The Decline of the Eugenics Movement

The Origins of Modern Eugenics.

The modern idea of eugenics originated in England in 1883 with Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin who helped found a British society to study eugenics. A sister organization to the British group, the American Eugenics Society, was formed in the United States in 1935. The implicit belief of eugenicists was that races were genetically superior or inferior and that to mix races meant putting "pure racial stocks" at risk. Scientific evidence gathered through the genetic study of plant observation suggests that the contrary result is the case.

Eugenics in the United States.

In the early 1930s the concept of selected sterilization, mostly of those in mental institutions, was commonly accepted in twenty-seven states, although several eventually withdrew the legislation authorizing the practice. The idea behind the practice was that to succeed in building a strong nation, social...

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