Eugenics

Essay Instructions:

Important: You'll be assigned a Complete/Incomplete grade for this rough draft (100 or 0 points). The attached rubric is included to guide the comments of your peer reviewer. Your grade on this rough draft and the peer review feedback may differ substantially from the grade on your final draft, which will be graded by the instructor or TAs.
Instructions: Write a 3-4 page essay that answers the prompt below. Your paper should be double spaced, and in Times New Roman, size 12 font.
Eugenics, or the belief in the improvement of the human race through selective breeding, played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States prior to WWII. Based on pseudo science, tens of thousands of Americans were forcibly sterilized during those years and well into the 1970s. Using TWO of the secondary sources AND at least FOUR of the primary sources below (or six sources total) answer the following question: Despite early criticism, what contributed to the rise of the eugenics movement during the first decades of the twentieth century?
Hint: This paper should not be about your agreement or disagreement with eugenics. It should focus on the historical conditions (events, support, etc.) that enabled the spread of these ideas and the practice of forced sterilization in the United States. You should consider influential supporters of the movement, relevant propaganda, language used in eugenics literature, widespread concerns with immigration and urbanization, the Progressive movement itself, etc. Of the above-noted factors for the rise of eugenics, select the three which you find to be the most significant, name them in your thesis statement and in the topic sentence of a corresponding body paragraph, and support this position in the details of the relevant paragraph using primary and secondary sources as evidence.
Secondary Sources (select at least 2)
Your textbook
George O'donnell, The Eugenics Crusade: What's Wrong with Perfect? (documentary) (Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.) Nicole Mellow, "The Democratic Fit: Party Reform and the Eugenics Tool," pp. 197-218 (book chapter) (Links to an external site.)
**Note: Nicole Mellow's book chapter is available on JSTOR. You'll need to access JSTOR using your FIU credentials. Visit library.fiu.edu, click on "Find," then select A-Z list. Scroll down to JSTOR and sign in. Alternatively, you may access this PDF file to view the chapter.

Primary Sources (select at least 4)
For eugenics:
Robert Rentoul, Proposed Sterilization of Certain Mental and Physical Degenerates: An Appeal to Asylum Managers and Others (1903) (Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.)G. Stanley Hall, "Eugenics as a New Creed (1911) (Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.)Anonymous, "Pastors for Eugenics" (1913) (Links to an external site.)
William J. Robinson, Eugenics, Marriage and Birth Control (Practical Eugenics) (1917) (Links to an external site.)
Kelly Miller, “Eugenics of the Negro Race" (1917) (Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.)Buck v. Bell (1927) (Links to an external site.)
“The Civilizing Force of Birth Control”: Margaret Sanger Becomes a Moderate (1929) (Links to an external site.)
Harry Laughlin, The Legal Status of Eugenical Sterilization (1930) (Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.
Some criticisms of eugenics:
Veto of Pennsylvania Eugenics Law by Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker (1905) (Links to an external site.)
Franz Boas, "The Instability of Human Types" (1911) (Links to an external site.)
Judgement on Eugenics Law - Supreme Court of the State of Indiana (1920) (Links to an external site.)
Walter Lippman, "The Mental Age of Americans" (1922) (Links to an external site.)
Clarence Darrow, "The Eugenics Cult" (1926)Preview the document
(Links to an external site.)

Additional Guidelines
Be sure to structure your essay with an introduction, body and conclusion.
The introductory paragraph should include the following three parts:
Context or background (2-3 sentences). You should provide context to the material you will be discussing. You should “set the scene” by providing the what, the where, the when, or the who of the material. There should be no argument here, just general historical data to set up your historical question and thesis statement.
Historical problem (1-2 sentences). This should be the essay prompt reintroduced as the historical problem you will be addressing in the paper. Try to find a flow between the background information you provide and the statement of the historical problem. Why should we care about the historical facts you just discussed in the preceding background/context section of the introduction? What is their significance?
Thesis statement (1-2 sentences). The thesis statement should have 2 parts. The first states your position or answer to the historical problem above, and the second provides a blueprint for the paper (or approximately three elements that will support your position in the body of the paper). ***Note: Each element in the blueprint should directly correlate to a topic sentence or main idea in a corresponding body paragraph.
Body paragraphs should have topic sentences describing the main idea of the corresponding paragraph. They should echo one of your thesis elements.
Sources should provide your evidence. Body paragraphs should use primary and secondary sources to support your argument. You may ONLY use the primary and secondary sources provided on CANVAS or specified in the prompt(s) above. Absolutely no outside internet sources should be used for this assignment. The specific number of sources required for each essay question is provided in the prompt(s) above.
Citations: Cite any quotations, paraphrased content, or original ideas from other sources using the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS). Citations in CMS formatting should be written as footnotes. ***Note: Sources and citations are two different things. Sources are the repositories of your information (the book, article, or historical document). Citations are references to the sources, usually with specific page numbers or locations within the source. The paper should use the minimum number of sources stated above, but it can and should have many more footnote citations. The minimum number of footnotes will equal the number of sources required, but an excellent paper will have many more specific footnote citations. ***Note: You do not need a bibliography. The first time you mention a source in a footnote citation, you should provide the full reference of the source. You should use "Ibid" (plus the page number, if applicable) for any series of footnotes that reference the same source. See the Purdue Online Writing Lab (Links to an external site.) for specific examples.
Grammar and Style. Use a concise, professional and academic style of writing, free of grammatical errors and colloquialisms.
Quotations: Limit quotations to 1 sentence per page or one longer quotation of 3 to 4 sentences for the whole essay

Essay Sample Content Preview:

EUGENICS
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EUGENICS
The term eugenics was founded in 1883 by Francis Galton, a British explorer and natural scientist, who proposed a system that would give more favorable races or individuals a better chance of surviving globally through Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. It is defined as the selection of more desirable features to improve future generations. The process received support from certain groups but also received significant criticism. However, despite the complaint, the practice prevailed courtesy of support from many scientific authorities and political leaders who believed in Social Darwinism’s theory that among humans, life was based on “survival for the fittest.”
Eugenics began receiving support from the Progressives who desired a population with specific desirable attributes necessary to create a good society. According to Mellow, the proponents desired a community that comprised individuals who were at minimum, independent, rational, had moral behavior, and were devoted to the American institutions. The campaign occurred in the wake of the increase in the rate of immigration into the country that was fueling urban industrial poverty. It targeted the "socially inadequate" and was meant to increase the number of citizens perceived as fit and eliminate those deemed unfit. Among the high-profile individuals who supported the practice was Teddy Roosevelt, who campaigned relentlessly to encourage reproduction among citizens with ideal features.[Nicole Mellow, "The Democratic Fit: Party Reform and the Eugenics Tool," pp. 197-218 (book chapter)]
The main purpose of advancing this concept was to control the masses. It mainly used the scientific theory of heredity for social control, whose ultimate goal was to eradicate the social ills by reducing the number of individuals perceived as genetically unfit. The group mainly included immigrant groups, the poor, the Jews, and the mentally and physically challenged. The progressives wanted to have a superior country to the rest of the world and hence opted to control who entered the country. They advanced laws that restricted immigration to only a few individuals considered to be healthy. Ultimately, the drive for eugenics culminated in the institutionalization and sterilization of several American citizens. The law to bar certain groups of people appeared insufficient to control the people born with undesirable features. Hence, the drive to sterilize the citizens was deemed unfit and prevented them from replicating their race.[George O'Donnell, T...

Updated on January 26, 2024

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Eugenics

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