Eugenics: The Well-Born Science · Episode 3 of 9 · 48 min
How Elite Money Built American Eugenics: The Eugenics Record Office
American eugenics got an address in 1910: a records office on Long Island, funded by railroad and steel fortunes. Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin collected family pedigrees, drafted a model sterilization law and lobbied Congress. The episode follows how elite money gave the movement a staff and respectability until a Carnegie review found its work worthless.
Who's who
- Charles Davenport+1 more episodeBiologist who founded the Eugenics Record Office
- Harry H. Laughlin+4 more episodesOffice superintendent, lobbyist and author of the Model Eugenical Sterilization Law
- Mary HarrimanRailroad widow and the office's first major patron
- Henry H. Goddard+3 more episodesPsychologist who published The Kallikak Family
- Herbert Spencer JenningsGeneticist who condemned Laughlin's statistics
- Vannevar BushCarnegie president who closed the office in 1939
- Richard DugdaleAuthor of the 1877 study The Jukes
Where it happens
- Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New YorkHome of the Eugenics Record Office
- Washington, D.C.+31 more episodesBase of the Carnegie Institution, which took over the office
Timeline
- 1910Davenport founds the Eugenics Record Office and hires Laughlin
- 1912Goddard publishes The Kallikak Family
- 1914Laughlin drafts the Model Eugenical Sterilization Law
- 1918Harriman transfers the office to the Carnegie Institution
- 1935Carnegie review finds the office's work scientifically worthless
- 1939Office closed and Laughlin forced to retire
Still debated
Historians debate whether Davenport was a misguided scientist or a committed racial ideologue, how to view the young women field workers, and how decisive the office was among many eugenics centers. Dugdale's own environmental intent for The Jukes was later overridden.
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