The Eugenics Movement in Retrospect
By Rob DeSalle,
Natural History
| 12. 11. 2021
Despite warnings by biologists and geneticists, eminent individuals and venerable institutions helped promote a false theory that led to sterilizations and genocide.
One hundred years ago, the Second International Congress of Eugenics was held from September 22-28, 1921, at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. The assembly opened to enthusiastic fanfare and positive media attention. Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) was the honorary president. On the first evening, paleontologist and museum president, Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935), opened the scientific portion of the Congress with a welcoming address that set a hopeful tone for the meeting—one of discovery and high-quality scientific presentations. Science magazine printed the address in its entirety. In a paper published in The Eugenics Review, Clarence Cook Little (1888-1971), then at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, summarized the goals of the meeting and the speaking schedules.
The Second Congress had four sections entitled “Human and Comparative Heredity,” “Eugenics and the Family,” “Human Racial Differences,” and “Eugenics and the State.” AMNH mounted an exhibition for the event, called the “Exhibition of Eugenics.” Henry Hamilton Laughlin (1880-1943), superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, NY, edited a book-size account...
Related Articles
By Isabelle Bartram
| 07.17.2024
Image by Kuzzat Altay from Unsplash
Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority in China, are mainly located in the autonomous region of Xinjiang. The Chinese government has pursued an aggressive settlement policy in this region since 1949, with the percentage of Han Chinese in the region increasing from five to forty percent in the second half of the 20th century. Since 2014, the Uyghurs have been subject to persecution and re-education – various sources have estimated that at least one million...
By Katie LaGrone, WPTV | 06.28.2024
Image by National Cancer Institute from Unsplash
TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa jury recently found the now-defunct Lung Institute in Tampa guilty of engaging in “deceptive or unfair practices” while it offered customers “valueless” stem cell therapy to treat incurable...
By Gilma Avalos, NBC | 07.03.2024
Image by Josh Appel from Unsplash
The dream of becoming parents is turning into a nightmare for hundreds of people caught up in a surrogacy money scandal.
Some of the individuals are facing infertility or medical challenges, seeing surrogacy as...
By Michael Hiltzik, LA Times | 07.02.2024
Photo by Claire Anderson on Unsplash
Second only to the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday on when presidents are immune from criminal prosecution, the biggest case of the court’s recently completed session involved the age-old conflict between judges and government regulators...