the United States throughout the first half of the twentieth century, only beginning to lose steam later on. A committee program produced by the American Eugenics Society in 1931 recommended, quote, “that formal instruction in the principles of genetics, and the eugenical considerations derivable therefrom, be included in the curricula of all universities and colleges, and that such instruction be particularly stressed in connection with premedical education.” This recommendation was heeded nationwide, with courses in eugenics being offered at top universities like Harvard, Cornell, MIT, and many more. Doctors, scientists, and lawmakers were taught the principles of eugenics, and went on to put them into practice. Sterilization became first legalized, then legally mandated, in many states across the country.
After the Second World War, America wanted little to do with a movement that had ties to Nazi Germany, and eugenics began to fall out of public favor. But while the formal movement has ended, the fundamental ideas of eugenics still persist today. Population control efforts on the part of governments around the world have often targeted poor individuals, communities, and countries in their efforts to limit fertility. At the same time, policies are put in place to increase fertility in wealthy nations as birth rates fall across Europe and the United States. Immigration policies often make it easier for individuals with advanced degrees to permanently enter the country, separating people based on their perceived “quality” according to government standards. Are these policies direct results of the eugenics movement, or are they just symptoms of a pervasive racist and capitalist political structure across the Western world? Either way, it’s important to remember the impact to which scientific racism can impact widely held beliefs and national policy.
This has been The Pseudoscience of Eugenics. Thanks for listening.
References
American Eugenics Society. “A Eugenics Catechism,” n.d.
———. “Physician’s Program,” 1931.
———. Practical Eugenics. American Eugenics Society, 1938.
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Darwin, Leonard. What Is Eugenics? Third international congress of eugenics, 1932.
“EUGENICS in the COLLEGES.” Journal of Heredity 5, no. 4 (April 1, 1914): 186–86. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a107837.
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