America’s Unsettling Early Eugenics Movement
Eugenics, a dark offshoot of the science of genetics, was an early 20th century movement that sought to prevent social ills by seeing that those who caused them were never born. The movement produced an awful lot of books, tracts and pamphlets, but it didn’t leave behind much in the way of photographs.
Anyone that has followed me for a while knows that I am a huge geek for the history of science and psychology. Here are some great photographs from the dark days of Eugenics in America. Eugenics ultimately led to 65,000 forced sterilizations in the US in 33 different states. 27 states still had sterilization laws in their books in 1956. That really isn’t that long ago.
