In a 1926 article in American Anthropologist, E.A. Hooten reviews the brand new journal Annals of Eugenics, a publication devoted to “racial problems” that “every anthropologist will welcome.”

Martin Robbins - 23 February 2011

Eugenics is, for good reason, a neglected part of the history of science. It is often associated with genocidal dictatorships such as the Nazi regime, but it’s easy to forget the uncomfortable truth that this was a well-established field in America and Britain too, only a few generations ago.

The following is a look at a PDF I stumbled across a few years ago; anthropologist E.A. Hooten’s 1926 review (pdf) of the first issue of a new journal called “Annals of Eugenics: A Journal for the Scientific Study of Racial Problems.”

The journal was issued by the Francis Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics, University of London, and this was no fringe publication - the Institute for Scientific Information listed it as one of the “262 journals published between 1900-1944 … identified as providing the most relevant significant and useful information of that era to today’s researcher”. Hooten was a “U.S. physical anthropologist known for his work on racial classification”, so what did he make of this new journal?

Full story

MaxBro

Kansas State Free Fair, Topeka, Fitter Families Contest examining staff and "sweepstakes" winning family

What do the SAT, the Kellogg Company, Woodrow Wilson and Adolf Hitler all have in common? They are all connected by the practice of eugenics in the first half of the 20th century.

From 1904 until shortly after the close of WWII, the United States aggressively engaged in a scientific quest to create a master race. This radical new science, dubbed “eugenics” by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, called for selective breeding between those deemed “fit” for existence (i.e. generally those of Nordic descent), with sterilization, marriage prohibition and even euthanasia aimed at those deemed “unfit.”

(more…)