Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and other revered historical figures who supported the eugenics movement at the height of its pre-WWII popularity.
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Theodore Roosevelt was a proponent of the sterilization of criminals and the supposedly feeble-minded. In 1913, Roosevelt wrote a letter to eugenics supporter and biologist C.B. Davenport, saying that society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind."Wikimedia Commons
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Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell helped lead the First International Eugenics Conference in 1912. Bell also published a paper in which he bluntly listed the steps that would prevent the proliferation of the deaf: (1) Determine the causes that promote intermarriages among the deaf and dumb; and (2) remove them."Kentucky Digital Library
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Even Helen Keller, surprisingly enough, advocated for the eugenics movement. She once stated, Our puny sentimentalism has caused us to forget that a human life is sacred only when it may be of some use to itself and to the world."Wikimedia Commons
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Winston Churchill advocated for compulsory labor camps for mental defectives in 1911. The year prior to this, Churchill wrote a letter advocating for sterilization saying, "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes ... constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate."levanrami/Flickr
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Activist Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic and she aligned her fight for contraception with the eugenics movement. She stated that birth control is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit [and] of preventing the birth of defectives."Wikimedia Commons
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Harvard-educated sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois was a leading African-American activist and writer who called for dividing the black community into four groups. He promoted marriage and reproduction within the most desirable group, the talented tenth, and wanted to breed out the lowest group, the submerged tenth."Library of Congress
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However, in 1926 he wrote an essay called "The Eugenics Cult", in which he condemned the theory.
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Celebrated writer George Bernard Shaw explored the biology of eugenics in his political writing. He is quoted as saying, "We should find ourselves committed to killing a great many people whom we now leave living, and to leave living a great many people whom we at present kill." He added, "A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people's time to look after them."Wikimedia Commons
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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932, wrote the 1927 Buck v. Bell decision that allowed for compulsory sterilization of the "unfit" in the U.S., stating, It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. ... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."Library of Congress
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The famous French explorer Jacques Cousteau was in favor of population control saying in an interview, Worldpopulation must be stabilized and to do thatwe must eliminate 350,000 people per day.This is so horrible to contemplate that weshouldn't even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable."Marka/UIG via Getty Images
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Doctor, nutritionist, and the inventor of Corn Flakes, John Harvey Kellogg also ran a sanitarium. He wrote in the 1913 issue of the Journal of Public Health, "Long before the race reaches the state of universal incompetency, the impending danger will be appreciated ... and, through eugenics and euthenics, the mental soundness of the race will be saved." Library of Congress
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Long before the eugenics movement, Greek philosopher Plato wrote, "The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one must be reared and of the other destroyed; in this way the flock will be preserved in prime condition."Wikimedia Commons
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Prominent British economist William Beveridge remarked in 1909, "Those men who through general defects are unable to fill such a whole place in industry are to be recognized as unemployable ... with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood."Wikimedia Commons
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Alice Lee Moqu was an American newspaper correspondent, photographer, and suffragist. She also supported sterilization of certain genetic undesirables, such as those with hereditary illness in their bloodline.Wikimedia Commons
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Co-founder of the London School of Economics, Sidney Webb carried out research in the 1890s confirming the high fertility of the improvident whom he described as "degenerate hordes unfit for social life."Library of Congress
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British biologist Francis Crick is quoted as saying, "in an attempt to solve the problem of irresponsible people and especially those who are poorly endowed genetically having large numbers of unnecessary children ... sterilization is the only answer."Wikimedia Commons
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Neurologist Dr. Robert Foster Kennedy stood up before the American Psychiatric Association in 1941 and told them, "I am in favor of euthanasia for those hopeless ones who should never have been born-Natures mistakes."Wikimedia Commons
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English economist Thomas Malthus, who died before the eugenics movement truly took hold, believed in eugenics because he was concerned about food shortages. He once noted, "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man."Wikimedia Commons
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In the American Child Health Associations Childs Bill of Rights, Herbert Hoover made the statement, There shall be no child in America that had not the complete birthright of a sound mind in a sound body."U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
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Scientist and peace activist Linus Pauling was forced to defend his eugenics position in 1972, well after the height of the eugenics movement, when a woman at Michigan State accused him of promoting racism. (Pauling had said carries of genetic diseases shouldnt procreate.) He replied, "It's alright for her [a mother] to be allowed to determine the extent to which she will suffer, but she should not be allowed to produce a child who will suffer. This is immoral. It is wrong to produce a little black child who will lead a life of suffering. I would say this is not racism. I advocate the very same thing to ... all kinds who carry these abnormal genes."Oregon State University/Flickr
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Even after World War II, economist John Maynard Keynes supported eugenics, population control, and migration restrictions as Director of the British Eugenics Society. He asserted that eugenics was, "the most important and significant branch of sociology."International Monetary Fund/Wikimedia Commons
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The eugenics movement will forever be associated with Adolf Hitler, whose quest to build an Aryan master race during the 1930s and '40s culminated in the extermination of millions.
However, Hitler wasn't the first to champion the idea of wiping away humans deemed to be unfit. In large part, he actually took inspiration from the United States. As Hitler remarked in 1924's Mein Kampf, "There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States."
The popularity of eugenics and related ideas in the U.S. (as well as Western Europe) at the time was in part a reactionary response to increased industrialization and immigration. The latter was on the rise and cities became more crowded as people moved to be closer to work. And with supporters of the early eugenics movement believing that people inherited traits like feeble-mindedness and poverty, this meant to them that society had an obligation to thin this growing herd.
Moreover, Western eugenics was an outgrowth or racist and colonialist ideologies. Pseudosciences (like phrenology, for example) allowed some whites to "scientifically" justify their bigotry and then take things a step further by claiming that "lesser" races needed to be phased out. In this way, Social Darwinism became a means to construct a supposed hierarchy of race and ensure that white people (and their genes) remained the ideal.
Fittingly enough, eugenics actually has some of its roots with Charles Darwin. His theories about "survival of the fittest" inspired his cousin, Francis Galton, to start the eugenics movement as the world would come to know it (and coin the word "eugenics" itself) in the late 19th century.
From there, eugenics actually enjoyed a period of mainstream popularity in both Darwin and Galton's native England as well as the U.S. and elsewhere in the late 19th century and early 20th. Both abroad and in the United States, proponents of the eugenics movement believed it a Caucasian responsibility to Westernize other civilizations. This was coupled with the idea of producing fewer, better children who would create a better race, and cure many economic and social problems.
Before Hitler took eugenics to its deadly extremes, more people than you might think considered at least some eugenics-related ideas to be completely legitimate despite their serious moral implications. Eugenics was something that many prominent people once supported, whether vocally, financially, or politically. Presidents, economists, activists, and philosophers many of which you'd never think would be supporters all once spoke out in support of the eugenics movement.
See for yourself in the gallery above.
Next, dig deeper into the ugly history of American eugenics. Then, learn about how Hitler's eugenics efforts as part of the Lebensborn program.
See more here:
21 Eugenics Movement Supporters That Might Shock You
- Ridding the Race of His Defective Blood Eugenics in the Journal, 19061948 | NEJM - nejm.org - March 4th, 2024 [March 4th, 2024]
- The Progressive Ideas That Fueled America's Eugenics Movement | Bradley Thomas - Foundation for Economic Education - March 4th, 2024 [March 4th, 2024]
- Few People Know The Real Story About North Carolinas Eugenics Program - Only In Your State - March 4th, 2024 [March 4th, 2024]
- University Art Museums Become Unlikely Homes for These Portraits - The New York Times - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Real-world Influences of Frank Herbert's 'Dune' - Dune News Net - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Everything you don't know about neurodiversity The Mass Media - The Mass Media - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Details of Japans experiment with eugenic sterilization released - BioEdge - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Give more people with learning disabilities the chance to work ... - EurekAlert - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- 'They Cloned Tyrone' ending explained - Mashable - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Failing Learning Disabled People: The Contradictions of 1945 ... - Byline Times - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- What happened during Marc Tessier-Lavigne's tenure as Stanford ... - Palo Alto Online - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Planned Parenthood: 'Virginity is a social construct' - The Christian Institute - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Is evolutionary biology racist? Why Evolution Is True - Why Evolution Is True - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Beware the anti-democratic liberal centre - Morning Star Online - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Unveiling the dark past: eugenics and its role in legitimising racism - Epigram - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Guardians of the Galaxy 3 Has the MCU's Scariest Villain - CBR - Comic Book Resources - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Fox News in Spanish bombards viewers with right-wing propaganda - MSNBC - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- The Reproductive Movement Must Reclaim Its Radical Roots and Be ... - Literary Hub - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- 3 judges who chipped away abortion rights to hear federal abortion pill appeal - ABC News - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Eugenics: Definition, Movement & Meaning - HISTORY - HISTORY - January 22nd, 2023 [January 22nd, 2023]
- Iris flower data set - Wikipedia - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Canadas policies are a death sentence for disabled people. The country must reckon with its modern eugenics - Toronto Star - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Op-Ed: Eugenics is making a comeback. Stop it in its tracks - Los ... - November 23rd, 2022 [November 23rd, 2022]
- Eugenics, Anti-Immigration Laws Of The Past Still Resonate Today ... - November 21st, 2022 [November 21st, 2022]
- Eugenics: Its Origin and Development (1883 - Present) - Genome.gov - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- 150000 Black Women Were Forced Into the Eugenics Program - History of Yesterday - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- 20 million black babies have been aborted since Roe v. Wade. Where is the equity in that? - Washington Examiner - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- What Is a 'Healthy' Cereal, Anyway? - Lifehacker - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Eugenics and Scientific Racism - Genome.gov - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Eugenics Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- The shameful support of eugenics by the Lewiston Evening Journal - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Understanding "longtermism": Why this suddenly influential philosophy ... - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- NYU Local: Women's Health: Involuntary Sterilization Then and Now - Government Accountability Project - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- A Desire to Cure, Not to Punish: Women Physicians and Eugenics in the American West, 19001930 by Jacqueline D. Antonovich - Smith College Grcourt Gate - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- In unaired portions of Tucker Carlson interview, Ye made antisemitic remarks, spoke of fake children infiltrating his home - The Hill - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Black women and reproductive freedom meet a crossroad in the fight for abortion rights - Afro American - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- The difference between race and ethnicityand why it matters - Fast Company - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Letter to the Editor Removal of Luther West's name is just - North Wind Online - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL - Boing Boing - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- I Lived In An Asylum Turned Childrens Institution, Said To Be Haunted By Its Horrifying Past. - HuffPost - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- The Evolution of Godless Practices: Eugenics, Infanticide, and Transhumanism - The Epoch Times - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Disability campaigners accuse government of 'back-door eugenics' as families struggle to survive inflation - Morning Star Online - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Fox News host predicts that clean energy will lead to eugenics - Media Matters for America - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Rockwell Kent at the Fleming: Art into hands of many, rather than the few - Rutland Herald - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Review: 'Amsterdam' is a star-filled comedy that loses its way - Star Tribune - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Pros & Cons of Eugenics | Healthfully - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- History Highlight: Proponents of eugenics, population control, and ... - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- 31 days of horror movies: 2007s Frontiers is a masterpiece of French Extremity - 1428 Elm - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Explaining Church Teaching on IVF The Torch | Boston College's Catholic Newspaper - The Torch - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- The Vaccine That Could Cure America: Reversing Roe - The Chattanoogan - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Takeaways from Episode 1 of The U.S. and the Holocaust - - St. Louis Jewish Light - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Lloyd Benes: Challenging 8 arguments that support unrestricted abortion - Loveland Reporter-Herald - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- 11 Disability Rights Activists on Where the Fight for Justice Stands - Teen Vogue - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- What Ballot Initiatives Will Californians Face in the Nov. 8th Election? - California Globe - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- The U.S. and the Holocaust. Revisiting America's Role | THIRTEEN - New York Public Media - MetroFocus - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- A new University of Virginia board member once brought a eugenicist to campus. Students are angry. - Higher Ed Dive - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- World Wars, Eugenics, Mass Extinctions: Would You Believe Were Talking About Splatoon? - Kotaku Australia - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Freaks Controversy Explained: Was Tod Browning's 1932 Horror Movie Exploitative Or Progressive? - /Film - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Eugenics Wars | Memory Alpha | Fandom - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- Behind the Scenes: The U.S. and the Holocaust - GBH News - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- The 32 Most Anticipated TV Shows of Fall 2022 - TIME - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- BSO and GBH Host 'An Evening With Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, And Sarah Botstein' at Symphony Hall Next Month - Broadway World - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- Paper: Train future psychologists to dismantle racism, injustice in society - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- Croydons Pearson feels the pressure in MasterChef kitchen - Inside Croydon - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- SCOTUS Claims Abortion Proponents Are Motivated by Eugenics and Eliminating the 'Unfit'But History Says Otherwise - Ms. Magazine - August 6th, 2022 [August 6th, 2022]
- Birth of the Abortion Industrial Complex: Eugenics Evolves - Capital Research Center - August 6th, 2022 [August 6th, 2022]
- Mendels genetic revolution and the legacy of scientific racism - Peoples Dispatch - August 6th, 2022 [August 6th, 2022]
- When Sperm And Eggs Are Monetized, Existence Is Transactional - The Federalist - August 6th, 2022 [August 6th, 2022]
- Historian shares history of the dark ending of the diverse Malaga Island community - Press Herald - August 6th, 2022 [August 6th, 2022]
- Why We Are Not 'In This Together' - LA Progressive - August 6th, 2022 [August 6th, 2022]
- How Close Are We to War with China? | Guests: Rep. Chris Stewart & Eric Schmitt | 8/2/22 - The Glenn Beck Program - iHeartRadio - August 6th, 2022 [August 6th, 2022]
- STAM: Alma Adams, eugenics and radical abortion The North State Journal - North State Journal - July 29th, 2022 [July 29th, 2022]
- Moving from Rights to Justice: Uprooting Ableism and Cultivating Disability Justice - Next City - July 29th, 2022 [July 29th, 2022]
- Body politics: the secret history of the US anti-abortion movement - The Guardian - July 29th, 2022 [July 29th, 2022]
- 'The View' will tap Alyssa Farah Griffin as permanent co-host following Meghan McCain exit, sources say - FOX Bangor/ABC 7 News and Stories - July 29th, 2022 [July 29th, 2022]
- There's a straight line from eugenics to 'biblical family values' to white supremacy and the anti-abortion movement - Baptist News Global - July 7th, 2022 [July 7th, 2022]
- Viewpoint: In response to historical misuse of genetics to defend eugenics, some egalitarians call for defunding. Here's why that's not the solution -... - July 7th, 2022 [July 7th, 2022]
- To Be or Not to Be a Mother: A Timeless Question with New Urgency - Justia Verdict - July 7th, 2022 [July 7th, 2022]
- Another point of view - Arkansas Online - July 7th, 2022 [July 7th, 2022]
- A Vasectomy Historian on Why Male Sterilization Won't Solve the Abortion Problem - MEL Magazine - July 7th, 2022 [July 7th, 2022]