Jonathan Currie

Agyepong
HST 329
6 June, 2015
The Changing Face of Eugenics
"Eugenics" is one of those buzzwords that instantly makes people uncomfortable. It is
often thought of as the ignorant notion that certain races of humans are inherently superior to
others. To most it elicits thoughts of the Third Reich and the fabled Aryan "super race." What
many do not realize however is just how relevant the concept of eugenics is in the study of
population control today. Eugenics is at its core, simply the study of human capability and
more specifically, the study of how offspring and parents can carry better genetic material. This
idea has shifted from a strictly nature based approach to a more sophisticated look at the
nurture side of circumstance. Throughout the course of the eventful twentieth century,
scientists and laymen alike struggled to come to terms with humanity as a unified race, and
then furthermore, humanity as a very unequal species with the presence of class. Over time, the
way that the principles of eugenics and the way in which policymakers have tried to curb
inferior stock has shifted from a purely racial based system of hierarchy, to mental illness, and
finally in the modern context, economic status.
The concept of eugenics is most closely associated with the man who coined the term in
1883, Francis Galton. In his book, Inquiry into Human Faculty and its development, Galton
toys with the idea of artificial selection as a way of perfecting natural selection. Galton, a
cousin to Charles Darwin, used the principles of species fitness and "survival of the fittest" and
adapted them to humans. He characterized ideal human reproduction as artificial selection to

consciously elevate the quality of human stock.1 These theories operated under the belief that
traits, both physical and intellectual would be transferred from one generation to the next. For
Galton, this was done at more of a personal level. A large part of his call to action in eugenics
was the detailed investigation into one's own family history, learning as much as possible about
past ancestors and their traits2. With an understanding of these traits, the strength of a family's
pedigree could be determined as could a prediction of future offspring's quality. Galton did not
explicitly state race as a factor in genetic fitness. His statements on genetic fitness were meant
to discuss fitness that ran in a particular family lines. Galton never meant it to be about
superiority of races over one another.
The modern conception of genetics comes from a more race based hierarchy system that was
not part of Galton's plan. The racial component of eugenics did not come forward until the turn
of the twentieth century. By then, the new field had taken up a strong following in Western
Europe and the United States. New leaders such as Harry Laughlin and Charles Davenport
began to steer the growing movement in America toward racial superiority. These newly
minted American eugenicists carried with them ideas that would be popular well into the
1940s. Laughlin, Davenport, and the rest of Americas new eugenicists structured a strict racial
hierarchy system. This system would have been very comfortable for them, being fixed like
other social structures like economic class, military rank, and in the scientific community,
taxonomy. Using this model, eugenicists were able to present a clear hierarchy in which
ethnicity, national origin, and above all, race became strict labels in the structure3. These
scientists, often previously involved in the biology or anthropology fields, began documenting
1 David Galton and Clare Galton, "Francis Galton: and Eugenics Today", Journal of Medical
Ethics 24, no. 2 (April 1998): 99.
2 Ibid, 100.

racial traits in physical form. Skull caps were measured. Musculature quantified. Intelligence
was tested. In short, scientists were looking to speciate racial groups. These racial groups had
designated subgroups as well, turning the racial hierarchy into a mimicry of the classic
taxonomy system. These races in the order they were perceived are as follows: Teutonic,
Nordic, Mediterranean, Asiatic, Hispanic, and Negro4. Using these categories for all people, a
familiar set of barriers was given scientific justification.
Speciation of racial groups became the way that difference and separation could be justified.
Using Galton's line of thinking, it was just inefficient to perpetuate inferior genetic lines. If
race was to be the determining factor of position, then surely it was advantageous to
concentrate good qualities within the highest ranked races. The concept is not foreign to a
modern audience. The most well-known example is the eugenic policies under the Nazi regime.
In that case, the Aryan race, a similar if not identical race to the Nordic sub race, was
emphasized at the expense of darker races and those of designated mixed stock. Some of these
ideas were fleshed out by Davenport who emphasized in a 1917 correspondence that the
mixing of races created disharmony, and that the combination of white ambition and black
intellectual inadequacy created a fairly useless mulatto5. In a modern context, these findings
seem outrageous, and at their very core, deeply flawed. It was however, the only way that
scientists could explain difference in what they classified as race.
Eugenic views often received at least some sort of government backing in the early part of the
twentieth century. To many, the issue was one of an inferior stock simply outpacing the
3 Garland E. Allen, "The Misuse of Biological Hierarchies: The American Eugenics
Movement, 1900-1940", History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 5, no. 2 (1983): 107.
4 Ibid, 117.
5 Ibid, 113.

European stock. This applied on two fronts in American eugenics. First was the African
Americans. Views about the sexual proclivity and high reproductive tendency of crude African
Americans led eugenicists as early as the nineteenth century to voice fear of increasing
numbers. The response was to promote methods of birth control to the burgeoning African
American population. Many of these methods and procedures were experimental, involving the
first tests on human subjects6. Another pressing concern for eugenicists, especially Harry
Laughlin, was the influx of Mexicans immigrants to the American Southwest. Laughlin in
correspondence to fellow eugenicist C.M. Goethe, pointed out that the Mexican high birth rate
was likely to become a problem. Nordics in the region were dealing with a competing "rabbittype birth rate." Goethe wrote back that he believed that the Mexicans were of "a mentality
lower than the Japanese and Chinese, and approximately that of the Negroes and certain
Mediterraneans."7 Goethe's comparison of the Mexican to the Negro in their intelligence and
future propensity toward population disturbance illustrates the justification for an approach that
would limit their numbers and thus their corrupting influence. Because more than anything
else, removing these groups was about eliminating a visible blight on the perfect European or
Western society.
While outright policies of race-based eugenics would be shocking today, many would argue
that the eugenics movement survives today in many forms. These ideas and policies did not
come from nowhere. Throughout the twentieth century, state and federal governments have
encouraged, endorsed, or actively ignored individual initiatives that seek to use sterilization as
6 Robin Mary Gillespie and Ruth Hubbard, "Contraception in Context", Frontiers: A Journal
of Women Studies 9, no. 1 (1986): 4.
7 Randall D. Bird and Garland Allen, "The Papers of Harry Hamilton Laughlin, Eugenicist",
Journal of the history of Biology 14, no. 2 (Autumn 1981): 344-345.

a way of weeding out bad human stock. Cases of government endorsement go back at least a
hundred years. These policies, such as they were, combined ideas of race as a measure of
superiority and a heavy stigma against mental illness. States like Indiana were passing
compulsory sterilization laws for the "feebleminded" as early as 1907. In these cases, notably
Indiana, the first state to pass a sterilization law, intense pressure was built up by lobbyists who
perceived that the number of people who were (in period terms) morons, imbeciles, and
degenerates was increasing at an alarming rate. The only solution then would be compulsory
sterilization8. The law was thought to be an effective curbing of crime and future mental
defects.
Important to keep in mind through this is the players that are at odds in this scenario and the
very real fears that they had. Those who crafted the legislation operated under the assumption
that society would be better off without certain hindrances. They themselves were not at risk
for scrutiny as they were themselves of deemed high pedigree and not responsible for petty
vagrancy. Their determination of what was wrong with society read very much like English
Poor Law, instituting a great amount of control over an underclass that was in essence created
by the those in power. In the United States, the same phenomenon existed. The wealth gap
between the highest class and the lowest was larger than it had ever been. Poverty became
pervasive, and honest ways of making ends meet were limited. In a way, those who advocated
for some kind of population control of the unfit(code for feebleminded or even poor) were
combating something that they themselves were instrumental in creating.
After 1907 and the infamous first sterilization law in Indiana, several other states
followed suit. Virginia was one of those states to adopt a non-consensual sterilization law. It is
8 Alexandra Minna Stern, "'We Cannot Make a Silk Purse Out of a Sow's Ear': Eugenics in
the Hoosier Heartland", Indiana Magazine of History 103, no. 1 (March 2007: 4-7

from this context that Oliver Wendell Holmes made his bold statement in Buck v. Bell declaring
that 3 generations of imbeciles was enough. Interestingly, this case was not a racial one. The
Buck family was white. They were however deemed to be of anti-social quality, a code for
poor or degenerate. This is a return to Galton's theories of weeding out poor genetic stock
without directly associating poor stock to a particular race. Buck v. Bell further exemplifies the
way in which eugenics was fluid, often taking a racist tone, but just as frequently relying on
class or mental state.
By the latter half of the twentieth century, the mainstream American eugenics movement
was in decline. State legislatures had long ceased creating new forced sterilization laws by the
fall of Nazi Germany. Courts were starting to rule against compulsory measures, and in short
sterilization was starting to become a more taboo issue. Blatant, open crusades against racial
groups were starting to disappear. It was no longer socially acceptable to hold these beliefs.
Behind closed doors however, kept relatively secret to the public was the policy toward Native
American women. Often without patient consent, sterilizations were performed on Native
American women throughout the country. Between 1972 and 1976, it is estimated that more
than 25,000 Native American women were sterilized, many shortly after giving birth to
children9. This could be done in multiple ways. First, women could be mislead about the nature
of the procedure itself and whether or not it was permanent. Second, and most common in the
accounts that Jane Lawrence encountered, drugged women exhausted from hours of labor were
quickly rushed through to immediate sterilization operations. Either way, the practice was done
in a way that gave no way for women to have a choice over their reproductive freedom.
Instead, white doctors and policy-makers within the IHS were deciding who was fit for
9 Jane Lawrence, "The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American
Women", American Indian Quarterly 24, no. 3 (Summer 2000): 411

procreation. The sterilization of Native Americans was not well-publicized or even part of
popular rhetoric on population control. The notion was carried out by a bureaucratic body, and
doctors who were themselves a part of the highest rank in society's hierarchy.
The Native American sterilization concentration can be thought of as a bridge between the
race-based eugenics arguments of the early twentieth century and the future direction of what
some scholars would call the modern eugenics movement. Native Americans represent a
particularly concentration of poverty. Their lands are fixed in area, their resources, very low.
Native Americans are much dependent upon government assistance programs. The Navajo, for
example, draw 22 percent of their tribes finance from federal and state assistance initiatives10.
Reproduction and the product of it then would lay a burden on the government at either level.
This in turn created an incentive for the government to curb Native American reproduction to
reduce the burden on the state and to insure that resources on their fixed lands were not
outstripped by predicted mass population growth. It is not hard to imagine this jump. In
essence, Native Americans provided the perfect group from which those still subscribing to
both hard and soft eugenics could agree on population control measures. The long exposure of
Native Americans to Anglo society had created in settlers minds the image of savagery and
lack of civilization. Their decline at the hand of Europeans further confirmed that there was a
justified dominance over their "inferior" race. Once Native Americans were forced from their
lands and relegated to a life of government dependence it was an easy jump to shift talk from
elimination for reasons of brutishness to elimination for the greater good of resources. Native

10 Genevieve Chato and Christine Conte, "The Legal Rights of American Indian Women",
Western Women: Their Land, Their Lives (Albuquerque, N.M: University of New Mexico
Press, 1988): 258-259.

Americans then represent the perfect example of the way in which the eugenics movement was
allowed a second chance in the name of resource efficiency and financial burden.
Native Americans may have been the transition group for eugenics but they are by far not the
largest group that the new eugenics movement is being geared toward. African Americans now
represent the largest group that methods of population control is being pushed on. This is not
being done as a racial group per se. Modern efforts include a push toward curbing high birth
rates among poorer women. The result is a de facto eugenic movement against high
concentrations of poverty in African American communities. The difference in sterilization
rates is astounding. Some scholars have even gone so far as labeling it a genocide. But there is
no consensus among academics in this regard. The numbers however show great disparities in
who received family planning services. Between 1966 and 1970, the birth rate among blacks
and the poor decreased by 21 percent. In some areas, the target population of family planning
centers was 93 percent black11. These high concentrations of population control methods really
make one question whether something more is at play than trying to consolidate government
spending in assistance programs.
Subconsciously, early eugenic stereotypes still exist within American society. Most of these
stereotypes are geared toward minority groups. They often paint African Americans or Latinos
in a negative light, citing laziness or a lack of education as a rationale for their inferiority.
While none of these claims are factually based, they do demonstrate an important aspect of the
modern concept of eugenics. None of these stereotypes as previously mentioned are
scientifically based. There is a sense of self-fulfillment within them, a power structure that will
keep those who face scrutiny from actually obtaining success equal to white Americans. Much
11 Ronald Walters, "Population Control and the Black Community: Part Two-Conclusion",
The Black Scholar 5, no. 9 The Black Family (June 1974): 25-26

of this has to do with economic stagnation and the creation of the cycle of poverty that traps
minorities. This is not on its face a natural or inherent weakness. It instead relies on centuries
of slighting non whites. Failures to achieve the level of success that white purport leads to a
condemnation of an entire people as lazy or unintelligent. Because these distinctions are
manmade, there is a fallacy in eugenic thinking that continues to assert an inferiority amongst
people of color. Yet, preconceived notions still exist among the general public. Welfare is the
most often attacked program assisting low income Americans. A poll conducted by Hana
Brown for her article in Social Service Review showed just how far Americans were misled
about the nature of welfare recipients. A shocking 50 percent labeled the largest concerns were
with laziness, lack of effort to work, and over fertility of those receiving benefits12. In addition,
in Georgia, one of the responding states, 100 percent of the stereotypes chosen were
exclusively associated with African Americans. This demonstrates if nothing else that there still
is a connection between public perception of who is dependent, and the value that each can
contribute to society in the future.
The obvious critique to this is that race does not continue to be the target for population control
policy. It does say something though that even though scholars like Walters are hesitant to
make the issue into a call to action topic, there is a conscious recognition that African
Americans are in higher numbers are subjected to abject poverty. Maybe it does not matter
whether the new eugenics movement is one solely based on economic fitness. What we are
seeing is a shift from a race based system to a system that is at least justified by the appearance
of easing a burden on the general public through funding assistance programs. Instead, there is
12 Hana Brown, "The New Racial Politics of Welfare: Ethno-Racial Diversity, Immigration,
and Welfare Discourse Variation", Social Service Review 87, no. 3 (September 2013): 595599.

a need to justify the wide implementation of sterilization and population control, regardless of
its bias. The true issue is whether groups are being unduly pressured to regulate the number of
offspring they would bear. This gets to the crux of eugenics in its purest form. Eugenics centers
around the shaping of future generations around deemed fitness of the parents, implying that
there is a need to structure society for them. In a eugenic system, coercion is a key to
controlling populations. If either African Americans or the poor are being targeted for these
population control programs, then it is still indicative of the fact that there are more suitable
parents for the next generation than those of lower social or economic standing. Is this true
eugenics? Perhaps not. But it does perpetuate the idea that there should not be as many from
unsuitable stock, and that those of suitable stock are to be bulwark against a threatening
inferior population(regardless of how it is defined).
Over time, these views of who was fit or unfit to perpetuate their genetic material
shifted. Some of the first instances in American eugenics deal with race as a way of
categorizing the strength of human stock. Along with race came those with mental illness or
feeblemindedness, which was argued to be a characteristic of some racial or ethnic groups.
Finally, the modern argument has moved to economic class as a measure of who is fit.
Increasingly the poor are being marked as unfit to freely propagate. This argument has been
challenged as a return to racial discrimination, and to some degree, proponents may be right.
The fact remains though that there is an undercurrent phenomenon within our society that
deems regulation of reproduction as a contested issue. Whether this is eugenics in the true
sense of the word is irrelevant. The implication of the word has changed so much over time as
to render it almost useless. What can be stated though is that the definition of the quality of
human stock is always being measured, be it in terms of race, mental competency, or economic

conditions. These judgments subconsciously drive human judgments on who is fit to be a

parent.

Allen, Garland, "The Misuse of Biological Hierarchies: The American Eugenics Movement,
1900-1940", History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 5, no. 2 (1983): 105-128.
Bird, Randall D. and Garland Allen, "The Papers of Harry Hamilton Laughlin, Eugenicist",
Journal of the history of Biology 14, no. 2 (Autumn 1981): 339-353.
Brown, Hana, "The New Racial Politics of Welfare: Ethno-Racial Diversity, Immigration, and
Welfare Discourse Variation", Social Service Review 87, no. 3 (September 2013): 586-612.
Chato, Genevieve, and Christine Conte, "The Legal Rights of American Indian Women",
Western Women: Their Land, Their Lives Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1988): 252-263.
Galton, David and Clare Galton "Francis Galton: and Eugenics Today", Journal of Medical
Ethics 24, no. 2 (April 1998): 99-105.
Gillespie, Robin Mary and Ruth Hubbard, "Contraception in Context", Frontiers: A Journal of
Women Studies 9, no. 1 (1986):3-8.
Lawrence, Jane, "The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women",
American Indian Quarterly 24, no. 3 (Summer 2000): 400-419.
Stern, Alexandra Minna, "'We Cannot Make a Silk Purse Out of a Sow's Ear': Eugenics in the
Hoosier Heartland", Indiana Magazine of History 103, no. 1 (March 2007): 3-38.
Walters, Ronald, "Population Control and the Black Community: Part Two-Conclusion", The
Black Scholar 5, no. 9 The Black Family (June 1974): 25-31.