Eugenics Movement: Britain vs. The United States

Eugenics Movement

Background

Eugenics popularized as a social movement in the early 20th century. Based on survival of the fittest and selective breeding, the Eugenics movement advocated for the improvement of the gene pool. This led to feelings of race and class superiority and discrimination. Up until the Nazi Era, Eugenics was practiced by many countries in and it took many differnet shapes.

Great Britain

Sir Francis Galton is known as the founder of British Eugenics. He was the first to use the word "eugenics." He termed this to mean "the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage." He founded the Galton Eugenics Laboratory, headed by his predecessor, Karl Person. Unlike many other eugenicists, Pearson did not participate in the political aspect of Eugenics. His reasearch was statistical and scientific in nature and not intended to be used for propaganda.

The Eugenics Movement popularized in Britain with the foundation of the Eugenics Education Society in 1907. This was the counterpart to the Galton Eugenics Laboratory. The Eugenics Education Society pushed for legislation restricing the mentally deficient and the "feebleminded." In 1913, Parliament passed the Mentally Deficient Act. While there was no mandatory segregation mentioned in the act, the law recognized that there were socially unfit people that ranged from the mentally-ill to drunks to people with the inability to learn. While it was only a small victory, the Eugenics Education Society marveled at the progress.

Moreover, the main concern for the British was social class. Galton outlined a breakdown of British society in a speech in 1901. Eugenicists singled out the Working Class as eugenically inferior. They "lacked both moral fibre (i.e. was outside social control) and physical fitness" and they were "outbreeding skilled workers and the professional middle class." Below the working class were the Undesirables, the unemployed. However, these people were jobless and unmotivated because of their genetic inferiority. They inherited the laziness and alcoholism that when they were born into a working class family. Sterilization and marriage legislation written and discussed by the Eugenics Education Socitey however, none were ever passed.

Differences

Enactments

The United States and Britain both passed legislation regarding the "feebleminded" or unfit. However, the acts and laws passed in The United States differed in both number and content from their British counterparts.

In the United States, marriage and sterilization became a state issue. By 1914 some 30 states had enacted marriage laws that prevented the marriage of the insane and also strongly restricted the marriage of the feebleminded. Many states required a health certificate from all wishing to marry in order to prove that they did not have a transittable disease, were not mentally deficient and were not drunkards. Sterilization laws were on the books of 24 states by the end of the 1920's.

In Britain however, there was never a single sterilization law or marriage restriction. The closest the British came was the Mentally Deficient Act of 1913. Havelock Ellis, a well-known British Eugenicist, argued that sterilization should be voluntary. The feebleminded should be educated about their civic duty. He claimed that if these people knew the toll they were taking on society and the British race, then they would see it as their duty to become sterilized. Galton and Pearson were also against eugenic legislation. As stated before, they saw their work as purely statistical and scientific and not to be used for propaganda. Therefore unlike in the United States, Eugenic legislation did not take hold in Britain.