Suggested Books
These are some resources that could be helpful in your eugenics paper. This is not an exhaustive list, but rather a place to start. Contact me if you need assistance finding additional resources. To find these books on the shelves, use the call numbers listed below.
Illiberal Reformers by
May have relevant chapters
Call Number: HC105 .L46 2016ISBN: 9780691169590Publication Date: 2016-01-12
Framing the Moron by
Many people are shocked upon discovering that tens of thousands of innocent persons in the United States were involuntarily sterilized, forced into institutions, and otherwise maltreated within the course of the eugenic movement (190030). Such social control efforts are easier to understand when we consider the variety of dehumanizing and fear-inducing rhetoric propagandists invoke to frame their potential victims. This book details the five major themes employed within the context of eugenic propaganda, and provides numerous examples of their use based on original sources of the period. These include the organism, animal, war or national catastrophe, religious and object metaphors. Rhetoric related to these themes was utilized to demonstrate the extent of potential harm posed by the presumptive unrelenting child-bearing among unfit groups; a threat that could only be countered by ensuring that such persons did not breed. Early in the twentieth century the term "moron" was developed to describe the primary targets of eugenic control. This book demonstrates how the image of moronity in the United States was shaped by eugenicists. The book will be of interest not only to disability and eugenic scholars and historians, but to anyone who wants to explore the means by which pejorative metaphors are used to support social control efforts against vulnerable community groups. While readers may be appalled at the use of such rhetoric to support control efforts, they will also no doubt draw parallels regarding the use of similar language in contemporary socio-political speeches and writings.
Call Number: HQ755.5.U5 O27 2013ISBN: 9780719087097Publication Date: 2013-04-30
States of Delinquency by
This unique analysis of the rise of the juvenile justice system from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries uses one of the harshest states--California--as a case study for examining racism in the treatment of incarcerated young people of color. Using rich new untapped archives, States of Delinquency is the first book to explore the experiences of young Mexican Americans, African Americans, and ethnic Euro-Americans in California correctional facilities including Whittier State School for Boys and the Preston School of Industry. Miroslava Ch#65533;vez-Garc#65533;a examines the ideologies and practices used by state institutions as they began to replace families and communities in punishing youth, and explores the application of science and pseudo-scientific research in the disproportionate classification of youths of color as degenerate. She also shows how these boys and girls, and their families, resisted increasingly harsh treatment and various kinds of abuse, including sterilization.
Call Number: CARLI EbookISBN: 9780520951556Publication Date: 2012-02-21
Better for All the World by
A timely and gripping history of the controversial eugenics movement in America–and the scientists, social reformers and progressives who supported it.In Better for All the World, Harry Bruinius charts the little known history of eugenics in America–a movement that began in the early twentieth century and resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 people. Bruinius tells the stories of Emma and Carrie Buck, two women trapped in poverty who became the test case in the 1927 supreme court decision allowing forced sterilization for those deemed unfit to procreate. From the reformers who turned local charities into government-run welfare systems promoting social and moral purity, to the influence the American policies had on Nazi Germany’s development of “racial hygiene,” Bruinius masterfully exposes the players and legislation behind one of America’s darkest secrets.
Call Number: HQ755.5.U5 B78 2007ISBN: 9780375713057Publication Date: 2007-04-10
Eugenic Nation by
Many people assume that eugenics all but disappeared with the fall of Nazism, but as this sweeping history demonstrates, the idea of better breeding had a wide and surprising reach in the United States throughout the twentieth century. With an original emphasis on the American West, Eugenic Nation brings to light many little-known facts--for example, that one-third of the involuntary sterilizations in this country occurred in California between 1909 and 1979--as it explores the influence of eugenics on phenomena as varied as race-based intelligence tests, school segregation, tropical medicine, the Border Patrol, and the environmental movement. Eugenic Nation begins in the 1900s, when influential California eugenicists molded an extensive agenda of better breeding for the rest of the country. The book traces hereditarian theories of sex and gender to the culture of conformity of the 1950s and moves to the 1960s, arguing that the liberation movements of that decade emerged in part as a challenge to policies and practices informed by eugenics.
Call Number: HQ755.5.U5 S84 2005ISBN: 0520244435Publication Date: 2005-08-08
War Against the Weak by
Genetics is in the news. What's not in the news are its origins in a racist 20th-century pseudoscience called eugenics. In 1904, the U.S. began a large-scale eugenics movement that was championed by the nation's medical, political, and religious elite. Eugenics sought to eliminate social "undesirables" and was eventually copied by the Third Reich. Whites, blacks, Native Americans nearly everyone was subject to sterilization, castration, and in some cases, euthanasia. In the aftermath of world revulsion over Nazi atrocities, eugenics was reborn with a new name and new packaging: genetics. This is an explosive, detailed, and vigorously researched account of U.S. race science and its "enlightened" reincarnation worldwide as human engineering. Illustrations accompany this startling investigation of America's century-long attempt to create a master race through mass sterilization and human breeding programs.
Call Number: HQ755.5.U5 B53 2003ISBN: 1568582587Publication Date: 2003-08-12
American Eugenics by
Traces the history of eugenics ideology in the United States and its ongoing presence in contemporary life. The Nazis may have given eugenics its negative connotations, but the practice--and the "science" that supports it--is still disturbingly alive in America in anti-immigration initiatives, the quest for a "gay gene, " and theories of collective intelligence. Tracing the historical roots and persistence of eugenics in the United States, Nancy Ordover explores the political and cultural climate that has endowed these campaigns with mass appeal and scientific legitimacy. American Eugenics demonstrates how biological theories of race, gender, and sexuality are crucially linked through a concern with regulating the "unfit." These links emerge in Ordover's examination of three separate but ultimately related American eugenics campaigns: early twentieth-century anti-immigration crusades; medical models and interventions imposed on (and sometimes embraced by) lesbians, gays, transgendered people, andbisexuals;,and the compulsory sterilization of poor women and women of color. Throughout, her work reveals how constructed notions of race, gender, sexuality, and nation are put to ideological uses and how "faith in science" can undermine progressive social movements, drawing liberals and conservatives alike into eugenics-based discourse and policies.
Call Number: HQ755.5.U5 O73 2003ISBN: 0816635595Publication Date: 2003-01-13
Genetic Politics by
"Genetic Politics explores the history of eugenics and the rise of contemporary genomics, identifying continuities and changes between the past and the present. The authors reject the two extreme positions that human genetics are either fatally corrupted by, or utterly immune from, eugenic influence. They argue that today's forms of genetic screening are far from equivalent to the eugenics of the past, but eugenics cannot simply be dismissed as bad science, or the product of totalitarian regimes, for its values and practices continue to shape genetics today."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Call Number: QH431 .K37 2002ISBN: 1873797265Publication Date: 2002-04-01
A Century of Eugenics in America by
In 1907, Indiana passed the world's first involuntary sterilization law based on the theory of eugenics. In time, more than 30 states and a dozen foreign countries followed suit. Although the Indiana statute was later declared unconstitutional, other laws restricting immigration and regulating marriage on "eugenic" grounds were still in effect in the U.S. as late as the 1970s. A Century of Eugenics in America assesses the history of eugenics in the United States and its status in the age of the Human Genome Project. The essays explore the early support of compulsory sterilization by doctors and legislators; the implementation of eugenic schemes in Indiana, Georgia, California, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Alabama; the legal and social challenges to sterilization; and the prospects for a eugenics movement basing its claims on modern genetic science.
Call Number: Milner EbookISBN: 9780253004987Publication Date: 2011-01-06
Imbeciles: the Supreme Court, American eugenics, and the sterilization of Carrie Buck by
*** This book is located in the Teaching Materials Center, which collects books for younger readers. This most likely will not be appropriate as a citable resource, but it might be useful for background knowledge.
One of America's great miscarriages of justice, the Supreme Court's infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling made government sterilization of "undesirable" citizens the law of the land New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen tells the story in Imbeciles of one of the darkest moments in the American legal tradition: the Supreme Court's decision to champion eugenic sterilization for the greater good of the country. In 1927, when the nation was caught up in eugenic fervor, the justices allowed Virginia to sterilize Carrie Buck, a perfectly normal young woman, for being an "imbecile."
Call Number: TMC 344.7304 COHISBN: 9781594204180Publication Date: 2016-03-01
The Sterilization of Carrie Buck by
Inside story of America's first compulsory sterilization. Electrifying disclosures by Carrie herself.
Call Number: HV4989 .S64 1989ISBN: 0882820451Publication Date: 1989-07-15
Reference Sources
Reference Databases:
- Gale Virtual Reference LibraryFull text multi-disciplinary database of reference books, encyclopedias, and handbooks.
- Sage KnowledgeIncludes ebooks and video covering all aspects of the social sciences such as education, media, communication, cultural studies, counseling, psychotherapy, business, management, politics, international relations, psychology, sociology, criminology, and criminal justice.
Online Reference Sources:
The links below will take you directly to the reference book chapter discussing genocide. These are just examples of what is available through Milner's reference databases. Use the links below to access our Gale and Sage reference databases.
- "Eugenics" from Encyclopedia of Race and RacismLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To find the specific chapter on Eugenics, click on the Gale button and select the Table of Contents. Select vol. 2: D-I, then click Felony-Hip. Find and click on Eugenics.
- "Eugenics" from A Dictionary of GeneticsLink takes you to the catalog record for the book. To get to the specific chapter on Eugenics, click the Oxford button and search within the work for "Eugenics."
- "Eugenics" from Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United StatesLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To find the specific chapter on Eugenics, click on the Gale button and select vol 2: D-I. Then select Education-Ex and click on Eugenics.
- "Eugenics" from Encyclopedia of PopulationLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To find the specific chapter on Eugenics, click on the Gale button and select Diffusion-Family. Then click Eugenics.
- "Buck v. Bell" from American Decades Primary SourcesLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To find the specific chapter on Buck v. Bell, click on the Gale button and select Vol. 3. Then find the Law and Justice section and select Buck v. Bell.
- "Eugenics and the Law" from American DecadesLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To find the specific chapter on Eugenics, click on the Gale button and search for "eugenics and the law" in the Search within this Publication box.
- "Eugenics" from Encyclopedia of Political TheoryLink takes you to the catalog record for the book. To get to the specific chapter, click the Sage button, limit to entries starting with E and find Eugenics.
- "Eugenics" From Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and SocietyLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To get to the specific chapter on Eugenics, click the Sage button, limit to entries starting with 'E' and find Eugenics.
- "Eugenics" from Encyclopedia of Law & Society: American and Global PerspectivesLink takes you to the catalog record for the book. To get to the specific chapter, click the Sage button and limit to the letter E. Then find Eugenics.
- "Buck v. Bell" From Gale Encyclopedia of American LawLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To find the specific chapter on Buck v. Bell, click on the Gale button and select vol 2: BE to COL. Then select the section Breach-Building and click the Buck v. Bell link.
- "Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)" From Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United StatesLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To find the specific chapter on Buck v. Bell, click on the Gale button and select Brewer-Champion. Then click the Buck v. Bell link.
- "Involuntary Sterilization: Eugenics and Public Policy" from American DecadesLink will take you to the catalog record for the book. To find the specific chapter, click on the Gale button and search for Involuntary Sterilization in the Search within this Publication box.
Print Reference Sources:
This is a good print reference book, available in Milner's stacks. Use the call number (see below) to find it in the reference section on Milner's main floor.
The Eugenics Movement by Call Number: HQ751 .E64 2005ISBN: 0313327912Publication Date: 2005-06-30Eugenics--the theory that we can improve future generations of humans through selective breeding--was one of the most controversial movements of the early 20th century. Often tied to racist beliefs and nativist desires to limit immigration, the eugenics movement attracted some of the most prominent scientists and social reformers of the day. This encyclopedia brings into one place concise descriptions of the leading figures, organizations, events, legislation, publications, concepts, and terms of this vitally important period historical movement. Although focused on the United States during the heyday of the movement, the encyclopedia includes material on international event as well as connections to important contemporary issues such as genetic engineering, family balancing, and the possibility of human cloning.
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