A History of Eugenics to the End of World War II

by Ethan Meanor

Eugenes

Eugenic practices and theories have been a fixture throughout recorded history, and seemingly even earlier. The term eugenics (from the Greek eugenes, meaning ‘good in stock, hereditary [sic] endowed with noble character,’) (17) was coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton, whom we shall discuss later. Eugenics has taken many forms down through history, but it can be summarily defined as the attempt to better the stock of the human race; this has been written about and attempted in a number of differing fashions. It is my intent to show the extent to which ideas of eugenics have impacted history and to emphasize the dangers inherent in these philosophies.

Eugenics is usually broken down into two sub-classes: positive eugenics and negative eugenics. The former refers to any kind of eugenic goals undertaken by encouraging or participating in selective breeding or other proactive, more or less unintrusive methods. Negative eugenics, on the other hand, refers to eugenic goals undertaken through measures such as culling of the weak and sick and forced sterilization of those of ‘lesser stock.’ In short, the former seeks to promote actions which will lead to the desired outcome, while the latter attempts to discourage actions which will lead away from it. Though the two are almost always used in some combination, we will be focusing mainly on negative eugenics as the subject of this study. Eugenics has a long and bloody history, and we will attempt to trace its development from prehistory to the mid 20th century, and its major culmination in Nazi Germany.

Part I: Prehistoric and Classical Civilizations

Ideas of eugenics go back as far as history can show us, though the ideas themselves were not really articulated until much later. The prehistoric nomadic tribes of Europe and elsewhere show evidence of having undertaken eugenic practises in times of scarcity and discomfort. These attempts at controlling and optimizing the population almost always ended in failure. It was a common pattern, as far as historians can tell, for tribes to begin such practises in times of pestilence or famine, first culling off the sick and weak — those who consumed food and resources without contributing anything to the tribe. As time wore on, this could come to include excess children, requiring food and care that no one was able or willing to provide. This culling of anyone who was deemed unnecessary to the tribe’s existence became a self-perpetuating process and in many cases led ultimately to female infanticide — as women were weaker and did not hunt or fight, they came to be seen as extra mouths to feed. When this occurred, the tribe was almost certain to die out within a few generations: as the female population dwindled, the male population became became too large for the number of available women, and male infanticide was instated to correct the inequality. These practises can lead only to an ever-declining population, and the swift end of any tribe which adopts them. (Roper 6)

Many of these ideas persisted and became part of the later Greek and Roman civilizations. It was in these places, Greece especially, that ideas about eugenics were first articulated and practised systematically. Infanticide of female and deformed children was staggeringly common in Athens, as able-bodied males were needed to fight in the frequent wars the city was involved in (Engels 112). The same was also true of the militaristic city of Sparta, in which male infants were examined by tribal elders for physical deformities and signs of weakness; if such signs were found, the child was cast into a chasm on Mount Taygetos, known euphemistically as Apothetae (‘deposits’) (Deveraux). This focus on producing able-bodied males eventually reduced the male population of Sparta to below a thousand men, forcing the state to enact laws encouraging production of male children (Galton, David J. 266). Rome actually legislated these practises, the Fourth Table of Roman Law stating that ‘a dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed,’ (‘Roman Twelve Tables of Law’).

Perhaps the best-articulated ideas about eugenics to come out of classical civilization are the writings of Plato, most notably The Republic, in which he lays the foundations of his ideal state. Plato was an admirer of Sparta in more ways than one, and was in favour of a heavily controlled population. In The Republic, Plato proposes judicious matings among the elite Guardian class he has set up to run society; marriages, he says, should be abolished, and all breeding should be performed at state-controlled ‘marriage festivals’ in which those of better stock should be set up to breed with each other, while those of lesser stock should not be allowed to breed at all. This should be accomplished, he says, through the use of a rigged ‘lottery,’ in which lots would be drawn to decide who should breed with whom, allowing inferior individuals to be denied mates on the auspices of bad luck. The number of ‘marriages’ performed at each festival was to be decided by the ruler, with a view to keeping the population stable, taking into account war, disease, etc. (237-241)

Plato says that the offspring of these ‘marriages’ should be taken away and raised by professionals in state-run nurseries (241). Family life was to be disallowed as a distraction, as was done in Sparta at the time: ‘no parent should know its child, or child its parent,’ (237). The best among these offspring would remain in the Guardian class, while the the children of the ‘inferiors,’ as well as any deformed children, would be ‘quietly and secretly disposed of,’ a possible euphemism for infanticide (241); though Plato never openly supported the practise of infanticide, it is unclear what else this could refer to.

These ancient eugenic practises serve to show us the long life, varied methods, and varied extent of eugenics over different periods of time, as well as to provide some background for the later eugenic movements of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. These ideas did not die with the civilizations that spawned them — far from it. Instead, especially through the writings of Plato, they would go on to influence many of the luminaries of the later eugenic movements, whom we will examine shortly. We have seen the detrimental effect of these practises on the societies in which they were employed, leading often to the extinction of the entire population; we have also seen the authoritarian roots of eugenic ideas in the writings of Plato. These things alone should make a fine case for the danger of such ideas; however, once we have seen the use they would be put to centuries later, the true insidiousness of eugenics will become quite obvious.

Part II: The 18th and 19th Centuries

After many centuries in which little development occurred in the evolution of eugenic theories, the movement experienced a new renaissance beginning in the late 18th century and continuing through the 19th, ultimately resulting in the massive American eugenics movement of the early 20th century. One of the first thinkers who began to rekindle these eugenic philosophies was Thomas Malthus, an English clergyman, well-known for his 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population. In it, he argues that population increases exponentially and that the earth can only support a limited number of people. ‘This natural inequality of the two powers,’ he writes, ‘of population, and of production of the earth, and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that appears to me insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.’ Malthus argues that quality of life is linked to population stability and that those who ‘have no vacant cover’ at ‘nature’s mighty feast’ have no just claim to life. It is this philosophy which sets the tone for the eugenicist movements to follow.

In 1838, Charles Darwin read Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population and used it to form the basis of his theory of natural selection (Darwin 83). It is important to note here that Darwin takes an economic theory and transforms it into a biological theory, a process that his cousin, Sir Francis Galton, would later reverse. In 1883, Galton took Darwin’s theory of natural selection and used it as the basis of his economic theory of eugenics, a term he defines as follows:

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 cognizance 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. . . . (17)

Though his elaboration of the theory was not so great as many of those who came after him, it was Galton’s work which truly set off the American eugenics movement, influencing many later thinkers (Judge). This movement, as we shall see shortly, would have disastrous consequences, both for the United States and the rest of the world.

Part III: The American and German Eugenics Movements

In examining the American eugenics movement, we can get a good sense of the degree to which a scientific community can be completely permeated by pseudoscience, to the point where reputable experts in the fields in question are themselves quite staunch proponents of it. It is important to remember that, although eugenics is primarily a political and economic discipline, in early 20th century America it was equally a scientific movement. The presence of this ‘scientific’ validation is likely the reason that it was able to become as mainstream and accepted as it did.

It would be impossible in this paper to enter into a detailed examination of the American eugenics movement; entire books have easily been filled in discussing this topic. Instead, we will look at a few of the key players, both individuals and organizations, which contributed heavily to the movement.

The main organization which tied the movement together was the American Eugenics Society, to which all of the key players belonged. The society operated on a nationwide level, and was comprised of many quasi-autonomous branches (Black). It was the main voice of the movement and did most of the work in attaining scientific credibility for eugenics.

The organization also pushed for legislation regarding eugenic practises. The false testimony of co-founder Harry Laughlin was instrumental in passing the Johnson Act of 1924, heavily restricting immigration of Eastern Europeans, who were considered genetically inferior (Judge). The society also convinced 27 states to pass laws allowing the forced sterilization of those of ‘inferior types,’ which could be just about anyone. By the time these laws were revoked, not until the 1970s in most states, over 60,000 forced sterilizations had been performed on American citizens whom eugenics had termed ‘inferior,’ (Judge).

The Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Institute also contributed heavily to the movement, the latter financing Charles B. Davenport’s Genetics and Evolution Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbour, Long Island (Black). Davenport, a former Harvard professor of zoology and author of Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911), also secured a portion of the Harriman Railroad Fortune to build the Eugenics Record Office at the same location, an institute the sole purpose of which was to collect and catalogue information on large numbers of people for research into heredity (Marks). The Harriman money was also used to finance the mistreatment of immigrants by the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, which sought out immigrants of ‘mentally incompetent types’ and had them deported, imprisoned or sterilized (Black). Davenport explains who is mentally incompetent, as well as summing up his own philosophy and that of the entire movement, in his Heredity:

The acts of taking and keeping loose articles, of tearing away obstructions to get at something desired, of picking valuables out of holes and pockets, of assaulting a neighbour who has something desirable or who has caused pain or who is in the way, of deserting family and other relatives, of promiscuous sexual relations — these are crimes for a twentieth-century citizen but they are the normal acts of our remote, ape-like ancestors and (excepting the last) they are so common with infants that we laugh when they do such things. In a word the traits of the feeble-minded and the criminalistic are normal traits for infants and for an earlier stage in man’s evolution.

Another key player in the American eugenics movement was Madison Grant; in 1916 he wrote The Passing of the Great Race, in which he called for the segregation of ‘unfavourable races’ in ghettos, and interestingly, a kind of dictatorship by civil institutions. Grant later received a fan letter from an up-and-coming politician named Adolph Hitler, in which he called the book ‘his Bible,’ (Black).

Indeed, Hitler was heavily influence by the American eugenics movement, especially due to its pseudoscientific basis — he found that his theories were far more palatable to the average German when wrapped in the veneer of science. In Mein Kampf, he wrote: ‘There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States,’ (Black). Indeed, he had a great interest in American eugenic policy. ‘I have studied with great interest,’ he is quoted as saying, ‘the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock,’ (Black). Also among Hitler’s influences were the eugenic practises of the Spartans, which he praises at some length in Zweites Buch.

American eugenics was more than just an ideological inspiration to the Nazis — it was a financial one as well. Many of the prime institutions behind Nazi eugenics were funded with Rockefeller and Carnegie money, including the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics (Black). These institutions were home to some of the most notorious Nazi scientists, including Ernst Rüdin and Otmar von Verschuer, mentor to Josef Mengele, and were instrumental in enacting some of the major eugenic policies in Nazi Germany, including the euthanasia of elderly, deformed and mentally handicapped individuals. These practises were all openly supported by the American eugenics community for as long as it was safe to do so, and privately long afterwards. In 1934, after returning from a trip to Germany, California eugenicist C.M. Goethe said to a colleague, ‘You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought…,’ (Black).

After the war, eugenics largely fell out of favour. The American Eugenics Society was disbanded and reformed as the American Society of Human Genetics. Many of the German eugenicists were tried for genocide; though they cited American eugenic legislation in their defence, nearly all of them were convicted (Black). Verschuer, however, managed to escape prosecution, and soon became a respect scientist again, garnering a position at the University of Münster’s Institute of Human Genetics; he also became a corresponding member of the American Society of Human Genetics. In 1946, well after the war’s end, Dr. Paul Popenoe, another luminary of the American eugenics movement, wrote to Verschuer, lamenting the discontinuation of Germany’s sterilization program. Verschuer replied, ‘Your very friendly letter of 7/25 gave me a great deal of pleasure and you have my heartfelt thanks for it. The letter builds another bridge between your and my scientific work; I hope that this bridge will never again collapse but rather make possible valuable mutual enrichment and stimulation,’ (Black).

Looking Forward

In this essay, we have only managed to scratch the surface of the influence eugenics has had on the development of the modern world. The intent has been to show the evolution of these ideas, and their ultimate culmination in the American and German eugenics movements. This is not to say, however, that such ideas do not persist to this day — they most certainly do, and in the minds of many of the world’s most powerful and influential people. These ideas have evolved a great deal even over the past seventy years, but they remain fundamentally the same. The idea that humans can be bred like animals is an old one, and with the evolution of genetic research, it promises only to grow. What was a mere intellectual curiosity in the time of Francis Galton is quickly becoming a real possibility, and there are certainly those who would like to see it come to fruition.

Through the course of this essay we have quite clearly seen the authoritarian origins and the unsettling employment of eugenic ideas. The impact such ideas have had on history is often understated, and I believe we would do well to acknowledge it more openly than has previously been done. We must realize that such ideas are inimical to human equality, and that there is no means through which they can be employed without infringing upon the rights of some or all of the population. Positive eugenics can be practised voluntarily, it is true, but this has never proved successful in making any wide eugenic changes. It must be understood that the aim of eugenics is control and regulation of a population to the ends of the controller, and history has shown that the only effective means of accomplishing this is through the use of involuntary negative eugenics. It is quite obvious that such control does not hold with our ideas about democracy and equality. Though some may be unhappy with the disorderly march of human reproduction, we must ensure that our rights to make the final decision on such matters are not infringed upon.

References

Black, Edwin. ‘Eugenics and the Nazis: The California Connection.’ San Francisco Chronicle Online 9 Nov 2003: n. pag. Web. 19 Nov 2009. <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/09/ING9C2QSKB1.DTL>.

Darwin, Charles. The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter. London: 1887. 83. Print.

Davenport, Charles B. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1911. Print.

Devereaux, Chance. ‘The True Story Behind 300 and Sparta’s “Super Soldiers”.’ Associated Content 25 May 2007: n. pag. Web. 18 Nov 2009. <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/182260/the_true_story_behind_300_and_spartas.html?cat=9>.

Engels, Donald. The Problem of Female Infanticide in the Greco-Roman World. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980. 112. Print.

Galton, David J. ‘Greek Theories on Eugenics.’ Journal of Medical Ethics. 24 (1998): 266. Print.

Galton, Francis. Inquiry into Human Faculty and its Development. London: Macmillan, 1883. 17. Print.

Grant, Madison. The Passing of the Great Race. New York: Scribner’s, 1916. Print.

Hitler, Adolf. Zweites Buch. Trans. Salvator Attanasio. New York: Bramhall House, 1958. Print.

Judge, Lora. ‘Eugenics.’ 2002. Alamo Colleges, Web. 19 Nov 2009. <http://www.accd.edu/sac/honors/main/papers02/judge.htm>.

Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population. 1st ed. London: 1798. Print.

—. An Essay on the Principle of Population. 2nd ed. London: 1803. Print.

Marks, Jonathan. ‘The Eugenics Movement.’ U of North Carolina, Web. 19 Nov 2009. <http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/eugenics/eugenics.html>.

Plato. The Republic. Trans. Desmond Lee. London: Penguin Books, 1955. 237-41. Print.

“Roman Twelve Tables of Law.” UNRV History. UNRV.com, Web. 18 Nov 2009. <http://www.unrv.com/government/twelvetables.php>.

Roper, Allen. Ancient Eugenics. Oxford: Cliveden Press, 1913. 6. Print.