Taken from the Greek word eugenes meaning ‘good in stock’ the term ‘eugenics’ was coined in 1883 By Francis Galton (1822-1911). Today it is defined by the OED as ‘Pertaining or adapted to the production of fine offspring, esp. in the human race.’ We will attempt to explain what eugenics was within in the context of its time and how it was to be applied to humans. We will also attempt to identify who its supporters were and the many different reasons why the eugenic doctrine appealed to them.
The problem of what to do about the urban poor had been a continuing worry for the middle classes since the mid nineteenth century. Concerns about criminality, vice and poverty widened from the 1870s onwards and by the 1880s the East End of London represented a corruption that threatened the continued success of the British race. The harsh winter of 1885-6 led the poor and unemployed to demonstrate against their conditions in Trafalgar Square. Unemployed dock and building workers rioted in Hyde Park. Tensions ran high and the prosperous middle classes of the West End lived in real fear of the ‘mob’ swamping them. Breeding at a rapid rate, there was a threat that they would outbreed the strongest members of society . A solution needed to be found to solve the problem of the poor masses threatening encroachment on the middle class.
Galton, a polymath, was a cousin of Charles Darwin, whose work Origin of the Species led Galton to ponder whether man could be bred selectively in the same way as farmyard animals. To assign the laws of animal breeding to man, Galton sought to find proof that desirable characteristics are hereditary. By studying the most eminent and successful men of his day he discovered that many were related and concluded that t...
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...eugenic doctrine was malleable and could be twisted to suit a variety of social campaigners. For the Fabian Socialists, eugenics offered the possibility of a bureaucratic utopia. The middle classes could use the eugenic movement to preserve their social status and rid society of the residuum. For philanthropists, the poverty and disease of the poor could be eliminated by eugenic practice, and for women’s rights activists, the eugenics debate presented them with their first opportunity to have a say about their reproductive rights and it could be argued that the movement was used by women to advance their position and gain further rights that could never have been achieved by protest alone. Some historians believe that eugenic discussion was deployed within feminism in an attempt to seize and remodel the presiding socio-scientific discourse for subversive ends.
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.”
The American Eugenics Movement was led by Charles Davenport and was a social agenda to breed out undesirable traits with an aim of racial purification. Eugenics was a used to breed out the worst and weakest to improve the genetic composition of the human race, and advocated for selective breeding to achieve this. The science of eugenics rested on simple mendelian genetics, which was a mistake because they were assuming complex behaviors could be reduced to simple mendelian genes. After Nazi Germany adopted the ideas behind the American eugenics movement to promote the Aryan race, the eugenics movement was completely discredited.
Neoeugenics is the idea of new, “neo”, eugenics or a new way of creating a healthier race. Eugenics was first defined in the late 1800s by a man named Sir Francis Galton who said that it was basically the study of traits that will cause an advantage or disadvantage in the traits of future generations. Eugenics soon turned from being about the use of artificial selection of breeding to create a stronger species, to being about the advancement of certain races over others. When talking about neo eugenics, it is believed that it may turn into something similar to that of eugenics in that the use of artificial selection would now be used to bring the upper class higher in standards of health and wellbeing as well as beauty. Others believe that the use of neo eugenics will help create a healthier, more stable species. Whether bad or good, the way that eugenics will advance will be in designer babies.
Galton, David J., and Clare J. Galton. "Francis Galton: And Eugenics Today." Journal of Medical Ethics, 24.2 (1998): 99-101. JSTOR. Web. 8 Mar. 2010.
The eugenics movement was a period of time when it was believe that the genes of your father and mother gave rise to any and all traits, whether it be physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, and moral. Essentially, eugenics established that all of a persons appearance, skill, and potential was rooted in your genes.
Margaret Sanger, controversial birth control activist and negative eugenic supporter, expressed her view in her book “Woman and the New Race”, which was all too common in a war-ravished world where rationing and bombing were an everyday occurrence and an astonishing 60,000 American's were forcibly sterilized, some as young as 10 years old, after their state deemed them mentally, or socially, handicapped.
As medical science has advanced at an increasingly rapid rate over the last two centuries, the morality of new practices and when to utilize them has often come into question. With their past pursuits of cutting-edge treatments, many doctors and professionals have disregarded the humanistic health care ideals set forth in the Hippocratic Oath, which famously requires all future doctors to swear to “never do harm.” In late 19th century Britain, this pursuit led to the formation of the eugenics movement, which applied Charles Darwin’s natural selection theory of evolution, also known as the “survival of the fittest”, to humans. Supporters of the movement firmly believed that the quality of the human population could be physically enhanced through measures such as sterilization and genetic screening. In the United States, eugenics played a major role in the Progressive Movement as many saw it as a potential response to increasing overpopulation, which was seen as one of the main causes of societal ills such as poverty and disease. After World War I had ended in 1918, support for the eugenics movement began to gather momentum in Europe, especially in Germany, where the war and subsequent reparation payments had taken a serious toll. There, the ideologies of eugenics met the pressing economic and population growth concerns of a reeling German society. In his 1925 autobiography, Mein Kampf, a then-little known political prisoner named Adolf Hitler wrote: "The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring is a demand of clearest reason and, if systematically executed, represents the mos...
The concept of eugenics has to do with the belief or practice of improving the genetic quality of the human race (“Eugenics” 2010). The concept was first introduced by Francis Galton, a researcher who wished to apply Darwin’s theory of evolution to the human race. Much like many endeavors that start off with good intentions, the results of applying this concept in real life were gross crimes against humanity. The eugenics movement in the early 20th century perverted the original concept by employing morally objectionable techniques including forced sterilization, marriage restrictions, segregation, internment camps, and genocide (Black 2012). In War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, Edwin Black discusses the root of the eugenics movement in the United States of America and how this ultimately influenced the horrifying actions taken by the Nazis in pursuit of the pure Aryan race.
Unfortunately, a scholarly source about the proportion of women who (1) believed in eugenics only in the hopes that it would cause men to grant them suffrage, (2) fully believed in eugenics, and (3) refused to accept the eugenic ideology, would likely not exist because beliefs are difficult to trace and there would be almost no way of knowing if a woman was merely pretending to support eugenics. In regards to the third argument, Bacchi overstates the view that some women rejected eugenics. The other sources agree that the vast majority of women did believe in eugenics. No primary sources are able to support the first argument since suffragists did not write about the particular reason they supported eugenics; the suffragists’ primary sources do not corroborate or explicitly indicate the ulterior motive that the secondary sources highlight. For this reason, the second argument that women really believed in eugenics without using it to help push for the Nineteenth Amendment is likely the most accurate given the evidence that is present. If a primary source written before 1920 were to arise that showed that women used eugenics only to advance suffrage, it would lead us to the following research question: Did women of a certain social, economic, or
The concept of eugenics was not initially intended to prevent overcrowding, however, it would later be used as a form of population control. Eugenics is the idea of improving society by breeding fitter people. Francis Galton was the first person to originate this term and was a major proponent of the concept during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The practice of eugenics was originally performed through the use of selective breeding. Eugenics was a progressive idea, driven by social perceptions. In fact, "many of its most strident advocates were socialist, who saw eugenics as enlightened state planning of reproduction."2 Fearing the degradation of society, the elite desired to prevent further social decay of the world by eliminating individuals who were considered unfit physically, mentally, or socially.
The Web. 27 May 2014. The "Eugenics" - "The. Dictionary.com. The World of the. Dictionary.com, n.d. -. Web.
The term eugenics was coined in the late 19th century. Its goal was to apply the breeding practices and techniques used in plants and animals to human reproduction. Francis Galton stated in his Essays in Eugenics that he wished to influence "the useful classes" in society to put more of their DNA in the gene pool. The goal was to collect records of families who were successful by virtue of having three or more adult male children who have gain superior positions to their peers. His view on eugenics can best be summarized by the following passage:
Margaret Sanger was, at large, a birth control activist, but this speech was more about the questioning of birth control corrupting morality in women. People must remember, in the day and age where Sanger presented this speech, November 1921, women were considered very far from equal and much closer to servants or maids. In her speech, I saw that ethos was present in the sense that she gave herself credibility. Through Sanger’s detailed words and actions, and her statements including the presence of scientists and, or, professionals, the masses of listening people could infer that she was very well informed and solid in her statements. Though she presented herself as agreeable, Sanger was firm in her beliefs. In addition, Sanger says, “We desire to stop at its source the disease, poverty and feeble-mindedness and insanity which exist today, for these lower the standards of civilization and make for race deterioration. We know that the masses of people are growing wiser and are using their own minds to decide their individual conduct” (Sanger, par.15). To me, Sanger made herself appeal to the audience by using the word ‘we.’ In the practice of ethos, this focused on the author more than...
When one contemplates the concept of eugenics, few think of modern contraception and abortion when in reality they are one in the same. The American Eugenics Society, founded in 1923, proudly proclaimed that men with incurable “conditions” should be sterilized. However these conditions were often none that could be helped, such as, one’s intelligence, race, and social class (Schweikart and Allen 529-532). The purpose of the society was to create the perfect class of men; elite in all ways. Likewise, Margaret Sanger’s feminist, contraceptive movement was not originally founded with this purpose. It was marketed as a way to control the population and be merciful to those yet to be born, again determined also by race and intelligence. The similarities in purpose actually brought the two organizations together to form a “liberating movement” to “aid women” known today as Planned Parenthood (Schweikart and Allen 529-532). The name may sound harmless, but the movement hid a darker purpose, to wean out the lower and less educated in order to create a perfect class.