Eugenics in the United States
- Erin Wright
- May 5
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 1
This post is a bit different in that rather than hyper focusing on an individual it breaks down an entire movement that isn’t talked about enough that occurred in the history of the United States.
Often when people think about eugenics, they focus on Germany at the time of World War II, but it occurred in the United States as well. Between 1896 and 1927, there was an increase in the interest and practice of eugenics in the United States. The term eugenics had first been coined in 1883 by Englishman Francis Galton as the science of improving the human population by increasing heritable characteristics by reproduction.1 Eugenic enthusiasts sought to solve societal problems including poverty, health issues, and the existence of the “feeble-minded.” They linked these social and economic issues to individuals or groups deemed “undesirable” or those that did not fit into a westernized idea of a middle-class society, including immigrants, criminals, the poor, and minorities.2
Forced Sterilization
Historians often focus on the Midwest when studying eugenics and forced sterilization, since that is where forced sterilization began. In 1916, Madison Grant wrote the book, The Passing of the Great Race, a book based on pseudo-science that claimed superiority of the “Nordic race” over other races. This was used by those interested in eugenics across the United States and world. Grant was an American lawyer who was involved in several eugenics groups, including the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) who helped him with his publications.3 The Eugenics Record Office was created in 1910 in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, and was often at the center of eugenics research in the United States, and one of the reasons eugenics took off in the United States4
In Grant’s book he asked for forced sterilization based on the assumption that 10% of the United States public should not procreate.5 This text helped influence a wider audience on the perceived merits of forcibly sterilizing the “feeble-minded” or at-risk population, which more often included women because of their ability to bear children. While it was not the only catalyst in the eugenics movement, it did help it.
For the Midwest, Indiana was considered a “benchmark for the rest of the nation” in terms of its sterilization law.6 Before it began to change the law for allowing sterilization of the “undesirables,” it first changed other laws, including a marriage law in 1905 to prohibit marriage for those considered “feebleminded.”7 Besides sterilization of those in mental institutions, there was also sterilization of men correctional institutions.8 In 1907 Indiana became the first state in the United States to pass a law permitting compulsory sterilization. While it was the first of its kind in the world involving eugenics and sterilization, the concept of the idea was not new.9 During the eugenics movement, about 2,500 Hoosiers were forcibly sterilized against their will.10 While the law was temporarily deemed unconstitutional it eventually was reinstated. Michigan joined the other states in 1913 on a law that enforced the sterilization of mentally ill patients.11 This pattern would continue in other states who believed that the “feeble-minded” (I use quotations around “undesirable” as well as “feeble-minded” to note that the term that was used for certain groups during that time and does not reflect how I feel) did not have a say in their own reproduction. It’s important to consider region in studying forced sterilization as Indiana was not the first state to attempt passing the law and other states soon followed, especially since forced sterilization laws were enacted by individual states at different times across the entire Untied States. Don’t think that this was something that only happened in history. Forced sterilization wasn’t fully repealed in Indiana until the mid-nineteen seventies.
Historical Analysis by Molly Ladd-Taylor
Historian Molly Ladd-Taylor focuses on forced sterilization in Minnesota in her 2017 book, Fixing the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century. Minnesota’s forced sterilization focused on those under custody of a guardian who were labeled “feeble-minded” or insane. This law was enacted in 1925 and lasted until it was changed in 1975.12 Ladd-Todd argues that the policy was designed not out of a plan to alter genes. Instead, it was “deeply felt cultural attitudes about disability, welfare, dependency, sexuality, and gender.”13 This fear that women who had no husband or source of revenue would depend upon the state if they got pregnant. While it may differ in the lack of malicious intention, it still stems from the same idea of taking away the choice to have children and is designed with the disadvantaged population in mind.
According to Taylor, one sociologist Charles Richmond Henderson “described the three Ds [defective, delinquent, and dependent] in eugenic terms, as ‘outcast survivals of an imperfect past race…unfit to endure the strain of modern competition.’”14 This enforces the notion of eugenics being about not creating superior genes, but rather weeding out the bad traits by not allowing people with those genes to procreate. She mentions though that while “feeble-minded” was considered a “legal administrative category” of that time, is mostly analyzed today as a pseudo-scientific diagnosis and a good cultural discourse.15
While her work focuses on practice of sterilization, it also delves into how this past still affects the welfare and protection of children even today. That instead of eugenics or involuntary sterilization being a thing of the past, their effects and the social reforms they stem from, are still relevant in the present.
Conclusion and Relevance to Today
We might think that such barbaric practices are in the past, a distant history. But like many so-called “difficult” histories, the events occurred closer to the present. Not to mention their connection with current political discourse and events. Eugenics wasn’t just present in Germany and touted by the Nazi party, it was alive in many cities across the United States. Many well-known names advocated for eugenic research and the laws that restricted, physically or psychologically harmed individuals specifically minorities and vulnerable populations.
1 Garland E. Allen, "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940: An Essay in
Institutional History," Osiris (Bruges) 2, (1986): 225.
2 Howard Markel, The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, (New York:
Pantheon Books, 2017), 299.
3 Garland E. Allen, "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940: An Essay in
Institutional History," Osiris (Bruges) 2 (1986): 246.
4 Robert Jarvenpa, Declared Defective: Native Americans, Eugenics, and the Myth of Nam Hollow, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), 24.
5 Howard Markel, The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, (New York:
Pantheon Books, 2017), 308.
6 Jason S. Lantzer, “The Indiana Way of Eugenics: Sterilization Laws, 1907-74,” in A Century of Eugenics in America, ed. Paul A. Lombardo (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 31.
7 STERN, INDIANA, 220.
8 Jason S. Lantzer, “The Indiana Way of Eugenics: Sterilization Laws, 1907-74,”31.
9 Elof Axel Carlson, “The Hoosier Connection: Compulsory Sterilization as Moral Hygiene,” in A Century of Eugenics in America, ed. Paul A. Lombardo, 11-25. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 11.
10 Alexandra Stern, “Improving Hoosiers: Indiana and the Wide Scope of American Eugenics.”
Indiana Magazine of History 106, no. 3 (2010): 220.
11 Howard Markel, The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, First ed. (New York:
Pantheon Books, 2017), 310.
12 Molly Ladd-Taylor, Fixing the Poor, 2.
13 Ibid.
14 Molly Ladd-Taylor, Fixing the Poor, 30.
15 Ibid, 85.
