Background

What is it?

• A social movement that came around in the early 20th century.
• Selective breeding
  • Aims to improve a species
• Survival of the fittest/Darwinism
• Genetic Cleansing
• Radical supremacy and purity
• “Eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve and develop the inborn qualities of a race”-Galton (eugenics: its definition scope and aim)
• Improving the human race by discouraging reproduction by people with inheritable undesired traits or encouraging reproduction of people with inheritable desired traits

Who?

• Francis Galton was considered the father of the Eugenics movement
• He founded the word “eugenics” in 1865
• 3 stages of eugenics
  • Academic matter
  • Practical policy
  • “it must be introduced into the national consciousness as a new religion”- Galton (www.eugenics-watch.com)

Why founded?

• After civil war
• Progressive era
• US
  • Took hold because of what was going on socially
• Britain wanted to remain competitive with the US.
  • US closes borders then so does Britain
  • Wanted the most “fit” people working to be competitive

Britain and US

• Fundamentally they both defined eugenics in the same way and had a similar goal of creating the most “fit” society.
• Galton influenced both
• Both ended with Nazi era
• “the eugenics movements in Britain and America may be interpreted as middle class attempts at self-assertion, through a command of allegedly scientific expertise, in societies undergoing rapid industrial change” (7)
• Differences
  • Movement took a different shape in both countries
  • US
    • Politically driven
  • Britain
    • Socially Driven
    • Scientific