It also tried to educate the public about the values of eugenics. The Eugenics Record Office sent out questionnaires to families, created pedigree charts and trained fieldworkers who traveled across the country to compile data on traits like “feeblemindedness,” “criminality” and “alcoholism.” The office housed data on thousands of individuals and families. The station’s initial purpose was to study Mendelian inheritance patterns and breeding in animals however, the office focused specifically on humans and eugenics. The office was an extension of an experimental station that Davenport had previously started in 1904 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as part of the Carnegie Institute of Washington. Through funding by philanthropist Mary Williamson Harriman and cereal magnate John Harvey Kellogg, Davenport started the Eugenics Record Office (pictured) at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York. sterilization laws remained in place until the 1980s.ĭavenport establishes the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Graph depicting cumulative record of sterilizations in U.S. As a result, more than 60,000 persons were sterilized before these laws were overturned. By the 1930s, over 30 states had sterilization laws. Soon after Indiana passed their law, other states adopted similar legislation. During that time, approximately 2,500 people were forcibly sterilized. The Indiana law was in effect from 1907 to 1974. Each child reverts to the same life, reverts when taken out.” In his 1881 article entitled “The Tribe of Ishmael: A Study in Social Degradation,” the influential Indiana preacher Oscar McCulloch wrote, “ote the force of heredity. Under this law, women were sterilized for being deemed “feebleminded” or “promiscuous.” By the late 1800s, state officials were increasingly convinced that the social problems of crime and poverty were genetically inherited. Indiana’s law mandated sterilization of those in state institutions who were deemed “idiots” or “imbeciles,” as well as certain classes of criminals. state to pass a compulsory sterilization law. Indiana passes first sterilization law other states followĪfter previous efforts by Michigan and Pennsylvania failed, Indiana became the first U.S. Galton’s writings reflected prejudiced notions about race,Ĭlass, gender and the overwhelming power of heredity. That only “higher races” could be successful.

That abstract social traits, such as intelligence, were a result of heredity. Galton believed that eugenics could control human evolution and development. The wordĮugenics would sufficiently express the idea. Influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood aīetter chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. Questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance of all We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to Galton first used the term in an 1883 book, “Inquiries into Human Fertility and Its Development.”

“Inquiries into Human Fertility and Its Development.” Francis Galton (pictured), Charles Darwin’s cousin,ĭerived the term “eugenics” from the Greek word eugenes, meaning “good in birth” or “good in stock.” Galton defines eugenics and gives birth to a movementįrancis Galton (pictured), Charles Darwin’s cousin, derived the term “eugenics” from the Greek wordĮugenes, meaning “good in birth” or “good in stock.” Galton first used the term in an 1883 book,

All present and accounted for sir