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In addition to teaching eugenics, several universities also
performed research. The University of Vermont was singled out in
the May 1929 issue of Eugenics for special attention because
of the statewide eugenic survey of families that originated from
the university’s zoology department. The survey, which was started
in 1926, concentrated on “low grade families.” According to
Professor Henry F. Perkins, “The characteristics of these families
were gone into in order to get at the apparent causes of their
deficiency, degeneracy or dependency.”
The class syllabi from WSC’s Zoology 61 appear to be lost, but
the textbooks are still available. One was Genetics and
Eugenics, by Harvard professor W.E. Castle. It was printed in
four revised editions from 1912 to 1931. In the first edition
Castle turned over the eugenics completely to Charles Davenport,
head of the Eugenics Record Office. Davenport had 41 pages. Here we
learn of the genetics of human traits such as wanderlust, suicide,
eccentricity, and licentiousness. Davenport also pointed out with
pride that the Germans “have recently organized an International
Society of Race Hygiene.”
Eugenicists were swept up in a cult that existed because of the
need for simple solutions to perceived societal problems. These
solutions were based on bad and/or simplistic science. Eugenics
fell out of favor by mid-century. There were many reasons for the
decline. Scientifically, it was a politicized mess. Geneticists,
who as a group were painfully slow to criticize, finally began
exposing its flaws by the late 1920s. They pointed out that many
eugenic traits had no simple genetic basis. And those traits that
might have had a genetic component were still influenced by the
environment and its interactions with genes.
The field of statistics, invented by English eugenicists to
prove their theories, was also turning against eugenics. It was
shown that, even if traits targeted for removal were controlled by
only one recessive gene, the removal of individuals from the
breeding pool would have a very small effect on whole populations
over time. Once the criticisms became more frequent and
broad-based, eugenics became increasingly discredited as a field of
science. Racism and white supremacy were also falling out of favor
in most quarters of American culture. Anthropologists, many of whom
had been saying publicly for decades that eugenics had no
scientific basis, were now being listened to. Finally, in the
aftermath of World War II, the horrors of Nazi racial hygiene
programs were becoming clear to most Americans.
American universities had played a large role in popularizing
and legitimizing eugenics as a science. By contrast, they did
little to formally reject it, choosing instead in many cases to
back away slowly from any involvement.
By 1950 eugenics as a word, as a mode of action, and as a topic
of study was on its way out of the mainstream. And in the end, at
Washington State University, it seems that it was the students who
just didn’t want to have anything more to do with it.
Stephen Jones is a professor in Crop
and Soil Sciences. He teaches a graduate course in the history and
ethics of genetics and gives guest lectures on eugenics in
undergraduate courses such as Disability and Society. If you have
course notes or recollections of Zoology 61 that you wish to share,
please contact Jones at joness@wsu.
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