Eugenics in America
Eugenics profoundly impacted the culture of the twentieth century. Coined in 1893 by Sir Francis Galton, it studied the heredity and selection of favorable traits. Born out of the social tumults of the late nineteenth century, it represented the Western elite’s attempt to protect itself from so called “inferior” cultures of the colonies and “new wave” immigration.
The late eighteenth century was a turbulent time throughout America. An influx of immigrants packed into massive cities such as New York and Chicago. As opposed to previously northern European immigration, a wave of “new” immigration in the 1890’s brought immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, who vastly differed culturally and religiously from their northern European counterparts. Some immigrants brought radical ideologies with them such as Marxism, anarchism, and monarchism, which completely differed from the American ideals of free markets, elections, and democracy. The massive influx of people crowded into sordid city blocks brought a slew of social problems such as alcoholism, poverty, murder, rape, and violence. Coupled with falling birth rates among the elite and rising birth rates among immigrants, Anglo-culture sought out an answer to defend itself against the “siege” of “inferior” cultures.
The late nineteenth century saw the rise of “eugenics” throughout academia. Founded by Francis Galton (the word came into existence in 1893), eugenics was the study of the selection of favorable traits in society. Deeply influenced by Darwin, Galton published his first eugenicist tract in 1865 Hereditary Genius, which posited that man’s strength, talent, and skill is passed down genetically fr...
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...“degenerate” or “inferior.” Popularized in the early twentieth, it manifested itself throughout American culture from textbooks to advertisements for household goods. Eugenics represented American culture’s vain attempt to grapple with non-western European cultures and cope with a quickly evolving social landscape.
Bibliography
Dolan DNA Learning Center, Cold Spring Laboratory, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/
School of Mathematics and Statistics at St. Andrew’s University
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Galton.html
Pucker, Johnathan, History in the Influences of Intelligence Theory and Testing
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/galton.html
Linden, Jeremy
http://students.vassar.edu/jelinden/galton.htm
McCleymer, Professor at Assumption College
http://www.assumption.edu/users/McClymer/his394/contagion.html
The eugenics movement started in the early 1900s and was adopted by doctors and the general public during the 1920s. The movement aimed to create a better society through the monitoring of genetic traits through selective heredity. Over time, eugenics took on two different views. Supporters of positive eugenics believed in promoting childbearing by a class who was “genetically superior.” On the contrary, proponents of negative eugenics tried to monitor society’s flaws through the sterilization of the “inferior.”
“Columbia’s Unwelcome Guests”, by Frank Beard (February 7, 1885), displays how the unrestricted US policies that were implemented were causing more immigrants to emigrate from Europe. The new aliens are depicted as anarchist, socialist, and the Mafia arriving from the sewers of Italy, Russia, and Germany. In the late nineteenth century, the U.S. government was not only concerned with the racialization of the immigrants entering the country, but also
They looked to set this up by debilitating marriages that were unfavorably attaching so as to regard eugenics to them the marks of disgrace
The seventh largest major domestic airline in the United States (US), Southwest Airlines, is commonly known or referred to as a low-cost carrier. Southwest Airlines is the only major airline that provides short-haul, point-to-point service in the United States. In fact it was the first airline of its type ever started; it has become the archetypical low-cost airline. The idea has proven itself so well, that other start-up airlines have based their company strategies upon the basics of Southwest. Today, there are two other low-cost air carriers (the other two airlines are considered national airlines and not major airlines) that are actively and aggressively competing with Southwest Airlines for business and profit turning. The three American low-cost air carriers are currently posting profits even in light of the US economy’s current state of affairs, with Southwest Airlines first, JetBlue second, and Air Tran third, in profits. How is this possible when the major six airlines are reporting losses of millions and millions of dollars each quarter? The answer to this question begins about 30 years ago.
The political machine was supported by continuing immigration from 1800 to 1920, when more than eighteen million European immigrants flooded into the Untied States in search of economic opportunity and political and religious freedom. At first they came from Northern and Central Europe and then largely from Eastern and Southern Europe. (New Colossus , Pg. 1) New York alone reported that by June 30, 1899 immigrant arrivals from the Russian Empire were around 90,787. Arrivals, from the same year, from all countries of persons of German race were 29,682 and Hebrew arrivals were 60,764. (Changing the Character of Immigration, Pg. 1) Unfortunately, with such a large influx in population during a short amount of time and other variables such as immigrants being unable to speak English, inadequate affordable urban housing, and insufficient jobs a large amount of immigrants ended up in growing slums without the feeling of security or knowledge of how to find help, if there was any, from an unrepresentative government. These factors transformed incoming immigrants into easy prey for patronage from the political machine and sustained it by giving their votes. In the 1930’s mass immigration had stopped and representative government had begun, leading to a decline in patronage needed by then integrated immigrants and a decline in votes for the machine.
The Southwest Airlines company and its culture is one that is often cited in today 's business classes. The airline is widely known to be “different” compared to many of its competitors, a result of its founding values and strong corporate culture. This culture developed early in Southwest’s history and was deeply entrenched due to the competitiveness of the airline industry, as well as due to some of the pressures experienced as a result regulatory issues and stiff competition.
Southwest Airlines is one of the most successful airlines in the United States. There has never been layoffs or strikes in the history of the company, although there were several times when layoffs could have been justified, including the months following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. However, Southwest's Mission statement says “Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.” (Southwest, 1988). The Airline has always believed that their corporate culture is one of the keys to their success. The culture recognizes that employees have emotional intelligence and that their attitudes and morale are key to the teamwork and creative environment.
Other airlines approached the economic crisis by limiting their service or letting go of employees, whereas Southwest tackled the problem by offering workers secured positions for lower wages. Though the circumstances were not ideal, overall employees responded positively to the option of keeping their jobs. They also promote internal marketing strategies within the workplace. Southwest has a clear vision which employees strive to be a part of. In fact, part of their vision is in the best interest of their employees, as a common mantra within the company is, “customers come second… and still get great service.” They offer a casual work environment. This approach not only benefits the employees comfort, but also coincides with the company’s easy-going brand image it wishes to portray. Employees are at ease in at their job and overall enjoy what they do. Southwest also makes a point to attract the desirable candidates for their positions. They emphasize teamwork. Employees are encouraged to help each other out to strive toward a common goal. Employees are often rewarded for their achievements as well. As seen in exhibit 1, these strategies to keep employee satisfaction high, are factors that keep loyal employees within the company.5 Southwest makes every attempt to keep employees content as they believe happy employees lead to happy customers. Southwest has
If the short haul passenger was the backbone of Southwest Airlines success, then their 737s were the lifelines that supported it. By choosing the 737 as the airplane for all of Southwest's flights, the company saved time and resources in training its employees. The crew could be easily substituted for one another due to the extensive training on the 737. Low costs and, therefore, low fares are an enormous competitive advantage, when combined with their high-quality and loyal workforce. A very unique culture was found at Southwest Airlines among all of its employees.
The airline industry has become more and more competitive over the years. It takes determination, preparation, knowledge, and recourses to start an airline company, and that is just what happened forty-five years ago in Dallas Texas. Southwest Airline is a very successful airline company serving around 100 million customers annually (Southwest Corporate Fact Sheet). Many things stick out about Southwest such as their satellite-based WIFI and free luggage. These accommodations appeal to the customers. The company describes its mission as “dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit” (About Southwest). From a customer standpoint, there is nothing else
Savulescu, Julian. “Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Human Beings.” Readings in the Philosophy of Technology. Ed. David Kaplan. 2nd ed. Lanham: Roman & Littlefield, 2009. 417-430.
Text messaging has become a norm in our generation, as technology rapidly advances and gives way to more efficient forms of communication in a fast-paced world; and many are skeptical about the influence this new form of interaction is having on our society, especially with our younger generation. David Crystal, a professor at the University of Wales, writes “2b or Not 2b?” in support of text messaging. He insists, despite those who underestimate or negate the beneficial influence text messaging has on language proficiency, that “there is increasing evidence that [texting] helps rather than hinders literacy” and that the fairly recent form of communication has actually been around for a while and “is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adopt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. In contrast, Jeffery Kluger argues in “We Never Talk Anymore: The Problem with Text Messaging” that text messaging is rapidly becoming a substitute for more genuine forms of communication and is resulting in difficulty among young peoples of our generation to hold a face-to-face conversation, engage in significant nonverbal expression, and ultimately build effective relationships with family, friends and co-workers. Both writers’ present valid arguments, however, my personal experience with text messaging has led me to agree more with Crystal’s view on the matter. Text messaging is indeed having a positive effect on society by making frequent texters primarily aware of the need to be understood, as well as offering betterment of spelling and writing through practice, and reinventing and expanding on a bygone dimension of our language through the use of rebuses and abbreviations.
Southwest Airlines has come from an underdog to being one of the best airlines in the industry. This reputation translates from its strategic management of resources. The Co-founder and former CEO, Herb Kelleher, established a unique corporate culture that leads to high customer satisfaction, employees’ morale, and one of the most profitable airlines in the industry (Jackson et al., 2012). The corporate culture concentrates on empowerment the workforce. It shows through Southwest Airlines core values that “happy employees lead to happy customers, which create happy shareholders” (Jackson et al., 2012). Since its first grand opening in 1971, Southwest Airlines has shown steady growth, and now carries more passengers than any other low-cost carrier in the world (Wharton, 2010). To expand the business operations, Southwest Airlines took over AirTran in 2010 as a strategy to gain more market share for the Southeast region and international flights. However, the acquisition of AirTran brought upcoming challenges both internally and externally for Southwest Airlines. In this case analysis, the objectives are focusing on the change process post the merger with AirTran, and evaluating alternatives to address the impacts of the merger.
When created in 1923, the American Eugenics Society exemplified an air of reform with a seemingly positive purpose, however this cannot be further from the truth. In reality, the society polluted the air with myths of weeding out imperfections with the Galtonian ideal, the breeding of the fittest (Carison). The founder of the society, Charles Davensport , preached that those who are imperfect should be eliminated(Marks). From the school desk to the pulpit, the fallacies of the eugenics movement were forced into society. Preachers often encouraged the best to marry the best while biology professors would encourage DNA testing to find out ones fate (Selden). A...
These teens tended to score lower on literacy tests than those that did not (Plester, Wood, Bell 143). It was also observed that high texters scored lower on verbal and non-verbal reasoning than those who do not text and minimal texters (Plester, Wood, Bell 140). Results from studies on texting indicated an overall negative effect on literacy test results (Verheijen 595). It has been suggested that students are not distinguishing between informal and formal environments and are texting at the wrong times and places (Verheijen 587). The general message that the media sends about the effects of texting tend to be rather negative overall. For example, texting and driving is considered very dangerous due to a distracted driver. Many teens are involved in accidents due texting and driving. It was elicited during a study that participants took longer and made more errors when they had to read text messages as opposed to reading Standard English (Kemp and Bushnell 18). Thurlow is quoted saying that texting “signals the slow death of language” and is “a threat to social progress” (qtd. in Verheijen 586). Texting has more of a negative effect on teens’ literacy and could possibly cause the English we use today could become