THE MENDEL NEWSLETTER

Archival Resources for the History of Genetics & Allied Sciences

ISSUED BY THE LIBRARY OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

No. 14 June 1977

SOURCES IN THE STUDY OF EUGENICS #1:
Inventory of the American Eugenics Society Papers

Eugenics, the attempt to use knowledge of human heredity for "bettering" the human genetic stock, was a field of research and propaganda founded initially by Francis Galton in the 1880s. It developed slowly until 1900, largely because of lack of any solid theory of inheritance on which to build. However, the rediscovery and propagation of Mendel's laws in the early 1900s opened up a wholly new set of principles by which to study inheritance in human beings. In the first four decades of the 20th century a worldwide "eugenics movement" developed, with particular strength in the United States, England and Germany. That movement contained both research and propagandistic programs, though ultimately propaganda far outweighed sound research. In the United States, the movement was supported by intellectuals, especially biologists, progressive reformers, the wealthy sectors of society, and many native-born Americans who feared the "rising tide of color" (the title of a popular book by Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color Tide of Color Against White Supremacy, published in1921).

The eugenics movement provides a valuable historical case for examining the intimate relationship between a science and its social and political context. One of the most useful sources for data on the origins of the U.S. eugenics movement, its stated aims, the nature of its supporters and financial backers, and its socio-political nature, are the papers of the American Eugenics Society, now deposited in the Library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.

The American Eugenics Society was organized out of the Second international Conference on Eugenics held in New York in 1921. At that time a group of American eugenicists, seeing the need for a broadly based political and educational organization, formed the Eugenics Committee of the U.S.A., which became the Eugenics Society of America. In 1925 the name was shortened to the American Eugenics Society (AES) . The Society was located in New Haven, Connecticut, until the early '50s, when office space and financial support were offered by the Rockefeller-funded Population Council in New York.

Nearly all important eugenicists between 1921 and the 1950s belonged to the American Eugenics Society. The focus of the Society was more propaganda than research. The AES ran conferences and seminars on eugenics, distributed a wide variety of pamphlets, sponsored exhibitions at county fairs and ran contests for the best essays and sermons on eugenics. Through these activities the AES became the most important organization for eugenics education in this country.

The American Eugenics Society Papers were deposited with the American Philosophical Society Library in 1972. The collection comprises approximately 50 boxes of correspondence, manuscripts, and other materials, including an extensive collection of glossy photos and a file of 4x6 index cards representing a eugenic study of Shutesbury, Mass. (The town had deteriorated rapidly in the latter half of the 19th century, as did many small towns, victims of rapid industrialization and urbanization. It was believed by eugenicists that a careful genealogical study would show that the town's demise was the result of the increase in certain "degenerate" and "delinquent" stocks.)

The photo collection contains pictures of all the major eugenics leaders, including Charles B. Davenport, Judge Harry Olson and Professor Henry P. Fairchild, as well as most of the members of the AES Board of Directors over the years. Several interesting items are photographs of AES exhibitions at county fairs around the country. One exhibit, entitled "Some People are Born to be a Burden on the Rest," consists of a series of flashing lights mounted on a large display board. One light flashes every 15 seconds and the sign under it declares, "every 15 seconds $100 of your money goes for the care of a person with bad heredity ..." A second light flashes every 48 seconds, indicating the birth of another "defective." "Every 50 seconds," the viewer is informed by another light, "a person is committed to jail." The sign then continues, "Very few normal people ever go to jail." The slowest light of all flashes every 7-1/2 minutes, indicating the birth of a "high grade person." Such visual documentation provides dramatic evidence of the kind of eugenic propaganda disseminated in the earlier decades of the century.

Particularly interesting is a large scrapbook titled "Samples, which contains AES pamphlets, forms (e.g., "Fitter Family" contest forms, a form letter about the "Best Eugenic Sermon Contest," etc.), membership renewal cards, and letterheads. Each item is labeled with the name of the printer or publisher and often includes the number of items printed. Such information could be useful in evaluating the extent of the Society's activities.

Three volumes of the Frederick Osborn Papers are included with the AES collection. Osborn, secretary of the Society from 1928 to 1972., dedicated most of his life to the eugenics movement and was a major force in shaping AES policy. These volumes contain memos, minutes of meetings, general correspondence, press clippings and drafts of articles written by Osborn. Each volume has a table of contents.

Between 1964 and 1969 the AES sponsored five conferences at Princeton University on "Population Genetics and Demography." At these conferences scientists from all over the country were brought together to discuss the relationship between population control and genetics. All the material relating to these conferences can be found in five separate notebooks, one for each conference.

Part of the collection arrived at the American Philosophical Society as late as 1975 and thus has not yet been organized and catalogued. This material all relates to the latter years of the Society (1950-1972). Although the Society was originally non-research oriented, after World War II there was a new emphasis on "medical genetics," propaganda activity was curtailed, and conferences were held to bring together anthropologists, demographers, psychologists and geneticists to discuss problems of population control. A loose-leaf notebook titled "AES: Position and Aims of the AES, 1961 Statement" chronicles this change of emphasis.

It is impossible to get a clear understanding of the political and social aspects of the eugenics movement in the United States without reference to these important papers. Unfortunately the three major works in the eugenics movement to date, Mark Haller's Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought, Donald Pickens' Eugenics and the Progressives, and Kenneth Ludmerer’s Genetics and American Society, were all written before these papers became available. (1)

Both Haller and Ludmerer claim that the eugenics movement changed dramatically in the 1930s as a result of the influence of Frederick Osborn. Between 1928 and 1930 Osborn, a retired bank president and railroad executive, studied genetics, psychology and sociology. According to Haller, as a result of these studies, he found increasing reason for "dissatisfaction with the prejudices and generalizations that characterized much of the eugenics movement." (2) As a result, Haller claims, when vacancies occurred on the Board of Directors of the AES, Osborn used his influence to replace the more overtly flagrant racists (e.g., Madison Grant and Harry Laughlin) "With persons of scientific reputation and more balanced views."(3) Ludmerer picks up Haller's distinction between "old" and "new" eugenics and titles a section of his book "The New Eugenics." According to Ludmerer the "old eugenics" died out in the early '30s, and "a new leadership, genuinely interested in mankind's genetic future, assumed the task of rebuilding it (the eugenics movement]. They rejected the class and race biases of their predecessors, admitted the foolishness of earlier eugenicists' biological pronouncements, and propounded a new eugenic creed which was scientifically and philosophically attuned to a changed America."(4) Ludmerer, like Haller, attributes this change to the influence of Frederick Osborn, who "gradually developed a new eugenic philosophy . . .less dogmatic and considerably more modest."(5) An alternative conclusion, in light of information now available in the AES Papers, is that the AES changed less dramatically than Haller and Ludmerer claim.

The AES Papers provide an insight into some of Osborn's views as he expressed them in a circular letter of February 24, 1937. In summarizing the proceedings of an AES-sponsored conference on eugenics, Osborn wrote:

A brief history of the origin and development of eugenic sterilization showed the originality of the United States where all the first laws were initiated, and indicated the lack of thoroughness of our people in their failure to follow through.

In Germany, the need for eugenic measures was not only the result of the war [World War I], but also of the increasing urbanization and mobility of her people, resulting in the location of families in new surroundings where they were not known by their neighbors or by the authorities, which presented serious problems. Changes in both increasing urbanization and mobility of her people are rapidly taking place in the United States also.

A law enacted in Germany in 1927 made rapid improvement in the control of venereal disease, and while slower results will probably be obtained by the more recent eugenic laws her work along these lines deserves careful study.

German's rapidity of change with respect to eugenics was possible only under a dictator. The decisions which were made were based so far as possible on prevailing scientific knowledge, - and in some cases at least the interpretation, or even the knowledge itself was incorrect. In this, there is a lesson to us of the need for an advance in science for adjusting proposed eugenic policies to other social needs.

In discussing the actual application of Germany's eugenic laws, Dr. Kopp's paper raises interesting questions.

The German sterilization program is apparently an excellent one, although it is generally doubted whether equal or better results might not have been obtained by a voluntary rather than a compulsory system.

The marriage loans are an experiment to be watched with interest. The conditions attached to the loans rule out the lowest levels of the population.

The municipal sponsorship of the ‘superior’ babies is a most interesting experiment.

The ban on inter-racial marriage lacks scientific basis, but from the German standpoint may be justified by social conditions . . . .

Taken altogether, recent developments in Germany constitute perhaps the most important experiment which has ever been tried. (6)

The AES was forced to moderate its public position in the '30s due to changing political and social exigencies (public opposition, the growing friction between the U.S. and Germany, and the opposition of reputable scientists). Further, Osborn, never approved of dictatorship. He hoped that in the United States, eugenic goals could be achieved by "a great variety of social and psychological pressures." (7)

Osborn also expressed his views with regard to women. Believing in the "evolutionary origin" of "deep psychological and emotional differences between the sexes," Osborn cautioned "that the present emphasis on intellectual achievement may be a great handicap to women trying to develop their natural feminine roles." (8)

Lacking the AES materials, both Haller and Ludmerer were forced to rely on less critical sources.(9) For example, their distinction between "old" and "new" eugenics comes from none other than Frederick Osborn himself. Both authors accepted uncritically information given them in personal letters from Osborn: to Haller in 1959 and to Ludmerer in 1970.(10) It is clear that Osborn did believe himself to be a moderate (perhaps in comparison to Madison Grant he was) who drastically altered the direction of eugenics. But it is also clear that he maintained all the aims of the older eugenicists. Like them, Osborn believed in the inherent inferiority of women. He also appears to have accepted the belief that the class structure of American society was the product of natural evolution, in which the inherently more intelligent people constitute the upper classes. Osborn believed these assumptions to be scientific and therefore, moderate.

The point, of course, is not to determine whether Osborn as an individual was a "good guy" or a "bad guy." What is an important question is whether the new eugenics movement represents a discontinuous or a continuous development out of the old. Haller and Ludmerer emphasize the discontinuity. Examination of new data from the AES Papers suggests much more of a continuity. Historically, this is not a matter for mere nit-picking. A discontinuous development would imply a reorientation of the basic social and political aims of eugenics -- as Ludmerer says, from a nativist and racist perspective to a more genuinely humane stance. A continuous development, on the other hand, would imply a reorientation only in tactics, not in social or political goals.

The case of Osborn provides an insight into what appears to be the basic reorientation in tactics, while leaving intact the large scale goals to which eugenics, from its overtly racist days onward was always dedicated.

The eugenics movement did alter its direction in the '30s (accommodating changing political and social conditions). The AES made its rhetoric more technical and shifted its emphasis from the national to the international sphere.(11) But the underlying thrust of the movement -- the use of "scientific" theories to justify the American political and social system -- remained constant. As Osborn put it in 1961, the AES was "beginning to sense a relationship between eugenics" and the "survival of those forms of civilization which promised a more secure and abundant life. It (the AES) was thinking in terms of bio-cultural evolution." Dorothy Brush put it even more plainly in 1961 when she said that the eugenics movement was primarily interested in preventing "the sort of robot the environment of communist countries breeds." 12

BARRY MEHLER
GARLAND E. ALLEN
Washington University St. Louis, Missouri

1. Mark H. Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, 1963); Donald Pickens, Eugenics and the Progressives (Nashville, 1968) and Kenneth Ludmerer, Genetics and American Society (Baltimore, 1972). For a review of these works see Garland Allen, "Genetics, eugenics and society: internalists and externalists in contemporary history of science," Social Studies of Science., VI (1976), 105-122.

2. Haller, Eugenics, 174.

3. Ibid.) 175.

4. Ludmerer, genetics and American Society, 174.

5. Ibid.

6. Circular Letter, February 24, 1937, Scrapbook, American Eugenics Society Papers.

7. Osborn to Charles Lindbergh, Nov. 5, 1964, AES Papers.

8. Circular Letter, March 20, 1937 and Osborn to Lindbergh, March 12, 1954, AES Papers.

9. Pickens' work suffers from similar problems and is, in fact, the weakest of the three.

10. Osborn to Haller, May 26, 1959. See Haller, Eugenics 175; Osborn to Ludmerer, Nov. 5, 1970. See Ludmerer, Genetics and American Society, 174.

11. The eugenic philosophy was incorporated into the burgeoning population control movement. Osborn, for example, was appointed president of the Population Council in 1957.

12. AES Position Paper, AES Paper, 1961, AES Papers.