The Rise of Eugenics: The Four Cornerstones of the American Eugenics Society

Elaine*, a high-school senior in Ontario, Canada, writes about her research on the Four Cornerstones of the American Eugenics Society in her Yale Summer Session course.

*Elaine Xu ‘26 (she/her/hers) is a high-school senior in Ontario, Canada.

This past summer, I took a course with Yale Summer Session called the Histories of Racism in Science, Medicine, and the University taught by Professor Daniel HoSang. This course dove deeply into the inextricable link between the history of eugenics and Yale University’s extensive and active contributions to the movement. Learning about this history raised a really interesting question for me: How did a belief system so fundamentally wrong, built on pseudoscience and discrimination, become so widespread and so widely accepted as a legitimate idea?

From this initial question, my research drove me to a primary source, the Organized Eugenics pamphlet of 1931, which revealed the American Eugenics Society’s four-pronged strategy to build a strong foundation for their movement. The rise of eugenics was not an accident; it was an organized effort built on four key cornerstones: “suitable prestige, suitable program, suitable personnel, and adequate financial support”. In this blog post, I will expand on each of them and explain how they actually supported the rise of eugenics.

1. Suitable Prestige: The Illusion of Credibility

The American Eugenics Society (AES) created an Advisory Council composed of one hundred experts in fields such as genetics, sociology, and biology, utilizing each expert’s credibility to support their own. However, beyond just having experts on their team, the AES also focused on public engagement, widespread publication of their message, and partnering with different institutions. A key part of their public engagement was the infamous “Fitter Families” contests. By holding these contests at state-fairs, the Society brought concepts of eugenics to a popular audience, spreading widespread interest in eugenics. The AES also promoted its ideas by publishing a variety of reports, articles, and journals. The Society’s official journal, Eugenics, and the Eugenical News magazine, played a key role in this effort. These publications shared information from an academic perspective, framing the AES as a scientifically credible society. The AES also partnered with established research institutions like the Eugenics Record Office (ERO), which collected and analyzed data on what they incorrectly believed were “heritable traits.” 

2. Suitable Program: The Application of Eugenics

The general purpose of the AES was primarily to use the practical application of eugenics to “improve” the American population. They predominately did that through “(1) The promotion of eugenic research. (2) The promotion of eugenic education. (3) The promotion of conservative eugenic legislation. (4) The promotion of eugenic administration.” 

(1) Eugenic Research

Eugenic research was the foundation of the eugenic movement’s credibility. For the AES, this research was mainly the analysis of data on human heredity, migration, marriage, and other societal factors to observe its impact on “good” or “bad” stock. By promoting and supporting this eugenic research, including investing into research on the inheritance of mental, physical, and temperamental traits and the alleged effects of immigration on physique and cognitive ability, the AES could present its proposals and policies as grounded in science. This allowed the AES to legitimize their actions, ultimately making the AES more widespread.

(2) Eugenic Education

The AES aimed to promote both formal education, for those in school, and popular education, for the general public. They sought to normalize those beliefs, not only because they believed in it, but also to embed eugenic thinking into the public, ensuring that the eugenics movement would be able to grow even more. This approach directly helped the AES become more widespread by integrating eugenics into numerous educational programs, influencing the perspective of both public and academic communities.

(3) Conservative Eugenic Legislation

Eugenic legislation was about moving to the practical approach of eugenics. By successfully lobbying for laws on immigration and sterilization, the AES made its principles part of official public policy, embedding eugenic ideology into legal frameworks. The successes of their lobbying made the AES more widespread by increasing its visibility in society and reinforcing its legitimacy as an influential actor.

(4) Eugenic Administration

Eugenic administration was about embedding eugenics into the daily operations of various institutions, aiming to ensure the movement’s sustainability in the long-term. The AES played a role in this by actively lobbying for eugenic laws to be passed and generating “scientific evidence”, such as pedigree charts, that would be used as the official administrative evidence to justify their eugenic operations.

3. Suitable Personnel

To the AES, suitable personnel were those who could contribute to scientific authority, financial situation, or administrative influence in society. The AES deliberately appealed to a broader audience, encouraging both scientists and lay persons interested in promoting the practical component of eugenics to join. This approach allowed for a more diverse demographic of members, including women, educators, judges, physicians, and police officers. The AES also used a tiered membership system with varying annual fees. This made participation more accessible and contributed to the size of their membership list. 

4. Financial Support

For a considerable period of time, the AES had a rather stable financial situation. Their funding came from a combination of membership fees and donations from wealthy individuals or institutions, but the latter made up the majority of its funding. Their membership and finance systems were able to maintain secure funding to support the AES’s activities for an extended period of time, allowing for them to grow their influence.

All together, the rise of eugenics and the AES was no accident. The organization used these four carefully thought out cornerstones to legitimize this dangerous ideology. By capitalizing on the authority of science, implementing practical applications of eugenics, and garnering support and funding, the AES embedded eugenic beliefs into American society. 

The American Eugenics Society and the need to create anti-eugenic alternatives serve as a powerful reminder of how even ideas that seem objective can be used to justify inequality and discriminatory practices and can rise to prominence when backed by a well-organized and well-funded campaign. Taking this course taught me how deeply ingrained eugenics was in society and how this movement was able to rise to prominence; it has taught me how important it is to acknowledge and reflect on the past. This history is so important because only by knowing what happened in the past can we take steps to prevent these tragedies from recurring. I learned a lot from my summer course and research, and I hope you are able to learn something from this blog post as well. Remember, keep questioning the “why” behind the ideas that shape our world, so that we can prevent dangerous ideologies from taking root again.