“More than a generation ago considerable alarm was spread by studies and theories which led people to fear that civilization was being ‘swamped’ due to the excessive rate of reproduction among the feebleminded. ‘Royal lines of degeneracy’ were traced in the families of the Kallikaks, the Pineys, and Jukes and others with the conclusion that feebleminded traits were as definitely inherited as color of hair and eyes. People became further alarmed when they were told how poverty, illegitimacy, crime and other social evils were in the train of this group. The word ‘menace’ was used to describe the threat of feeblemindedness to human welfare and progress.”]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

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“It is probable that Massachusetts is hardly surpassable in this country as a field for the study of eugenics, including under that name not only 1) eugenics proper, that is, the study of hereditary conditions tending to maintain society at par (the prevention of deterioration) but also 2) cacogenics, the study of hereditary forces tending to pull society down, as well as 3) the possibly Utopian variant, aristogenics, with its hope of elucidating the method by which the best stock is assembled and improved.” ]]> Concerning the study of eugenics in Massachusetts by E. E. Southard]]> to the Library of the Harvard Medical School, 1936-1937]]> “The most feasible method of controlling women at present in this state is custodial supervision in an institution. Surgery offers an effectual preventative to conception, but it is not without some danger to life. With the male, however, there is a measure which is safe, practically painless, effective and free from any objections. Vasectomy … has been done a good many times with most satisfactory results to all concerned…. Your Commission is doubtless familiar with the admirable work which has been and is now being done by Dr. H. H. Goddard at Vineland, New Jersey…. Having spent a day there last year I became much interested in the results of his labors. They seemed to furnish undeniable evidence of the folly of allowing defectives to procreate. A large proportion of them are of no comfort or use to themselves or to society in general and moreover very many of them, as you well know, become public charges, for the support of whom you and I and everybody else who pays taxes have to foot the bills. This is all wrong and any experiment which is reasonable and practicable is worthy of trial.”]]> Eugenical news to promote the activities of the Office. In 1922, he compiled and published this report on sterilization laws in each state and here provides the text for standard and model state laws for scientific sterilization.]]> Eugenical Sterilization in the United States by Harry H. Laughlin]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> In a 1910 letter to George W. Gay, Dr. William Henry Carmalt of New Haven stated, “Unless such a law is in the hands of those willing to accept the responsibilities of their positions, it becomes a dead letter. I hope the next Legislature can be induced to put the carrying out of the law in more earnest hands. The real trouble, however, with the whole matter is the absence of statistics in the genealogical histories of inmates, principally of insane asylums and almshouses, for it [is] from them rather than the prisons that the degenerates breed.”

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Boston medical and surgical journal a few weeks later.]]>
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The legal, legislative and administrative aspects of sterilization]]>
“were, for the most part, either very long or very round, with well developed pattern, probably indicating that the criminal is potentially well endowed but improperly uses his endowment. Most of the crimes were minor ones—breaking and entering, drunkenness, vagrancy, now and then a major crime of murder. It was striking, perhaps fortunate, that the majority of these men were unmarried.” This specimen, no. 576, shows the brain of a Canadian alcoholic vagrant whose mother died insane. Dr. Canavan and Louise Eisenhardt published this series of photographs as The brains of fifty insane criminals : shapes and patterns, in 1942.]]> Brain of an alcoholic vagrant, N 15 53, #576, published in The brains of fifty insane criminals : shapes and patterns in 1942 and displayed at 2nd International Exhibition of Eugenics in 1921.]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

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The Second International Exhibition of Eugenics. Frontispiece shows the exhibition hall.]]> Henry Fairfield Osborn, in his address of welcome, states, “In the United States we are slowly waking to the consciousness that education and environment do not fundamentally alter racial values. We are engaged in a serious struggle to maintain our historic republican institutions through barring the entrance of those who are unfit to share the duties and responsibilities of our well-founded government. The true spirit of American democracy that all men are born with equal rights and duties has been confused with the political sophistry that all men are born with equal character and ability to govern themselves and others, and with the educational sophistry that education and environment will offset the handicap of heredity.”

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Eugenics, genetics and the family : scientific papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics]]>
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Bulletin no. 1 of the Dight Institute]]> Bulletin : Dight Institute of the University of Minnesota 1942-1951, no. 1, 1943]]> the Reactivation of the Dight Institute 1947-1949, in the Dight Institute Bulletin, no. 6 (1949)]]> Bulletin : Dight Institute of the University of Minnesota 1942-1951, no. 6, 1949]]> The eugenics review first appeared in 1909 and was published continuously until this, its final volume under that title. In 1969, the publication was reformulated as the Journal of biosocial science and continues today. As part of the change, the Society encapsulated the rise and fall of the eugenics movement by stating that “the initial drive behind it, as behind the Society, came from those concerned with social evils, rather than with human biology. This orientation was understandable in the context of 1909 when social evils were obvious to all but knowledge of human genetics was rudimentary and human cytogenetics was unknown. The overall result was that in those early days the eugenic ideals of the few vastly outran knowledge and both outran the motivation of the many.”]]> The Eugenics Review]]> here]]> Eugenical news started in 1916 and was, at various times, the official organ of the Eugenics Research Association and then the American Eugenics Society. Appearing monthly, the Eugenical newswas published by the Eugenics Record Office at this period and includes articles on the heredity of historical figures as well as items of news related to the eugenics movement, birth control and birth rate, and immigration and sterilization laws and other legislation.

The Eugenical news later became the Eugenics quarterly and appears now as the journal Biodemography and social biology.

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Eugenical News, volume 3, number 5 (May, 1918)]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]>
“very weak and the very vicious” to liquidation by the state through the use of carbonic acid gas. In his chapter “A remedy,” McKim states, “The surest, the simplest, the kindest, and most humane means for preventing reproduction among those whom we deem unworthy of this high privilege, is a gentle, painless death; and this should be administered not as a punishment, but as an expression of enlightened pity for the victims—too defective by nature to find true happiness in life—and as a duty toward the community and toward our own offspring.” Numbered among McKim’s “unworthy” are imbeciles, epileptics, drunkards, murderers, house-breakers, and the insane.]]> Heredity and Human Progress by W. Duncan McKim]]> ]]> The Kallikak family, tracks 480 descendants of Martin Kallikak, known as the “Old Horror,” the illegitimate son of a feeble-minded girl. Among the descendants were alcoholics, prostitutes, epileptics, criminals, illegitimate children, and children who died in infancy. As Goddard states, “The surprise and horror of it all was that no matter where we traced them, whether in the prosperous rural district, in the city slums to which some had drifted, or in the more remote mountain regions, or whether it was a question of the second or the sixth generation, an appalling amount of defectiveness was everywhere found.” Legitimate Kallikak descendants, however, proved to be prosperous and upright citizens.]]> The Kallikak family : a study in the heredity of feeble-mindedness by Henry Herbert Goddard. The frontispiece is a 1912 photo of Deborah Kallikak.]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> The Jukes traces the origins of imprisoned members of the same family back to the colonial period to examine inherited and environmental tendencies to poverty, crime, and disease. Dugdale estimates the financial cost to society of maintenance of the Jukes and concludes with, “Over a million and a quarter dollars of loss in 75 years, caused by a single family 1,200 strong, without reckoning the cash paid for whisky, or taking into account the entailment of pauperism and crime of the survivors in the next generation, and the incurable disease, idiocy and insanity growing out of this debauchery, and reaching into the third and fourth generations. It is getting to be time to ask, do our courts, our laws, our alms-houses and our jails deal with the question presented?”

Arthur H. Estabrook, a field worker of the Eugenics Record Office, later used Dugdale’s original research and traced Juke descendants to produce a follow-up study, The Jukes in 1915. Estabrook displayed photographs of the Jukes along with some of his data at the 1921 International Exhibition of Eugenics in New York.

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“The Jukes” : a study in crime, pauperism, disease and heredity ; also further studies of criminals by R. L. Dugdale]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]>
“if the laws of heredity that are known to hold in the case of animals also apply to man, the intermarriage of congenital deaf-mutes through a number of successive generations should result in the formation of a deaf-mute variety of the human race…. The indications are that the congenital deaf-mutes of the country are increasing at a greater rate than the population at large; and the deaf-mute children of deaf-mutes at a greater rate than the congenital deaf-mute population.”Bell went on the speculate about the possibility of legislation to forbid the intermarriage of deaf-mutes but favored determining the causes of intermarriage and discouraging or removing them.

Bell presented his findings to the National Academy of Sciences on November 13, 1883, and his work was subsequently printed as part of the Academy’s Memoirs series. This copy of Bell’s Memoir formerly belonged to Dr. Henry Pickering Bowditch.

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Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]>
Heredity in relation to eugenics, with its emphasis on the study of inherited traits and dispositions to disease, is dedicated to Mrs. Harriman “in recognition of the generous assistance she has given to research.” This particular copy was presented to the American Social Hygiene Association by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in 1930.

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Heredity in relation to eugenics]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]>
In his letter of October 31, 1881, Moody states, “As a means of eliminating the inherited effects of disorders from posterity, I would have the government establish and maintain good, comfortable, attractive hospital homes for the care, treatment and life residence of all habitual drunkards, confirmed criminals, idiots and incurable lunatics, who should be treated as people suffering from dangerous congenital diseases, liable to propagation through heredity; and so they should be strictly guarded from having any offspring, as far as possible by moral, and the remainder by legal, restraint. So the hereditary transmission of innumerable disorders would soon come to an end.” The Institute of Heredity was founded on November 27, 1880, “to reconstruct and establish the foundations of social order upon natural laws of human life and relations”; it was still sponsoring lectures as late as 1888.

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Heredity: its relation to human development by Loring Moody, which contains corresponsdence between the author and philanthropist Elizabeth Thompson.]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]>
“The composites are indeed beautiful and quite different in ‘type’ from both American and English. The Saxon & Wends being more alike to one another than either of them to the former two. I congratulate you on having added in this way to the too slowly collecting of typical forms. I suppose you will co-composite the Saxons & Wends respectively. One really ought to get a large collection in this way of racial types. I wish I were a better photographer myself to help in the matter. Your composites are sent today to exhibition at the Portrait Association at Edinburgh, partly for their direct interest and partly for the indirect advantage of supporting a proposal that will be made of obtaining photos of the inhabitants of selected typical villages in various parts of the British Isles where from historical reasons, the breed is likely to have been local for a long time. This is part of a larger scheme briefly designated as an ethnographic survey, which others are interested in and may take adequate pains to do effectively.”]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

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“A study of the faces here presented certainly suggests the conclusion that there must be some racial peculiarities showing themselves in the composite portraits. The two composites of each race are clearly more like each other than like those of the other race, and the squarely cut jaw and brow of the Wend composites give the impression of greater vigor and strength of character than the more rounded features of the Saxons.”

Galton admired these composites; some years after Bowditch’s death, they were also displayed at the exhibition at the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921.

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McClure’s magazine in September 1894. Of them he says, “A study of the faces here presented certainly suggests the conclusion that there must be some racial peculiarities showing themselves in the composite portraits. The two composites of each race are clearly more like each other than like those of the other race, and the squarely cut jaw and brow of the Wend composites give the impression of greater vigor and strength of character than the more rounded features of the Saxons.”

Galton admired these composites; some years after Bowditch’s death, they were also displayed at the exhibition at the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921.

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“The face is distinctly intellectual in its character, and the apparent age is not far from the average age of the components…. The method of composite photography has, therefore, in this case, at any rate, produced a portrait which may be regarded as typical of the components, since its features fairly represent the group in respect to the only two qualities, namely, age and intelligence, in which the individual faces resemble each other.”

The original of this photograph was displayed with a number of other Bowditch composites at the Second International Exhibition of Eugenics in 1921.

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An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

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An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

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“The photographic process of which I there spoke, enables us to obtain with mechanical precision a generalised picture; one that represents no man in particular, but portrays an imaginary figure, possessing the average features of any given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of reality. Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time, would doubt its being the likeness of a living person. Yet, as I have said, it is no such thing; it is the portrait of a type, and not of an individual.”]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> Life history album, edited by Francis Galton, allows for notes on the genealogy, life, development, marriage, children, height and weight observations, anthropometric information, and photographs in five-year increments. “A trustworthy record of past illnesses will enable your medical attendants to treat you more intelligently and successfully than they otherwise could, for it will give them a more complete knowledge of your ‘constitution’ than could be obtained in any other way…. The record will further be of great value to your family and descendants; for mental and physical characteristics, as well as liabilities to disease, are all transmitted more or less by parents to their children, and are shared by members of the same family.” Galton, at 80, was dissatisfied with this production and rewrote and republished the Album in 1902, extending its duration to the age of 100. This copy of the Life history album was given by his grandmother to George Kimball Clement (1888-1951) soon after his birth; Clement was a member of the Class of 1912 of Harvard College.]]> Life history album : prepared by direction of the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association, edited by Sir Francis Galton]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> “Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective. This is precisely the aim of Eugenics. Its first object it to check the birth-rate of the Unfit, instead of allowing them to come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the race by furthering the productivity of the Fit by early marriages and healthful rearing of their children. Natural Selection rests upon excessive production and wholesale destruction; Eugenics on bringing no more individuals into the world than can be properly cared for, and those only of the best stock.”]]> Memories of My Life by Sir Francis Galton]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> ]]> “That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes, namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea.”]]> Inquiries into human faculty and its development]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> ]]> Herediatry genius: an inquiry into the laws and consequences which discusses race]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> “A native chief has as good an education in the art of ruling men, as can be desired; he is continually exercised in personal government, and usually maintains his place by the ascendancy of his character…. A traveller in wild countries also fills, to a certain degree, the position of a commander, and has to confront native chiefs at every inhabited place. The result is familiar enough—the white traveller almost invariably holds his own in their presence. It is seldom that we hear of a white traveller meeting with a black chief whom he feels to be the better man.”

This is a first edition of Galton’s influential study of the subject which proved to be a cornerstone in the beginnings of the eugenics movement.

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Herediatry genius: an inquiry into the laws and consequences which discusses race]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]>
Memories of my life. Found on the plate facing page 244.]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]>