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The shadow selves of American history often don't leave much of a photographic record, but sometimes there are just a few shards of proof and reminders of what has happened.
Eugenics, a dark offshoot of the science of genetics, was an early 20th century movement that sought to prevent social ills by seeing that those who caused them were never born. The movement produced an awful lot of books, tracts and pamphlets, but it didn't leave behind much in the way of photographs.
What is certainly the most intriguing — and probably the most numerous — collection of eugenics-related photographs can be found in a scrapbook assembled by the members of the American Eugenics Society, now in the holdings of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.
I learned of the scrapbook while doing the image research for a PBS documentary on the history of deaf culture in America, and it has always stuck in my mind as particularly disturbing and particularly American. Deaf people were a target for eugenicists from the beginning, with, most notably, Alexander Graham Bell advocating that...
Eugenics, a dark offshoot of the science of genetics, was an early 20th century movement that sought to prevent social ills by seeing that those who caused them were never born. The movement produced an awful lot of books, tracts and pamphlets, but it didn't leave behind much in the way of photographs.
What is certainly the most intriguing — and probably the most numerous — collection of eugenics-related photographs can be found in a scrapbook assembled by the members of the American Eugenics Society, now in the holdings of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.
I learned of the scrapbook while doing the image research for a PBS documentary on the history of deaf culture in America, and it has always stuck in my mind as particularly disturbing and particularly American. Deaf people were a target for eugenicists from the beginning, with, most notably, Alexander Graham Bell advocating that...