Progressives Archives | Eugenics and Other Evils

James Dobson, Eugenics, Paul Popenoe, and the American Institute of Family Relations

Filed under Paul Popenoe, Progressives

From the editor of this site: One of the things that has surprised me about setting up this site is the interest in the allegation that James Dobson, and by extension, the ‘evangelical’ community in general, are actually ‘eugenicists.’ The argument, if you can call it that, goes like this: Paul Popenoe was a eugenicist, …

21 comments

The ‘Minimum Wage’ as a way to make ‘defectives stand out’ for possible eugenic selection, 1913

Filed under 1913, birth defects, compulsory sterilization, concentration camps, defectives, dysgenic breeding, Efficiency Movement, idiots, legislative eugenics, Progressive Era, Progressives, race, right to reproduce, segregation camps, sterilization, unemployable, Year

Henry R. Seager, “The Minimum Wage as Part of a Program for Social Reform.” 1913. [SOURCE] As the enumeration of these benefits suggests, important reform to accompany minimum wage be comprehensive provision for industrial and trade education vocational guidance. Starvation wages are due frequently to exploitation, frequently to physical, mental and moral defects in the …

Leave comment

EA Ross — The Coolie cannot outdo the American, but can underlive him

Filed under duty, E.A. Ross, Expertise, minimum wage, Progressive Era, Progressives, race, science, scientific world view, transcription needed

SOURCE [This article needs proofreading. Feel free to check the original and send a corrected version to us] DR. EDWARD A. ROSS RESIGNS. The Head of the Department of Economics Leaves the University at the Demand of Mrs. Stanford. Dr. Edward A. Ross, head of the Department of Economics and Sociology, and one of the …

Leave comment

Taussig: The breeding of men, eugenics, and progress. 1911

Filed under 1911, American Eugenics, aristocratic, birth rate, breeding horses or cattle, civilization, criminals, death rate, defectives, duty, eugenics, family (the institution of), family planning, Frank Taussig, human breeding, John Stuart Mill, laws of heredity, national stock, Parasitism, pauperism, paupers, Political Economy, poverty, progress, Progressive Era, Progressives, race suicide, racial progress, rational selection, science, Scientific Management, society, Year

SOURCE: Frank Taussig, Principles of Economics, Volume II, 1911. Pages 233-237. This movement is steadily extending, and is gradually affecting not only those who are usually thought of as being in a more special sense “native born,” but the descendants of the immigrants as well. The influence of free institutions and of free opportunities is …

Leave comment

E.A. Ross and the Difference in Races

Filed under 1907, American Eugenics, Charity, E.A. Ross, human breeding, minimum wage, Progressive Era, Progressives, race, race hygiene, scientific racism, society, Wisconsin, Year

Source: E.A. Ross, discussing ‘Social Darwinism’ in American Journal of Sociology 12 (March 1907), 715. Strongly attracted as I am by the hopeful and noble views that have been expressed, I cannot but feel that Dr. Wells’s is right. The theory that races are virtually equal in capacity leads to such monumental follies as lining …

Leave comment

Sterilization Like Vaccination!

Filed under 1907, 1960, American Eugenics, compulsory sterilization, compulsory vaccination, education, legislative eugenics, Progressive Era, Progressives, sterilization, vaccination, Year

The argument that compulsory sterilization was justified on the same grounds as compulsory vaccination was common, and eventually won Supreme Court Sanction in Buck vs. Bell. Source: “Sterilization: A Progressive Measure?” In Wisconsin Magazine of History, Spring of 1960, wisconsin-sterilization-progressives-21585 As Dr. T.W. Williams of Milwaukee wrote, the fate of the present [compulsory sterilization] bill …

Leave comment

Objections to Compulsory Sterilization “are essentially sentimental.”

Filed under 1907, 1960, birth control, compulsory sterilization, E.A. Ross, eugenics quote of the day, Fit and Unfit, legislative eugenics, Progressive Era, Progressives, public health, sentimentalism, sterilization, vasectomy, Year

While eugenics today is castigated as ‘pseudoscience,’ the eugenicists themselves might say that the chief difference between progressives then versus now, is the latter is hindered by ‘sentimentality.’ E.A. Ross, Letter to Charles McCarthy, January 30, 1907. (As found in Rudolph J. Vecoli’s “Sterilization: A Progressive Measure” in Wisconsin Magazine of History, Spring 1960. LINK: wisconsin-sterilization-progressives-21585 …

Leave comment

Julian Huxley: Population Control, Eugenics, and Birth Control all part of the same Program

Filed under 1962, altruism, American Eugenics, Andrew Carnegie, artificial insemination, birth control, birth defects, Britain, China, compulsory sterilization, compulsory vaccination, Contraception, Darwinism, defectives, degeneration, duty, dysgenic breeding, dysgenics, education, Efficiency Movement, eugenics, Evolution, Evolutionary Humanism, family planning, family size, fertility control, Ford Foundation, Francis Galton, genetic counseling, genetic load, Genetics, H.J. Muller, homosexuality, human breeding, Humanism, India, insane asylums, insanity, intelligence, IQ, Jamaica, Japan, John Rockefeller, Julian Huxley, liberalism, marriage, medical genetics, mental defectives, national efficiency, national stock, nature vs nurture, negative eugenics, Negro, over-population, Parasitism, philanthropy, planned evolution, population control, population explosion, positive eugenics, poverty, Progressives, public health, public welfare, race, race hygiene, rational selection, science, social organism, social problem group, sterilization, technology, United Nations, vaccination, vasectomy, Year

Contemporary advocates for birth control exhibit no awareness whatsoever that birth control was always conceived in the context of ‘eliminating the unfit,’ ie., eugenics. Eugenics, in turn, was considered a straight-forward logical extension of Darwinism. Eugenics was seen as human control of human evolution, and was always tied into discussions on ‘population control.’ These are …

2 comments

Julian Huxley: Diversity and Eugenics in Education

Filed under 1964, American Eugenics, Dwight Ingle, education, Efficiency Movement, equal rights, Evolution, Evolutionary Humanism, Humanism, Julian Huxley, liberalism, mental defectives, national efficiency, planned evolution, Progressives, public school, Year

Humanism and eugenics have long been associated together, although it is the brave secularist today who would dream of admitting it. In this 1964 excerpt from his essay, “Education and Humanism” (found in Evolutionary Humanism, pg 135), Julian Huxley is reflecting on the need to transform education into an evolutionary mechanism, which, by virtue of …

1 comment

Eugenics, Progressives, and Miscegenation: Popenoe’s “Applied Eugenics”

Filed under 1918, anti-miscegenation, Aryan, Darwinism, education, eugenics, Franz Boas, Germany, intelligence, Intermarriage, IQ, Italy, Karl Pearson, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, lethal selection, Mayo, miscegenation, mulattoes, NAACP, national stock, Natural selection, Negro, Paul Popenoe, Progressives, public school, race, race betterment, Race crossing, race hygiene, racial progress, Roswell Hill Johnson, scientific racism, segregation, Year

It is very common to hear people speak as though it was Republican/conservatives/Christians that opposed intermarriage between black and whites (miscegenation), and that this attitude represented rank bigotry and amounted to open racism. This is a white-washing of history. The truth is that progressives and secularists thoroughly embraced anti-miscegenation. The reader can be assured that …

Leave comment

Category: Progressives