After the 1921 Second International Congress on Eugenics, many prominent eugenicists joined to form a U.S. national eugenics society to promote eugenics to the public
Eugenics began to be sold to the public and the government after the Second International Congress on Eugenics in 1921. At the close of the international meeting, Charles Davenport, Osborn, and other prominent eugenicists formed a committee to establish a national eugenics society. As a first step, they recruited a ninety-nine-member scientific advisory council, reaching out to candidates with a letter that warned of “racial deterioration” and the need for societal leaders to resist the “complete destruction” of the “white race.” In a eugenic society, the letter said, “our burden of taxes can be reduced by decreasing the number of degenerates, delinquents, and defectives supported in public institutions.”
The advisory council, in place by 1923, was an elite group, and it remained so for the next decade. From 1923 to 1935, more than half of its members were graduates of Ivy League universities, with nearly 40 percent educated at Harvard, Yale, or Columbia. Harvard’s president emeritus Charles Eliot and eight other college presidents served on the council. Professional biologists, zoologists, and geneticists made up one-third of the group. About 10 percent were psychologists. Five presidents of the American Psychological Association (past or present) were members, as were a similar number of presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Adolf Meyer, who was the leading figure in American psychiatry at that time, joined the council. So did Charles Burr, a past president of the American Neurological Association. Floyd Haviland, president of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), offered his advice as a council member. The council, which was expected to review all of the society’s educational materials, represented many of the best and brightest in America—its top doctors and scientists, educated at its best universities.
The society focused on promoting eugenics to the American public—getting textbooks and pamphlets into schools and conducting informational campaigns to build support for sterilization laws. One of its popular traveling exhibits, consisting of a board with blinking lights, was titled “Some People Are Born to Be a Burden on the Rest.” Every fifteen seconds a light flashed to warn onlookers that American taxpayers had just spent another $100 caring for defectives. Every thirty seconds, a light flashed to signal that another defective had been born. At intervals of fifty seconds, a flashing light told of another criminal being carted off to prison, with the audience informed that “very few normal persons ever go to jail.” Finally, after seven and one-half long minutes, a light blinked to announce that a “high grade person,” at long last, had been born.
Here are 3 ways the American Eugenics Society promoted eugenics:
- The American Eugenics Society put up displays and organized contests at fairs to promote eugenics to the general public
- The American Eugenics Society offered cash rewards to pastors who gave the best speeches promoting eugenics
- The American Eugenics Society created booklets to promote eugenics to children in public schools
References
- Whitaker, Robert. (2002). Mad in America Chapter 3. UNFIT TO BREED (p. 86). New York, NY: Basic Books.