Eugenics

American history tells the tale of division between the races.  Racial inequality.  But, our everyday history classes and books don’t tell the scientific depth of this dark idea.  It gets a lot worse than we think.  Eugenics.  What is Eugenics?  It is a scientific idea that followed the civil war of previous centuries that believed that genetics was the cause of all of our world problems.  Mental illnesses, criminality, depression, alcoholism, and feeblemindedness are just a few of the problems poor genetics could cause.  Though, there was a more positive side that believed this concept was also the cause of things like musical ability and intelligence.  In both ways, eugenics had a huge impact on America’s scientific and social orders.

The idea was first presented by Francis Galton in 1833.  His primary goal was to work towards healthier children.  Many ideas of this new field came from the research of Gregor Mendel’s pedigrees and human traits.  Over time, this idea was taken to the extremes and the idea evolved.  The genetics being viewed also became the cause of damaged heredity.  In places like America, Germany, and Scandinavia, the world became survival of the fittest.  Just so you understand how radical this issue was, these are the same concepts that inspired Adolf Hitler’s discrimination against the Jewish people.  It was believed that only healthy people could breed other healthy people.  Science gave those a name for those not being of perfect health and characteristics.  “Degenerates.”  The society of the time started to find places to blame in favor of Eugenics.  For example, it was believed that more wealthy families breed only 1-2 intelligent children.  Whereas, on the other hand, the poor families were breeding many children that were dumb.  Prevention started to take place in hopes of better future generations.  Sterilization through vasectomies or tubal ligation were just a few ways to prevent the breeding of unfit children.  Harry Clay Sharp performed involuntary vasectomies on prisoners in Indiana.  Eventually the Law of Sterilization of Degenerates was passed in 1907.  It’s very horrific too that these method were viewed as acceptable because those being punished were unfit anyways.  

DNA was unknown at the time, so the research proved to be a lot more complicated. Research was presented by science through journals, monograms, and seminars, to say a few.  Many large companies invested in the research and maintenance of Eugenics.  A few organizations were the American Breeders Association (ABA) and Eugenics Record Office (ERO).  The main method was to use large families to examine to view weather or not the defective gene being observed was present.  This was difficult because there were many large families but some traits weren’t easy to observe, like mental illnesses, illnesses, or musical ability.  Data collected was forced into Mendelian templates like pedigrees.  Sometimes information was achieved voluntarily from questionnaires presented presented by the ERO.  Other ways were involuntary.  Data was collected from insane asylums, prisons, orphanages, and homes for the blind.  All this information was used for any necessary background screenings.  Especially for the army drafts.  

If science alone didn’t make this a bad issue, the social opinions of the public and government made Eugenic monstrous.  Between growing cities due to industrial and agricultural growth, depressions starting in 1873, and immigration,  America gained the idea of “survival of the fittest.”   Fear spread across the country as the working class began to produce more than the wealthy.  The government began to get more involved in the personal lives of citizens.  Also, many had a strong faith in science.  Long range planning from “experts” supported the idea of Eugenics to many people.  It was strongly believed that Eugenics would solve all the problems occurring in America.  The hatred towards social class disorder gave radicals reason to stand beside Eugenics.  Ultimately, the “germ” of America was placed on certain ethnic groups and individuals, and not on society itself.  Many supported the idea of sterilization and planned breeding to try and weed out the problems.  Another favored prevention problem focused on the immigrants.  They were seen as troublemakers.  So, what’s the easiest solution?  Restrict immigration.

Immigration wasn’t the only aspect of daily American life that Eugenic restricted.  And, mental issues weren’t the only blames for tainted genes.  Race was another factor that Eugenics discriminated against.  Specifically, any race not white was seen a defective.  This issue strongly affected marriage between mixed races in America.  Science decided that race was being threatened by mixing races.  They called this miscegenation.  Madison Grant stated that interracial marriages would be racial suicide.  It would ultimately lead to the end of the white race.  They described it almost as the white gene being a recessive gene.  Black gene, hispanic genes, indian genes would win out and dominate the white genes in childbirth.  High power eugenist-enthusiasts in the ERO and even the Vice President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, started started to become worried about dysgenics, or the problems of future generations created by undesirable characteristics.  Marriages started to be forbid by the 20th century.  By 1915, 28 states had made a law restricting the wedding of two people of different races.  Also, 6 of those states had placed the proclamations in their constitutions.  An example is the Virginia Racial Act of 1924.  Certain standards were set for actually being a “pure caucasian,” like you couldn’t have any more than 1/16th of another ethnic background.  Later, states like Alabama and Georgia copied this outline of laws.  Until, one couple challenged these cruel rules in the 1958 the Lovington vs. Commonwealth case.  In the District of Columbia, a white man and black woman got happily married and then moved to Virginia.  Obviously, Virginia did not like that.  By the end of the case, the couple pleaded guilty and spent a year in prison.  Also, the Lovingtons were banished from the state of Virginia for 25 years.  The couple appealed to the supreme court after another attempt of dealing with the state.  In 1967, the Supreme Court unanimously overruled the laws, stating that it went against the Equal Proclamation Clause.  Things only started going uphill from there for the issue of Eugenics.   

*All my sources and information come from http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/          The pictures are captioned with appropriate number from the image archive.