Eugenics: rooted in the Classical "εὖ" and genēs

theclassicsincolor
Aug 23, 2024
17 min read

The Second International Congress of Eugenics took place from September 22 to 28 in 1921, at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). At this event, prominent scientists, politicians, historians, and philanthropists came together to learn more about eugenics, the philosophy that selective breeding of humans would improve the gene pool. Presenters and attendees of the Congress hypothesized that affluent, white, native-born Americans were physically, intellectually, and morally more “fit” than poor immigrants and people of color. Eugenicists believed that restricting the reproduction of the “unfit” would lead to a stronger ‘American race.’ The Congress represented the beginnings of a formal American eugenics movement, which targeted both those already living in, and those seeking entry into, America. The dignified setting of the American Museum of Natural History lent legitimacy and prestige to the event, and thus to the eugenics movement. Ultimately, the Second International Congress of Eugenics – and the people involved in its conception and execution – played a role in reducing immigration quotas in the United States during the interwar period.

Forty years prior to the Congress, British polymath Sir Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the term “eugenics” in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development. Galton defined eugenics as a “brief word to express the science of improving stock.” He concluded that intellect, ability, and morality were heritable characteristics, as opposed to dependent on one’s upbringing. Galton framed eugenics as either “positive” or “negative.” Positive eugenics encouraged the fit members of society to reproduce, whereas negative eugenics was a set of practices like forced sterilization to restrict the reproduction of those deemed unfit. Galton first presented his ideas to scientists at a regional conference in London in 1904. Leonard Darwin, Charles Darwin’s son, hosted the First International Congress of Eugenics at London’s Hotel Cecil in 1912. Leonard Darwin invited 400 delegates, representing twelve countries, to discuss the benefits of both proliferating the offspring of the ‘fit’ and cutting off ‘unfit’ bloodlines. The practice of eugenics tended to appeal to people in positions of power, as it gave them the opportunity to scientifically justify a social hierarchy that already worked in their favor. Affluent Americans who attended the First Congress and supported the eugenics movement pushed for a second iteration of the event, with many more delegates, to be held in the United States.

American support for eugenics grew during the Progressive Era, commonly dated between 1900 and 1920. The Progressive Era was synonymous with reform; Progressives, who tended to be educated, professional white people, wanted social, political, and economic change throughout the country. They believed that government intervention was necessary to improve society. Progressives also thought that the applied sciences provided a concrete and impartial view of society. Turning to science to tame the overpopulated cities and mass immigration of the Gilded Age, many Progressives became proponents of eugenics. Progressives believed that eugenics would address problems like overpopulation by offering a scientific justification to restrict certain ethnic groups from immigrating into the United States. In “‘More Merciful and Not Less Effective’: Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era,” historian Thomas Leonard argues that the racial prejudice espoused by American eugenicists was not “new” in the Progressive Era; however, what emerged during this time was federal and state legislation that both singled out immigrants and required that certain Americans be sterilized. In 1907, Indiana became the first state to institute a compulsory sterilization law. This law mandated sterilization surgeries such as vasectomies for men and salpingectomies for women whose race, ethnicity, ability, or criminal charge deemed them “dangerous” to the American gene pool. Progressive eugenicists believed that these laws would better society. Eugenics and Progressivism continued to go hand in hand in the 1910s and the 1920s. Progressives, many of whom were eugenicists, controlled powerful institutions across America, such as the American Museum of Natural History, the site of the Second International Congress of Eugenics.

The AMNH represented an intersection of science and wealth. Situated opposite Central Park in the affluent neighborhood of the Upper West Side, AMNH provided eugenicists with the support of old New York families and philanthropists. Dr. Robert DeSalle, molecular biologist and current curator at AMNH, asserts that the organizers of the Congress chose the Museum to “strengthen the scientific basis of eugenics.” Because AMNH maintained a high degree of quality control to ensure that only accurate exhibits were on display, the Congress likened eugenics to one of the natural sciences, instead of a pseudo-science. The setting of AMNH allowed the Congress to be both a scientific conference and an elite social gathering, demonstrating that “Modern eugenics was both a scientific and social movement.” Strategic choices, not only including venue selection but also the invitations, guest list, and schedule for the event, ensured the success of the Congress, building momentum for the fledgling American eugenics movement.

Henry Osborn, Madison Grant, and C.C. Little were among the prominent American eugenicists to organize the Congress. In 1914, these men formed a committee to start planning for the event, which took place seven years later. At the event, delegates from Britain, France, Norway, Italy, Cuba, and several other countries were present. Osborn, President of AMNH, wrote to biologist Charles Davenport, saying that “people will only come [to the Congress] if it is a privilege and [they] must carefully guard against cranks and curiosity seekers.” Osborn, Grant, and Little sent engraved invitations to one thousand people who were mostly white and affluent. Upwards of ten thousand people ultimately came to the Exhibition of Eugenics, which Osborn opened up to the public, but the rest of the itinerary was by invitation only. These invitations asked for “evening dress,” marketing the event to an elite crowd with the means to afford formal wear and attend programming for an entire week. The schedule for the Congress included fifty-three academic paper readings, 131 artifacts on display at a new “Exhibition of Eugenics,” and a retreat at the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. The planning of this event was a clear part of the movement’s success; the Congress became a prestigious gathering of people with more than enough social and political capital to drive the American eugenics movement forward. Within one year of organizing the Congress, Osborn, Grant, and Little established the American Eugenics Society (AES). Thousands of Americans joined the AES, showing the degree to which the Congress and its organizers helped to strengthen the public perception of eugenics.

Osborn’s opening address set off the Congress’ snowball effect on using eugenics to justify racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, or nativism. He welcomed the attendees in AMNH’s Hall of the Age of Man, which displayed the diagrams, statistics, and illustrations for the Exhibition of Eugenics. Osborn explained that social betterment systems such as education and philanthropy did not have the power to put people of different ethnic groups on a level playing field. Eugenicists like Osborn effectively viewed different ethnicities as different species. Because so many influential and similarly-minded people listened to Osborn speak, “it was as if a centripetal force spun most of the congress’s notable events into an irresistible and immutable mass of scientific racism, in the words of scholar Daniel Okrent” Osborn’s speech reflected a major theme of the Congress: applying eugenics to solve problems within society. Unbeknownst to him, eugenics would later be proven an inherently prejudicial pseudo-science. In his address, Osborn said that eugenics could “enlighten government in the prevention of the spread and multiplication of the worthless members of society.” None of those deemed worthless would have been hand-delivered an invitation to the Congress, so they were unable to object to such terminology. Osborn viewed the Congress as a tool to shed light on how the practice of eugenics could be used to build a stronger American race. He believed that government legislation could end the unfit (or in his words, “worthless”) bloodlines across America. Osborn was in close communication with the Immigration Restriction League, an organization which was established in 1894 to lobby for more restrictive immigration quotas in the United States. Osborn and his open endorsements of nativism set the tone for the rest of the Congress, in that many other presenters discussed the negative effects of mass immigration on the American gene pool.

After Osborn’s speech, attendees of the Congress were able to take a closer look at the Exhibition of Eugenics in AMNH’s Forestry Hall, renamed Eugenics Hall for the duration of the event. The Race Betterment Foundation, a eugenics organization established in 1906, donated a few of the plates for the Exhibition to display. Plate 23 was called “Marriage and Birth Rate in Relation to Immigration.” Its headline read, “The Incoming Stream of Aliens Threatens the Integrity of our Nation.” Eugenicists feared that an open-door immigration policy would cause native-born Americans to be outnumbered by immigrants. Quickly, the Congress blamed immigrants for an alleged deterioration in what they deemed to be American, native stock. These anti-immigrant exhibits clearly resonated with the Congress’ attendees; Frederic A. Lucas, director of AMNH at the time, received requests to keep the exhibits about immigration on display at the Museum even after the Congress. For instance, Clark Wissler, an anthropologist who attended the Congress, wrote a letter to Lucas recommending that AMNH purchase and permanently display “only” the anti-immigrant exhibits from the Congress. The Exhibition of Eugenics led the attendees of the Congress to believe that immigrants were a dangerous imposition on the United States. The Congress organized this exhibit with punchy headlines and plummeting graphs to make Americans fear immigrants and turn to eugenics as a means of restricting their immigration.

As the organizer of the Exhibition of Eugenics, Harry Laughlin’s involvement in the Congress propelled him into an influential political role: Expert Eugenics Agent for the House of Representatives. Prior to the Congress, Laughlin was the superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office (ERO). The ERO was established in 1910 as a repository of demographic and social information on the American population. The ERO was similar to AMNH in that both were respected institutions in New York. Laughlin organized the Congress’ retreat to the ERO so that attendees could examine the Trait Book, which contained a catalog of each human trait from “moral imbecility… [to the] ability to play chess.” This retreat was an integral part of the Congress because the ERO presented all traits – physical, physiological, mental, and social – as heritable. The affluent clientele who visited the ERO during the Congress in 1921 helped Laughlin, a fervent nativist, gain notoriety. That same year, Congressman Albert Johnson appointed Laughlin to be the first ever Expert Eugenics Agent for the House of Representatives Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. Laughlin’s job was to scientifically analyze and articulate the impact of immigrants on the American gene pool. After the Congress, Laughlin went on to testify in support of immigration restrictions and sterilization laws across the country. The Congress became Laughlin’s stepping stone into the political arena. He continued to serve as Expert Eugenics Agent throughout the 1920s, helping nativist policy come to fruition in 1924 during Calvin Coolidge’s presidency.

The immigration restrictions that President Coolidge passed during his time in office reflected his support for eugenics. From 1920 to 1923, Coolidge served as Vice President to Warren Harding. In February of 1921, seven months prior to the Congress, the magazine Good Housekeeping quoted Coolidge’s assertion that “Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend.” Coolidge believed that races irreconcilably differed from each other to the point where he condemned interracial marriage. Similar to many eugenicists at the Congress, Coolidge was against the idea of a melting pot when it came to race. The New York Times wrote on September 25, 1921, as the Congress was taking place, that “Racial Mixture [was] Liable to Lower[ing] the Quality of the [American] Stock.” This headline, especially when published by a well-known newspaper, built support around eugenics as a justification for immigration restrictions. Coolidge was specifically intolerant towards Southern and Eastern Europeans, Africans, and Asians who sought entry into the United States. Coolidge won the 1924 Presidential election, and, during his first year in office, he cited those “biological laws” to explain why his administration reduced the country’s immigration quotas. According to Daniel Okrent, the Coolidge administration “marked the marriage of eugenics and immigration restriction, [and] Osborn’s Congress would be the marriage’s public consummation” The Second International Congress of Eugenics strengthened the logic for eugenics as a rationale for denying certain immigrants entry into the United States.

Eugenicists at the Congress normalized claims of white supremacy by manipulating data and statistics to portray people of color as genetically inferior to their white counterparts. Following the success of the Congress, more and more white supremacist eugenics organizations were established. For instance, musician John Powell and ethnographer Earnest Sevier Cox formed the first Anglo-Saxon Club in Richmond, Virginia in 1922. Membership in this organization was only open to white Anglo-Saxon men. Anglo-Saxon clubs turned to eugenics to reinforce and rationalize the racial hierarchy that favored their members, all of whom were white. Historian J. Douglas Smith asserted that Powell and Cox “referred most often to [the ideas of] northern eugenicists like New York attorney Madison Grant,” another core participant of the Congress. Powell and Cox likely also came across Harry Laughlin’s research. One of the exhibits that Laughlin designed for the Congress compared the size of brains – and, by extension, intelligence – of white and Black fetuses. Because the exhibit showed the white brains as the biggest, eugenicists argued that if a white person were to reproduce with a non-white person, their offspring would have a smaller brain size and be less intelligent. The Congress gave legitimacy to the ideas that Powell and Cox could then use in a political context to push for eugenics-based legislation in Virginia.

With lobbying from eugenicists, Virginia passed two laws in 1924 that aimed to protect the racial purity of white Americans. The Anglo-Saxon Clubs petitioned for the 1924 Virginia Racial Integrity Act, a law perpetuating the idea that Americans of color did not deserve to associate with their white counterparts. With the passage of the Act, the State of Virginia refused to grant marriage licenses to interracial couples. Virginia also passed the Eugenical Sterilization Act during the same year. Harry Laughlin’s book, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, provided a framework for this law. Laughlin’s influence on this law was another example of how participants of the Congress went on to institutionalize eugenics into American legislation. Virginia’s Eugenical Sterilization Act permitted the forced sterilization of the “feeble-minded” people in mental institutions. Whether or not someone was feebleminded was subjectively determined by the people in positions of power. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Virginia’s Eugenical Sterilization Act in the 1927 case Buck v. Bell, which paved the way for 60,000 sterilization surgeries across thirty American states. Harry Laughlin advanced the American eugenics movement at the state level by pushing for both the Racial Integrity Act and the Eugenical Sterilization Act. At the federal level, he testified before the House of Representatives that heavier immigration restrictions would improve and uplift the American gene pool.

Anti-immigrant sentiment surged in America after World War One. Historian Carl Wittke asserted that “The War accentuated American nationalism.” Many Americans fought on the frontlines for the first time, fostering national pride throughout the country. Both common suffering and common victory united Americans. However, nationalism was also an exclusionary and nativist force in the wake of the War. The early 1920s marked a period of labor unrest. Unemployment rates rose and membership in labor unions fell. Americans increasingly blamed immigrants for ‘stealing’ the jobs they believed that they had a birthright claim to. Some nativists called immigrants “hyphenated Americans.” This term had a connotation of disloyalty; in the minds of nativists, an immigrant’s multiculturalism meant that they could never assimilate fully into the United States. On May 19, 1921, President Warren Harding enacted the Emergency Quota Act, reducing the number of immigrants admitted every year from a given country to three percent of the number of United States residents from that country. This act was the first piece of immigration legislation following the War. The Congress took place between the passage of the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and that of the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. A key difference between these two Acts was that the former set three percent quotas for immigrants from all countries, but the latter put unequal caps on certain regions and their respective immigrants. Specifically, the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act put a cap on Southern and Eastern European immigrants that was much more restrictive than the cap on Northern and Western European immigrants.

The 1921 Emergency Quota Act was much more general than the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, which was targeted towards denying entry to specific ethnic groups. Prior to both laws, the United States Congress had created the Dillingham Commission in 1907 to “study the consequences of new immigration.” The first two decades of the twentieth century saw mass immigration into the United States, but the idea of “new” immigration had a negative connotation. According to historian Charles Jaret, “New immigrants [were] from Southern and Eastern Europe,” and were believed to be less able to acclimate to American life and culture. Passed on May 26, 1924, the Johnson-Reed Act modified the immigration quota system put into place by the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. The Johnson-Reed Act set lower quotas for Southern and Eastern Europeans than those set for Northern and Western Europeans. The Second International Congress of Eugenics emphasized this same distinction: certain immigrants were more fit than others, and thus should be allowed in greater numbers into the United States. Because this event garnered support from not only eugenicists but also powerful policy-makers, the Congress became another stepping stone for taking political measures against the immigration of specific ethnic groups like Southern and Eastern Europeans. With the rhetoric from the Congress and from Laughlin’s testimonies in mind, Congressman Albert Johnson outlined the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act and many other national immigration restrictions.

Presenters at the Congress used eugenics to justify unequal immigration quotas. Early alleged genetic distinctions between ethnic groups in Europe came from American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in 1887. He argued that warmer climates, like those of Southern Europe, imposed an “earlier maturation… signal[ing] the slowdown and cessation of bodily development.” Participants of the Congress also believed that Northern Europeans were genetically superior to Southern Europeans. For instance, Harry Laughlin echoed Cope’s point in his address before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization on March 5, 1924. Laughlin stated that “the races of Northern and Western Europe, more closely than the races of Southern and Eastern Europe, resemble the main body of the American people.” Accordingly, Laughlin concluded that the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans would convolute and corrupt the American gene pool. In 1900, 16% of the immigrants in the United States were from Southern and Eastern Europe, but that number grew to 41% by 1920. According to Laughlin and many other eugenicists at the Congress, this increase was a problem because more and more Southern and Eastern Europeans would pass down their ‘unfavorable’ traits (like alleged developmental delays, according to Cope), harming the future generations of Americans. Laughlin also told the Committee that he conducted a “biological investigation” to conclude that immigration restrictions would best restore the American gene pool, positioning eugenics as an important scientific discipline, deserving of the whole world’s use and respect.

The Congress gave national and international traction to eugenics. American eugenicists who participated in the Congress maintained regular contact with their like-minded German counterparts. Carl Schneider, Professor of Racial Hygiene at Germany’s Heidelberg University and scientific advisor to the Nazi Party, presented Harry Laughlin with an honorary degree in medicine in 1936. Throughout the 1930s, New York City’s Rockefeller Foundation, a major donor to AMNH, gave a total of $655,000 to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Eugenics Research in Germany. The Congress also promoted Madison Grant’s 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race. Grant also claimed the genetic supremacy of Northern and Western Europeans, whom he referred to as the “Nordic race.” As support for eugenics grew overseas, a German translation for this book was published in 1925. Adolf Hitler went on to refer to The Passing of the Great Race as his “Bible,” using eugenics to prove the superiority of the Aryan race. With Grant’s rhetoric in mind, Hitler framed the Holocaust as racial hygiene rather than the state-sponsored genocide of six million Jewish people. As an extreme application of eugenics, World War Two demonstrated the destruction of state-sponsored sterilization and persecution, becoming the watershed moment in Global History where the eugenics movement declined.

The Second International Congress of Eugenics formalized the practice of eugenics in the United States by becoming the first event on American soil to unite scientists, politicians, and philanthropists on the topic of eugenics. The American eugenics movement ushered in an era of compulsory sterilization laws, immigration restrictions, and antagonism towards minority groups based on race, class, and ability. In September of 2021, The American Museum of Natural History published a statement on its role in the Second International Congress of Eugenics and in the larger American eugenics movement. AMNH recognized the anti-centennial of the Congress. Part of the anti-centennial’s statement reads, “We hear echoes of eugenics in today’s anti-immigration rhetoric…The pseudo-science of eugenics and the ways that it has been applied against vulnerable populations are antithetical to the values, mission, and ongoing work of this Museum.” AMNH thus acknowledged that the Second International Congress of Eugenics pseudo-scientifically used eugenics to perpetuate nativism. Still, leading figures in American politics continue to harbor anti-immigrant sentiment: in 2023, former President Donald Trump claimed that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the United States. Although AMNH’s apology denounced a deeply problematic part of American history, it does not erase the legacy of the eugenics movement on the American Immigration System.

Bibliography

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