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The Black Stork, serialsquadron.com/sites/ithacamademovies/features/blackstork/.

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Stern, Alexandra Minna. “Sterilized in the Name of Public Health: Race, Immigration, and Reproductive Control in Modern California.” American Journal of Public Health, © American Journal of Public Health 2005, July 2005, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449330/. 

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The most significant era of eugenics sterilization was in between 1907 and 1963, sometimes longer depending on some states. One major reason eugenics had a downfall, was because of Hitler and his use of sterilization and eugenics in World War ll. Hitler received his ideas from the Americans and their ideas of sterilization in the US.  After World War ll, Eugenics lost momentum and there was a new medical technology and a new form of eugenics. According to history.com, "Modern eugenics, better known as human genetic engineering, changes or removes genes to prevent disease, cure disease or improve your body in some significant way.". The gene engineering was used in a beneficial way in the new technology. The old ways of sterilization has mostly disappeared around the US.
If there wasn't Hitler and the Nazi's, when do you think the US would have realized that their ways of Eugenics weren't very good?

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Eugenics had many lasting effects on the entire world, it not only led to the unlawful sterilization of many but also to the eugenics use in Nazi Germany. The Eugenic Sterilization Law sanctioned the involuntary sterilization of German citizens who possessed hereditary afflictions, epilepsy, mental illnesses ,and physical handicaps. The Eugenics movement in the US set a precedence that many countries around the world followed.

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CLARA BOW IN "FREE TO LOVE" (1925): FEATURE FILMS AND EUGENICS IN THE 1920s

Australasian Journal of American Studies

Published By: Australia New Zealand American Studies Association

https://www. jstor .org/stable/41054097

This essay uses the 1925 silent film, Free to Love, starring Clara Bow, to illuminate the history of eugenics in the United States during the 1920s. Other scholars argue that, despite achieving its greatest political and social impact in the period, eugenics was not a significant theme in the movies during the 1920s and early 1930s. But Free to Love is shown to be eugenically sound, reflecting the two key emphases of eugenic thought: the prevention of reproduction by 'defectives' or the 'unfit' and its promotion among the 'well born.'

AJAS (ISSN 0705-7113) is the official journal of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association. It is an international journal published twice a year, in July and December, by the Association.

The purpose of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association (ANZASA) is to encourage study and research in all aspects of U.S. culture and society. In addition to publishing the Australasian Journal of American Studies, the association holds scholarly biennial conferences, supports postgraduate seminars, publishes occasional papers, supports research travel to United States for postgraduate research candidates and encourages scholarly exchanges between Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

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CLARA BOW IN "FREE TO LOVE" (1925): FEATURE FILMS AND EUGENICS IN THE 1920s on JSTOR

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CLARA BOW IN "FREE TO LOVE" (1925): FEATURE FILMS AND EUGENICS IN THE 1920s Australasian Journal of American Studies Published By: Australia New Zealand American Studies Association https://www. jstor .org/stable/41054097 This essay uses the 1925 silent film, Free to Love, starring Clara Bow, to illuminate the history of eugenics in the United States during the 1920s.

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History.com Editors. “Eugenics.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 15 Nov. 2017, www.history.com/topics/germany/eugenics. 

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Eugenics was a movement based in the philosophy that society should be "purified"  by society only reproducing with those who had desirable traits. These desired traits were considered as positive eugenics and were heavily encouraged, whereas negative eugenics refers to traits that were deemed as undesirable. By definition, eugenics means "good creation", and according to sources ancient philosopher Plato was the first person to talk about this idea, although he used a different term to describe it. He wrote about how high class people should procreate and told lower classes not to have children. The next person to become widely known for the movement was Francis Galton, also known as Charles Darwins cousin. However the first law in support of eugenics in America was made in 1896 Connecticut. It stated that people with epilepsy and who were "feeble-minded" from marrying. In 1903, the American Breeder's Association began to organize national conferences on eugenics to around 1928. Most of those who were told not to procreate were immigrants, minorities and lower class. In 1909, forced sterilizations began in mental hospitals in California, and progressed to other minorities throughout 33 states. The supreme court even ruled that this is not in violation of the constitution. Although this was overturned, Almost half of native Americans were sterilized without consent as recent as 1976. Although the peak of Eugenics in America was in the 1920s, it did lead to the same movement in Puerto rico as well as playing a large role in Hitler's ideology.

How important do you think the ideas of the US and Eugenics movement was on the rest of the world at the time?

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Eugenics is the practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by "breeding out" disease, disabilities and so-called undesirable characteristics from the human population. Early supporters of eugenics believed people inherited mental illness, criminal tendencies and even poverty, and that these conditions could be bred out of the gene pool.

Historically, eugenics encouraged people of so-called healthy, superior stock to reproduce and discouraged reproduction of the mentally challenged or anyone who fell outside the social norm. Eugenics was popular in America during much of the first half of the twentieth century, yet it earned its negative association mainly from Adolf Hitler's obsessive attempts to create a superior Aryan race.

Modern eugenics, more often called human genetic engineering, has come a long way-scientifically and ethically-and offers hope for treating many devastating genetic illnesses. Even so, it remains controversial.

Francis Galton

Eugenics literally means "good creation." The ancient Greek philosopher Plato may have been the first person to promote the idea, although the term "eugenics" didn't come on the scene until British scholar Sir Francis Galton coined it in 1883 in his book, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development.

In one of Plato's best-known literary works, The Republic, he wrote about creating a superior society by procreating high-class people together and discouraging coupling between the lower classes. He also suggested a variety of mating rules to help create an optimal society.

For instance, men should only have relations with a woman when arranged by their ruler, and incestuous relationships between parents and children were forbidden but not between brother and sister. While Plato's ideas may be considered a form of ancient eugenics, he received little credit from Galton.

Eugenics in America

In the late 19th century, Galton-whose cousin was Charles Darwin -hoped to better humankind through the propagation of the British elite. His plan never really took hold in his own country, but in America it was more widely embraced.

Eugenics made its first official appearance in American history through marriage laws. In 1896, Connecticut made it illegal for people with epilepsy or who were "feeble-minded" to marry. In 1903, the American Breeder's Association was created to study eugenics.

John Harvey Kellogg, of Kellogg cereal fame, organized the Race Betterment Foundation in 1911 and established a "pedigree registry." The foundation hosted national conferences on eugenics in 1914, 1915 and 1928.

As the concept of eugenics took hold, prominent citizens, scientists and socialists championed the cause and established the Eugenics Record Office. The office tracked families and their genetic traits, claiming most people considered unfit were immigrants, minorities or poor.

The Eugenics Record Office also maintained there was clear evidence that supposed negative family traits were caused by bad genes, not racism, economics or the social views of the time.

Forced Sterilizations

Eugenics in America took a dark turn in the early 20th century, led by California. From 1909 to 1979, around 20,000 sterilizations occurred in California state mental institutions under the guise of protecting society from the offspring of people with mental illness.

Many sterilizations were forced and performed on minorities. Thirty-three states would eventually allow involuntary sterilization in whomever lawmakers deemed unworthy to procreate.

In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that forced sterilization of the handicapped does not violate the U.S. Constitution. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, "...three generations of imbeciles are enough." In 1942, the ruling was overturned, but not before thousands of people underwent the procedure.

In the 1930s, the governor of Puerto Rico, Menendez Ramos, implemented sterilization programs for Puerto Rican women. Ramos claimed the action was needed to battle rampant poverty and economic strife; however, it may have also been a way to prevent the so-called superior Aryan gene pool from becoming tainted with Latino blood.

According to a 1976 Government Accountability Office investigation, between 25 and 50 percent of Native Americans were sterilized between 1970 and 1976. It's thought some sterilizations happened without consent during other surgical procedures such as an appendectomy.

In some cases, health care for living children was denied unless their mothers agreed to sterilization.

Adolf Hitler and Eugenics

As horrific as forced sterilization in America was, nothing compared to Adolf Hitler's eugenic experiments leading up to and during World War II. And Hitler didn't come up with the concept of a superior Aryan race all on his own. In fact, he referred to American eugenics in his 1934 book, Mein Kampf.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler declares non-Aryan races such as Jews and gypsies as inferior. He believed Germans should do everything possible, including genocide, to make sure their gene pool stayed pure. And in 1933, the Nazis created the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring which resulted in thousands of forced sterilizations.

By 1940, Hitler's master-race mania took a terrible turn as hundreds of thousands of Germans with mental or physical disabilities were euthanized by gas or lethal injection.

Josef Mengele

During World War II, concentration camp prisoners endured horrific medical tests under the guise of helping Hitler create the perfect race. Josef Mengele, an SS doctor at Auschwitz, oversaw many experiments on both adult and child twins.

He used chemical eyedrops to try and create blue eyes, injected prisoners with devastating diseases and performed surgery without anesthesia. Many of his "patients" died or suffered permanent disability, and his gruesome experiments earned him the nickname, "Angel of Death."

In all, it's estimated eleven million people died during the Holocaust, most of them because they didn't fit Hitler's definition of a superior race.

Genetic Engineering

Thanks to the unspeakable atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis, eugenics lost momentum in after World War II, although forced sterilizations still happened. But as medical technology advanced, a new form of eugenics came on the scene.

Modern eugenics, better known as human genetic engineering, changes or removes genes to prevent disease, cure disease or improve your body in some significant way. The potential health benefits of human gene therapy are staggering since many devastating or life-threatening illnesses could be cured.

But modern genetic engineering also comes with a potential cost. As technology advances, people could routinely weed-out what they consider undesirable traits in their offspring. Genetic testing already allows parents to identify some diseases in their child in utero which may cause them to terminate the pregnancy.

This is controversial since what exactly constitutes "negative traits" is open to interpretation, and many people feel that all humans have the right to be born regardless of disease, or that the laws of nature shouldn't be tampered with.

Much of America's historical eugenics efforts such as forced sterilizations have gone unpunished, although some states offered reparations to victims or their survivors. For the most part, though, it's a largely unknown stain on America's history. And no amount of money can ever repair the devastation of Hitler's eugenics programs.

As scientists embark on a new eugenics frontier, past failings can serve as a warning to approach modern genetic research with care and compassion.

Sources

American Breeder's Association. University of Missouri.
Charles Davenport and the Eugenics Record Office. University of Missouri.
Forced Sterilization of Native Americans: Late Twentieth Century Physician Cooperation with National Eugenic Policies. The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity.
Greek Theories on Eugenics. Journal of Medical Ethics.
Josef Mengele. Holocaust Encyclopedia.
Latina Women: Forced Sterilization. University of Michigan.
Modern Eugenics: Building a Better Person? Helix.
Nazi Medical Experiments. Holocaust Encyclopedia.
Plato. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States. PBS.

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Eugenics is the practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by "breeding out" disease, disabilities and so-called undesirable characteristics from the human population.

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Reynolds, P. Preston. “UVA and the History of Race: Eugenics, the Racial Integrity Act, Health Disparities.” UVA Today, 24 July 2020, news.virginia.edu/content/uva-and-history-race-eugenics-racial-integrity-act-health-disparities. 

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“Eugenics, Race, & Immigration Restriction.” College of Liberal Arts | University of Minnesota, 17 June 2015, cla.umn.edu/ihrc/news-events/other/eugenics-race-immigration-restriction. 

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Buck v. Bell Overview                                                                                                      

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Buck v. Bell Overview                                                                                                      

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Carrie buck is a women that suffered with mental problems. She was admitted to a state mental Institution. Mental problems ran through her family for 3 generations. At the time there was a Virginia law that allowed sexual sterilization of inmates to promote the health of the patient and the welfare of society. They were going to use this law and perform sterilization on Carrie Buck. But they need a hearing to let them perform the sterilizations.
What would you have thought about this situation as a US citizen?

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The court made the decision that the law did not violate the constitution. According to Oyez.org, "Citing the best interests of the state, Justice Holmes affirmed the value of a law like Virginia's in order to prevent the nation from "being swamped with incompetence . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough."." The judges decided that they were allowed to go through with the sterilization on Carrie Buck.
If you were a judge, how would you view this hearing and what would you decide on?

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Racial segregation was found in many different forms during the Eugenics movement. Segregation is the practice of limiting interactions between people because of their 'race'. During the Eugenics movement people implemented policies regarding relationships between white and non- white races. These policies lead to white people into dreading miscegenation.

Why were non whites racially segregated because of the Eugenics Movement?

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In 1883 the scientist Francis Galton introduced the term "Eugenics", in his studies of biological inheritance of leadership qualities that he wanted to reproduce. The Eugenics scientists and members believed in scientific racism. This ended up leading to immigration restriction ideas all over Europe and the US.  One example of the Eugenics movement affecting immigration,  is the influence the leaders of Eugenics helped pass the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924. This act halted the influx of the Southeast European Immigrants.
How do you think the common US population viewed the Eugenics ideas?

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The Eugenics movement did not want immigrants to come into the countries to mess up the so called" Perfect Race". They believed that Immigrants were a lower grade of intelligence compared to the true Americans. According to University of Minnesota, The scientists also believed that immigrants are just bringing the feeble minded, insane, criminals and other inadequate social classes. Since the immigrants were viewed as the ones that brought all these so called genetics to the US, the Eugenics believed that for the benefit of the country the US should get rid of the immigrants.
Should non immigrants also be targeted for having very bad traits?

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¨American Eugenics scientists in parlance with the situation, tried both to marital unions and large families among those the considered genetically fit.¨ Russell L. Johnson said this in response to Clara bows silent film called ¨Free to Love¨ which aimed to comment on the fact that the government was trying to control who people loved. Do you think this takes away people's free will? Do you think its right for a government to control the population in an attempt to better it?

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CLARA BOW IN "FREE TO LOVE" (1925): FEATURE FILMS AND EUGENICS IN THE 1920s

Australasian Journal of American Studies

Published By: Australia New Zealand American Studies Association

https://www. jstor .org/stable/41054097

This essay uses the 1925 silent film, Free to Love, starring Clara Bow, to illuminate the history of eugenics in the United States during the 1920s. Other scholars argue that, despite achieving its greatest political and social impact in the period, eugenics was not a significant theme in the movies during the 1920s and early 1930s. But Free to Love is shown to be eugenically sound, reflecting the two key emphases of eugenic thought: the prevention of reproduction by 'defectives' or the 'unfit' and its promotion among the 'well born.'

AJAS (ISSN 0705-7113) is the official journal of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association. It is an international journal published twice a year, in July and December, by the Association.

The purpose of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association (ANZASA) is to encourage study and research in all aspects of U.S. culture and society. In addition to publishing the Australasian Journal of American Studies, the association holds scholarly biennial conferences, supports postgraduate seminars, publishes occasional papers, supports research travel to United States for postgraduate research candidates and encourages scholarly exchanges between Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

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CLARA BOW IN "FREE TO LOVE" (1925): FEATURE FILMS AND EUGENICS IN THE 1920s on JSTOR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CLARA BOW IN "FREE TO LOVE" (1925): FEATURE FILMS AND EUGENICS IN THE 1920s Australasian Journal of American Studies Published By: Australia New Zealand American Studies Association https://www. jstor .org/stable/41054097 This essay uses the 1925 silent film, Free to Love, starring Clara Bow, to illuminate the history of eugenics in the United States during the 1920s.

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In "The Black Stork' era, a lot of the decisions that were made to eliminate 'unfit' infants were made by individual parents, and not by anyone forcing anybody to do anything. This was due to the fact that parents believed in the Eugenists and it was widely accepted that they were bettering society.
Do you think the terms ¨unfit¨ and ¨fit¨ blinded parents into making poor judgement calls with their children?

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College of Liberal Arts | University of Minnesota

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This resource consists of primary documents about the international eugenics movements in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Its goal is to show how eugenics influenced immigration laws and how eugenics theories and policies circulated across national boundaries as tools of the state in controlling population and immigration.
This lesson addresses state teaching standards:
I. US HISTORY J. Reshaping the Nation and the Emergence of Modern America, 1877-1916: Students will demonstrate knowledge of the imposition of racial segregation, African American disfranchisement, and growth of racial violence in the post-reconstruction South, the rise of "scientific racism," and the debates among African-Americans about how best to work for racial equality.
Introduction

In 1883, English scientist Francis Galton first introduced the term "eugenics" in his study of the biological inheritance of leadership qualities of Britain's ruling class. Galton later defined eugenics as "the study of the agencies under social control that improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally." Drawing from the new science of genetics, eugenicists understood various human and social problems as rooted in the defective germ-plasm of individuals or certain racial/ethnic groups. Claiming to base their theories on scientific evidence and methods, eugenics supporters rationalized "scientific racism" in the late-19th and early-20th centuries and helped shape state policies of sterilization, miscegenation prohibition, and immigration restriction. For example, in the United States, eugenicists were influential in passing the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 to halt the influx of Southeast European immigrants, who eugenicists viewed as immigrants "of the lower grades of intelligence" and immigrants "who are making excessive contribution to our feeble-minded, insane, criminal and other socially inadequate classes."

Eugenicists exchanged their findings in international professional meetings, including three major International Eugenics Congresses. Eugenic models and policies were also closely observed and followed among nations. United States sterilization legislation (first enacted in Indiana in 1907 and then upheld in 1926 by the United States Supreme Court) served as the model for similar laws in Alberta, Canada (1928), Sweden and Norway (1934), and Germany (1934). Harry Laughlin, the superintendent of a major United States eugenics organization (the Eugenics Records Office in New York City, later ERO) and a prominent advocate of immigration restriction, was even awarded an honorary degree from the University of Heidelberg in Germany in recognition of his work on "the science of racial cleansing."

Sources

The following sources show how eugenics influenced immigration laws and how eugenics theories and policies circulated across national boundaries as national tools for controlling population and immigration.

1. Proposal for immigration control from C.B. Davenport, leader of the ERO.

Citation: Committee on Immigration of the Eugenics Research Association. "Minutes of Meeting." February 25, 1920. Eugenics Archive.
Typed Minutes of 1920 Meeting

2. Letter from another influential eugenicist in California that commented on German and French eugenics policies and reflected on the United States alternatives.
Citation: Goethe, C.M. "Letter about French and German Eugenics Laws." January 12, 1935. Eugenics Archive.
Typed CM Goethe Letter

3. New York Times report on German sterilization laws and Germany's acclaim of the United States model.
New York Times. "Sterilization Law is Termed Humane." January 22, 1934, sec.6.

Discussion Questions

1. What are the main points Davenport put forward for the state control of immigrants' quality? What was the impact of eugenics on United States immigration laws in the 1920s?

2. According to the New York Times report, how did German legislators refer to American immigration and sterilization laws? How did Goethe discuss French and German eugenics laws? How were the eugenics ideology and policies were imitated and reinforced across national boundaries?

Suggested Readings

Adams, Mark. The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil and Russia. New York: Oxford, 1993.

Dowbiggin, Ian. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada 1880-1940. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.

Kuhl, Stefan. The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Stephan, Nancy Leys. The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender and Nation in Latin America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.

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Eugenics, Race, & Immigration Restriction

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This resource consists of primary documents about the international eugenics movements in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Its goal is to show how eugenics influenced immigration laws and how eugenics theories and policies circulated across national boundaries as tools of the state in controlling population and immigration.

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UVA and the History of Race: Eugenics, the Racial Integrity Act, Health Disparities

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One in an occasional series about the findings of the President's Commissions on Slavery and on the University in the Age of Segregation. This installment explores the origins and rise of eugenics.