Eugenics: the “well-born” science

Joanne Woiak, jwoiak@uw.edu

Scientific knowledge: genetic determinism Concern about which heritable traits are spreading

thru the human population. Cause of social ills is bad heredity. “Eugenics” coined in 1883 by Francis Galton. “I object to pretensions of natural equality.”

Social policies: “rationally” improve biological quality by reproductive selection

Fewer offspring from “unfit” people; more from the “fit.” Who is an asset; who is a burden?

Eugenics movement

1900-1940s. 30+ countries had their own versions. “Progressive”

Improvement of health & fitness of population.

Led by middle-class experts (scientists, doctors), using best knowledge of heredity.

Government intervention for the public good. Deny rights (reproduction, autonomy) to certain

people.

Policies for improving the “race”

Positive eugenics Encourage or educate “fitter” people to

have more offspring. (“voluntary” measures)

Negative eugenics Persuade, pressure, or compel “unfit”

people to have no offspring, so they can’t pass on their “defective” genes. E.g. compulsory segregation & sterilization.

Sources: Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement

http://eugenicsarchive.org

Hosted by the Human Genome Project’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Which was originally the Eugenics Record Office, the center of human genetics research and advocacy for eugenics policy, 1910-1939.

The science of eugenics: family studies and Mendel’s laws

Eugenics Record Office pedigree (1915) showing transmission of feeblemindedness over several generations. Such evidence supported state-mandated, coerced sterilization of at least 62,000 Americans in over 30 states, beginning in 1907.

Flash cards to identify genetic “defects,” 1922

Scientific authority: Darwin, Descent of Man (1871), natural and reproductive selection

“With savages, the weak in body & mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick…. Thus the weak members of societies propagate their kind….

“No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how want of care leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”

Evolutionary theory: constructing race and disability

Enlightenment equal rights of “man” countered with scientific evidence of racial hierarchies.

1854 Types of Mankind

Observations of an Ethnic Classification of Idiocy (1866 J. Langdon Down)

“Mongolism” Equivalent to people of non-white races. Evolutionary “throwbacks” to a “lower” stage.

“What Is It?” Performer at the “freaks” museum 1860 Evolutionary “missing link.”

Who were considered the innately weak & unfit, and blamed for society’s problems?

Poor people (“socially inadequate”) On welfare, in prison, alcoholics, prostitutes…

Disabled people Institutions for people with mental disabilities.

Investigators claimed high fertility of “degenerate” pedigrees.

The Jukes: A Study in Crime, PauperismDisease, and Heredity (1877)

The Kallikaks (1912)

Explanation of the symbols used on pedigree charts created by field workers.

1911 Eugenics Record Office pamphlet, The Study of Human Heredity

Inventing the Feeble Mind (history by James Trent)

“In 1973, with the stroke of a pen, the American Association of Mental Deficiency changed the criterion for ‘mental retardation’ from one to two standard deviations below the IQ norm.”

That is, people with IQ of 70-85 were instantly “cured” of intellectual disability.

What “public good” did eugenics serve? Why was it popular?

Relieve the financial burden of disability paid by taxpayers.

Improve public/racial health. Tainted whiteness.

“The concept of feeblemindedness linked off-white ethnicity, poverty, and gendered conceptions of lack of moral character.”

Intertwined disability, sex, class, race…

The economic burden of the “feebleminded” and other

“defectives”

“It is a reproach to our intelligence that we as a people should have to support about half a million insane, feebleminded, epileptic, blind and deaf; 80,000 prisoners and 100,000 paupers at a cost of over 100 million dollars per year.”

-Charles Davenport, founder of the Eugenics Record Office, 1910

Measuring up to society’s middle-class ideal: Fitter Family contests as positive eugenics

Health IQ Education,

occupation Special talents,

tastes Church, politics Clubs, activities

Better Babies at the Puyallup Fair, 1910s

History of institutionalization

19th century civil commitment laws and universal education = exclusion.

By 1900, goal of treatment of “lunatics” and training of “idiots” gave way to emphasis on permanent confinement and care. Boston School for Idiotic Children: “brutes in

human shape, but without the light of human reason.”

1886 Washington “custodial school for feebleminded and defective children.” By 1915, has 1500 residents.

“Evil” and “expensive”

“The brighter class of the feebleminded, with their weak will-power and deficient judgment, are easily influenced for evil, and are prone to become vagrants, drunkards, and thieves…. It is better and cheaper for the community to assume the permanent care of this class before they have carried out a long career of expensive crime.”

continued Immorality worst in the feebleminded

woman: “She has not sense enough to protect herself from the perils to which women are subjected. Often bright and attractive, if at large they either marry and bring forth in geometrical ratio a new generation of defectives and dependants, or become irresponsible sources of corruption and debauchery in the communities where they live.”

Legislating citizenship and disability based on dependency

1881-1918 “Ugly Laws” "It is prohibited for any person, who is diseased, maimed,

mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself to public view."

1882 federal Immigration Act excluded people with disabilities

“lunatics, idiots, or unable to take care of himself” 1891 changed to “likely to become a public charge” 1907 “mentally or physically defective…”, “imbeciles,

etc” 1917 “constitutional psychopathic inferiority,” list of

physical conditions.

Anxieties about immigrants that fed the restriction movement by 1920

• Labor competition and economic crisis.• Political/social unrest.• Lack of cultural assimilation.• Growing nationalism, loyalty concerns.• Burden of custodial care (40% from

recent immigrant families).• Higher birthrate than “native stock”

(“race suicide”).

IQ testing: who is “feebleminded”?

1905 IQ invented by Alfred Binet. “abnormal” children can be educated.

1910s US psychologists corrupt this goal. Intelligence is hereditary, unchangeable. Measure & label & institutionalize.

“Menace” to society. Moron – imbecile – idiot. By 1900, 328 institutions, with 200,000 people

labeled mentally ill or mentally deficient.

WWI mental testing of recruits

• Attention. Watch me. I am going to do here [tapping blackboard] what you [pointing to several papers that lie before people in the group, pick one up, hold it next to the blackboard, return the paper, point to self & blackboard in succession, then to person & paper]. Ask no questions. Wait till I say “Go ahead!”

• This is test 6 here. Look. A lot of pictures. Now watch [points to blackboard drawing of hand and missing finger, hesitates]. Fix it, fix it [draws in finger]. That’s right. All right. Go ahead. Hurry up! [Walks around the room and locates individuals who are doing nothing, points to their pages and says “fix it, fix them,” trying to get them working.] [After 3 minutes are up] Stop! But don’t turn over the page.

1918 IQ tests US Army For recruits who

were non-English speaking or illiterate.

Complete the picture.

40% found to be FM.

Actual Test Questions, Army Alpha

SAMPLE People hear with their eyes\ears\nose\mouth

1. Pinochle is played withrackets\cards\pins\dice

2. Habeus corpus is a term used in medicine\law\pedagogy

3. Bud Fisher is a famousactor\author\athlete\comic

4. Velvet Joe appears in ads fortooth powder\soap\dry goods\tobacco

5. The number of a Kaffir’s legs is . . . 2\4\6\8

1913 Ellis Island mental testingEugenicists as “moron detectors”80% immigrants scored feebleminded

Negative eugenics: 1924 Immigration Restriction Act, led by WA Congressman

Albert Johnson, with expert testimony by eugenicists

Albert Johnson:

“The US is undertaking to regulate and control the great problem of the commingling of races. Our hope is in a homogeneous nation. At one time we welcomed all and all helped to build the nation. But now asylum ends. This nation must be as completely unified as any nation in Europe or Asia. Self-preservation demands it.”

Carl Brigham, A Study of American Intelligence (1923)

Public health interests vs. rights of the individual

Popularizing hereditarian science: for the sake of “health”

Hereditary defective groups invading the body politic

“Infectious germs”: symbols for Jews, communists, gays.

“With his poison, the Jew destroys the sluggish blood of weaker peoples; so that a diagnosis arises, of swift degeneration. With us, however, the case is different: The blood is pure; we are healthy!”

Anti-miscegenation laws (banned from marrying whites)

Dates of repeal of US interracial marriage laws by state Grey: No anti-miscegenation laws passed Green: Before 1887 Yellow : 1948 to 1967 Red: 12 June 1967 (Loving v. Virginia)

Deaf eugenics: Alexander Graham Bell

1872 founds deaf school in Boston.

Invents devices to aid hearing.

Studies heredity in deaf families.

1883: marriage restrictions to “avoid creating a deaf-mute variety of the human race.”

Becomes leader of eugenics movement.

Negative eugenics: 30 states had forced sterilization laws by 1930s

Is forced sterilization constitutional?

1. Cruel and unusual punishment (8th Amendment)

2. Equal Protection (14th Amendment)

3. Due Process (14th)

1927 Buck v. Bell, US Supreme Court

Upheld the Virginia statue for forced sterilization.

“Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

“For the protection and health of the state.”

“The principal that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes decision 1927

“There can be no doubt that so far as procedure is concerned the rights of the patient are most carefully considered. We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.”

The real story of “three generations of imbeciles”

Carrie Buck and her mother

Washington enacted sterilization laws in 1909 and 1921

Official total of 685 victims 184 Male 501 Female

403 “Insane” (M 147, F 256)

276 “Feebleminded” (M 33, F 243)

6 “Others” (M 4, F 2)

1909 WA criminal statute: the second forced sterilization law in

the nation

Whenever any person shall be adjudged guilty of carnal abuse of a female person under the age of ten years, or of rape, or shall be adjudged to be an habitual criminal, the court may, in addition to such other punishment or confinement as may be imposed, direct an operation to be performed upon such person, for the prevention of procreation.

Still on the books: RCW 9.92.100

1921 WA statute: targeted a broader range of “hereditary

defectives” “Superintendents of all state mental hospitals and

custodial schools must report all feebleminded, insane, epileptic, habitual criminals, moral degenerates and sexual perverts, who are persons potential to producing offspring, who because of inheritance of inferior or anti-social traits, would probably become a social menace or wards of the state.”

Eugenic and therapeutic rationales: ”The purpose of said orders of the Institutional Board of Health shall be for the betterment of the physical, mental, neural, or psychic condition of the inmate, or to protect society from the menace of procreation by said inmate, and not in any manner as a punitive measure.”

Why me? “For the benefit of society or for the benefit of the

patient”

Regulating behaviors: “deviant” sexuality.

Sterilization as a condition for parole.

Institutional Board of Health minutes: “transcripts” of patient interviews Asked about traits/habits of their relatives. Asked about the cause of breakdown. “What is your attitude toward sterilization?”

Some women consented to the operation for birth control.

Most extreme: eugenics in Nazi Germany, 1933-45

Forced sterilization law for “hereditary defectives.” (400,000+ people)

Murder (“euthanasia”) “Lives not worth living” Economic logic: “useless eaters”

200,000+ adults and children with disabilities. Final Solution killed 6 million Jewish people

and others: gas chambers from the T-4 program.

Links between German and American eugenics movements

Nazi regime seeking “racial purity” (1933) borrowed the idea of forced sterilization law from the American eugenicists and used Laughlin’s model (1922).

Hitler: “I have studied with great interest the laws of several Am. states concerning the prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock…. The possibility of excess and error is no proof of the incorrectness of these laws.”

July 14, 1933 “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring”

Doctors required to register births Cases go to Genetic Health Court “Hitlerschnitt” for hereditary FM, mental illness,

epilepsy, alcoholism, blind, deaf (1%).

Laughlin awarded an honorary degree by the Nazis. Widespread positive coverage of Nazi program in US

media, focusing on elimination of disability (not on racism & Jewish population).

American eugenicists visited & were jealous that “the Germans are beating us at our own game,” by sterilizing on a larger scale.

Mass murder (“euthanasia”) of Germans with disabilities

August 1939: 5000 disabled children under age 3 killed in secret operation, by gassing, injection, starvation. Form letter to parents about death.

Oct 1939: T-4 program begins for systematic mass murder of adults in institutions (200,000), seen as “unproductive.” By order of Hitler (not by law), decisions made by doctors.

1941: order to kill Jews in German hospitals, all concentration camp inmates who were unable to work and Jews. Moved the gassing apparatus and medical personnel from the hospitals for the disabled to the camps. Jan 1942: “final solution”

US Eugenic “Euthanasia” and Disability

1917 eugenic film The Black Stork (retitled Are You Fit to Marry?)

Physician Harry Haiselden: “There are times when

saving a life is a greater crime than taking one.”

“We have been invaded. Our streets are infested with an Army of the Unfit—a dangerous, vicious army of death and dread.... Horrid semi-humans drag themselves along our streets.... What are you doing to do about it?”

Government apologies for sterilizations

Virginia 2001 Oregon 2002

records destroyed North Carolina

2002 proposed

reparations California 2003 Indiana 2007 Washington??

Criticism: does history matter? Do we want close examination of who sanctioned eugenics and the rights violations. Does the public still believe PWD “deserved” to be sterilized? Voices of PWD in process?

Is disability still framed as “natural” deficit, as race & sex used to be?

“Unlike other minorities, disabled men and women have not yet been able to refute accusations of biological inferiority that have often been invoked to rationalize the oppression of groups whose appearance differs from the standards of the dominant majority.” disability studies scholar and activist

Harlan Hahn

To those who suffered, I say, The people of Oregon are sorry. Our hearts are heavy for the pain you endured. And, it is in honor of you that I declare December 10 hereafter to be Human Rights Day in Oregon—a day on which we will affirm our commitment to the value of every human being. On this day, we will renew our determination to protect the rights of all people, regardless of their color, their religious or philosophical beliefs, their sexual preference, their economic status, their illnesses or disabilities. We value them all, for they are our brothers and sisters.

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber’s eugenics apology,

Dec. 2, 2002

Making historical memory

Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/

Eugenics and Disability: History and Legacy in Washington

Nazi Persecution of the Disabled (US Holocaust Museum)

Against Their Will, eugenics movement in North Carolina

Eugenics in California

Indiana Eugenics: History and Legacy

"Eugenics Apologies" "Davis's Apology Sheds No Light on Sterilizations in California"

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