Legacies of eugenics: confronting the past, forging a future

After 1900, eugenics became an influential scientific theory used by physicians, health experts, religious leaders and politicians across the political spectrum to express their understanding of human and social evolution and formulate their duties and responsibilities towards the nation, the race, and future generations. Physical and intellectual achievements, it was assumed, were determined by heredity. To control heredity, eugenicists claimed, was to ensure the betterment of future generations and the survival of the species. Another popular claim put forward during the first half of the twentieth century was that modern society was under constant threat from those with physical and mental disabilities (Stern 2016; Herzog 2018). Eugenicists wanted to prevent these people from having children. Protecting the so-called “feebleminded”, the constitutionally weak and the socially “unfit” was deemed detrimental to the future of the race. Finally, eugenics promised a solution to social problems as varied as crime, alcoholism, and poverty. None of these claims were substantiated by credible scientific evidence, but this did not prevent the application of eugenics on social, economic, and racial grounds. Throughout the twentieth...