Eugenics And The Social Movement

Eugenics was introduced by sir Francis galton who, interestingly enough, was a cousin of Charles Darwin. It began as a way to better the human race and stop negative genetic traits from continuing on generation to generation. Eugenics may have started out as a way to better humans but it became something much worse.

The idea of eugenics made it possible for involuntary sterilization. In order to improve the human race, it meant regulating reproduction. 1907 Indiana passed to sterilize the mentally insane and inmates. Their plan was to eliminate “defective” genes. By 1960 63,000 people were involuntary

Eugenicists used this information to reaffirm the existing class and racial hierarchy. They saw that middle and upper classes were predominantly white. In contrast, they saw that poor person consisted of genetically inferior individuals and deemed it to be unfit. The movement was widely accepted by the public and was the reason why eugenics legislation got passed. Laws such as compulsory sterilization were passed at the state level that required the sterilization of unfit individuals. The goal of this was to eliminate “unfit” in order to produce the most “fit” family.

Eugenics is the scientific belief that through “selective breeding… and [the] restriction of reproduction by birth control or surgical procedures” (Thomson), a ‘better’ and more productive society could develop. Similar to the ideas of Social Darwinists, Eugenicists used medical intervention to weed out the unfit members of society(anyone who was not white), and continued to grow the population of the ‘fit members. People believed that ‘unfit’ members of society had genes that would bring society down as a whole, and “race mixing, or crossbreeding, would deplete the national fitness of Anglo-Saxon Americans” (Thomson). Eugenics during the progressive Era: Although most progressive thinkers were against the Social Darwinist theory, there

The eugenics movement began in the 20th century by a man named Francis Galton. As the cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton believed that eugenics was a moral philosophy to improve humanity by encouraging the ablest and healthiest people to have more children (Carlson). This Galtonian ideal of eugenics is often thought of as positive eugenics. Eugenics can be defined as the outgrowth of human heredity aimed at "improving" the quality of the human stock (Allen and Bird). At the other end of the spectrum is what can be classified as negative eugenics and is presently in disrepute. Negative eugenics entails selective breeding in which the least able from the population is taken out of the reproduction pool to preserve humanity's best traits.

Eugenics came from an era where Social Darwinism was used to explain many social inequalities. Social Darwinism was created by Herbert Spencer and was based off of the work by Charles Darwin. Darwinism contains the ideas of survival of the fittest and the capability of an individual to survive in an environment. Spencer took Darwin’s idea and applied it to society, and explained that social inequalities came from the fact that the wealthy are genetically wired to be better off. Eugenicists noticed that government money was being funded towards the poor and degenerates. They didn’t understand this and they believed it was a waste of money because those people were destined to be impoverished. Eugenicists believed sterilization was the solution. Eugenicists believed anyone with the traits of poverty, feeble-mindedness-including manic depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, rebelliousness, criminality, nomadness, and prostitution in their lives should be sterilized. Before WWII, eugenics was very popular in the United States. People such as Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were in support of eugenics. They both supported the sterilization of the feeble minded and insane, but did not support the killing of these people. Once Hitler’s atrocities had been discovered, the eugenics movement had a large decrease in popularity

The word eugenics was coined in Britain by Galton, and this explains the root of the word. Eugenics gained popularity through the financial support from foundations and individuals in America. Other popularization channels were through a series of international congresses of eugenics and many committees that continued to popularize the movement. Teachers and academic leaders also assisted in popularizing the eugenic movement. However, with all the popularity it had, it later turned to be poor science.

The Immigration Act, passed in 1924, was passed in large part to prevent immigrants from other countries from being able to marry and have children with an American citizen (Kevles 1985, 97). The common belief was that foreigners would weaken the gene pool in America (Kevles 1985, 97). State governments also began requiring citizens to pass a mental health test in order to be married and even went so far as to sterilize criminals or those who were mentally handicapped (Kevles 1985, 100). The blatant disregard for people’s rights was the biggest problem with the eugenics movement. It was started as an attempt to try and improve society that instead began to focus on mistreating those who were in the lower

The beginning of the Eugenics Movement all started at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. The United States coined the term Eugenics from Great Britain in the early 1900s. In the year 1910, a man by the name of Charles B. Davenport founded the Eugenics Records Office (ERO). The funds for this building came from Mrs. E.H. Harriman (“Eugenics: Did the Eugenics Movement Benefit the United States?”). The movement was initially meant to purify the Gene Pool. One of the ways

Sterilization "on eugenic grounds" (Lombardo 1) was not legalized until 1907 in Indiana, but doctors across the nation practiced the procedure illegally before even then. Generally, the patient didn't know about the sterilization until after the act was done, at which point they were informed of their "feeblemindedness" or other social disorder. Within 17 years of the law being instated, a recorded 3000 people were sterilized, and thousands more suspected off the record. The range of reasons for being sterilized was infinite, ranging from genuine mental disorders such as schizophrenia, to things as pointless as "excessive masturbation" (Selden

According to the Merrier Webster Eugenics is a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed. In 1930 eugenics was causing much controversy in U.S.A and Germany. The dictator was trying to abolish the Jewish religion not only in Germany but in the U.S. Now in the U.S. genetic modification is still going on there are places women can go to pick out what they want there baby to look like. In the world we live in now the is multiple cases of careless reproduction, in which some take the child and responsibilities the come with it and other Abort their child. Abortion is when a female decides to abort her pregnancy and kills the fetus. Abortion ties in to eugenics because if a

Eugenics was looked to by many in the United States government, as an alternative resource to utilize in an attempt to better American society. Likewise, Eugenics was introduced into the world by the cousin of Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton. Correspondingly, Sir Francis Galton, in 1904, placed an article in the American Journal of Sociology summarizing the use of Eugenics as the superior individual going up against and eradicating the inferior individuals of society, which in return would cause the production of natural selection to substantially spread up it's processed (Lewis, 2016). Henceforth, also encouraging urbanized people or the less fit from breeding and producing offsprings faster than the more fit, because of their lower intelligence

The theory of Eugenics can be dated back all the way to 400 B.C. but was not popularized until the mid-1800s by an English scientist, Francis Galton. He researched and published the theory that aimed to improve the genetic quality of the human population through selective breeding (NC Office of Archives and History). As the half-cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton applied the Darwinism science (survival of the fittest) to heredity characteristics. Two types of Eugenics stemmed from the theory, positive and negative. Positive eugenics is encouraging the “best” people in the society based on financial and personal features to have more children while negative eugenics is picking people with flaws and defects from the population

Eugenics, the word that got its bad reputation years ago through an event that changed history: the Holocaust. First dubbed by Francis Galton in the 1880’s, the word Eugenics stemmed from the words “good” and “generation.” (Eugenics-Meanings) Eugenics means the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population. This improvement is done through discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics); or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics). (Contemporary)There have always been heated discussions over right or wrong, moral or immoral concerning

The roots of eugenics can be traced back to Britain in the early 1880’s when Sir Francis Galton generated the term from the Greek word for “well-born”. He defined eugenics as the science of improving stock, whether human or animal. According to the American Eugenics Movement, today’s study of eugenics has many similarities to studies done in the early 20th century. Back then, “Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings – by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes.” (www.eugenicsarchive.org) According to Merriam-Webster, the modern day definition of eugenics is, a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of