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eugenics

Posts Tagged ‘eugenics’

The Better Babies Bureau

Better Baby Bureau

The Better Baby Bureau was created by Woman’s Home Companion in 1913. Children were scored according to mental and physical criteria:

Organizers of Better Babies shows varied in their aims and purposes. Some wanted a simple beauty contest. Others sought to promote the new practice of pediatrics. For many it was part of a process of presenting science-based facts to reinforce notions of racial superiority.

“These initiatives relied on standards for normal child development, as well as input from healthcare professionals and public health officials,” notes the Eugenics Archive. “Better Babies Contests addressed this concern for child welfare and physical development, becoming the first eugenic competitions held at state fairs.”

Eugenics And Making The American Master Race One Better Baby At A Time

Posted: 16th, February 2021 | In: Strange But True | Comment


William Charles Flynn: Breeding the perfect child through eugenics – 1915

This photograph shows William Charles Flynn, a winner of perfect “eugenic baby” contests in the early 20th Century.

The Spokesman-Review, of Mar 27, 1915, reports that Flynn, 37 months old, had won 14 first prizes in baby eugenics shows. His mother and the mother of 17-months-old Alene Calvert Houck, a girl with 6 wins under her nappy ban, hoped their “perfect 100-point” children would later marry produce the perfect human.

The Eugenics Archive has more:

When one considers the strong contribution of agricultural breeding to the eugenics movement, it is not difficult to see why eugenicists used state fairs as a venue for popular education. A majority of Americans were still living in rural areas during the first several decades of the 20th century, and fairs were major cultural events. Farmers brought their products of selective breeding — fat pigs, speedy horses, and large pumpkins — to the fair to be judged. Why not judge “human stock” to select the most eugenically fit family?

This was exactly the concept behind Fitter Families for Future Firesides — known simply as Fitter Families Contests. The contests were founded by Mary T. Watts and Florence Brown Sherbon — two pioneers of the Baby Health Examination movement, which sprang from a “Better Baby” contest at the 1911 Iowa State Fair and spread to 40 states before World War I. The first Fitter Family Contest was held at the Kansas State Free Fair in 1920. With support from the American Eugenics Society’s Committee on Popular Education, the contests were held at numerous fairs throughout the United States during the 1920s.

At most contests, competitors submitted an “Abridged Record of Family Traits,” and a team of medical doctors performed psychological and physical exams on family members. Each family member was given an overall letter grade of eugenic health, and the family with the highest grade average was awarded a silver trophy. Trophies were typically awarded in three family categories: small (1 child), medium (2-4 children), and large (5 or more children).

All contestants with a B+ or better received bronze medals bearing the inscription, “Yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Childless couples were eligible for prizes in contests held in some states. As expected, the Fitter Families Contest mirrored the eugenics movement itself; winners were invariably White with western and northern European heritage.

Top Ten Unlikely and Surprising Eugenicists

Posted: 13th, February 2021 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment


Project Prevention Pays UK Man To Have Vasectomy: Eugenics In Action

THE first person to take £200 from eugenicists from Project Prevention is JOHN, a 38-year-old heroin addict. He’s taken the cash and in return had a vasectomy.

Overlooking the obvious thing that habitual drugs takers can be shaggable and fertile – and that £200 might not be enough to sterilize wealthy drug takers – it’s all pretty appalling, isn’t it? We’ve heard from this group before, when they approached a woman and offered to have her neutered.

Project Prevention has stopped John creating children who will inherit his addictions. Or who would go on to have great lives. Hard to tell what the future holds. Although Anorak is always keen to hear from the likes of Project Prevention who just know.

Says John:

”It was kind of what spurred me into doing it in a way. It was something that I’d been thinking about for a long time and something that I’d already made my mind up that I wanted to do. Just hadn’t got around to it.”

Project Prevention aims:

The main objective of Project Prevention is public awareness to the problem of addicts/alcoholics exposing their unborn child to drugs during pregnancy. Project Prevention seeks to reduce the burden of this social problem on taxpayers, trim down social worker caseloads, and alleviate from our clients the burden of having children that will potentially be taken away.

So. Were the addicts targeted children of addicts? And if £200 is the price of a human life, should it be means tested so as to guarantee value for money for the taxpayer? And if one child not born would have invented a machine that makes drinking water from sand and donated the licence to the nation, can we taxpayers have a rebate…

Posted: 18th, October 2010 | In: Reviews | Comments (7)