1920's Science and Technology | "The Present Status of Eugenical Sterilization in the United States"

Presentation

By: Harry H. Laughlin

Date: 1923

Source: Laughlin, Harry H. "The Present Status of Eugenical Sterilization in the United States." In Scientific Papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics. Vol. II: Eugenics in Race and State. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1923, 286–291.

About the Author: Harry H. Laughlin (1880–1943) was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, and received a Ph.D. in biology from Princeton University. He directed the Eugenics Record Office of the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C., between 1910 and 1940, using his authority to advance the claim that states had a duty to sterilize "socially inadequate" people. He lobbied Congress to ban immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, people Laughlin believed to be inferior to northern Europeans. He died in 1943 in Kirksville, Missouri.

Introduction

In The Origin of...