Sir Francis Galton Eugenics Summary

1883, Sir Francis Galton, a respected British scholar and cousin of Charles Darwin, first used the term eugenics, meaning “well-born.” Galton believed that the human race could help direct its future by selectively breeding individuals who have “desired” traits. This idea was based on Galton’s study of upper class Britain. Following these studies, Galton concluded that an elite position in society was due to a good genetic makeup. While Galton’s plans to improve the human race through selective breeding never came to fruition in Britain, they eventually took sinister turns in other countries.
The eugenics movement began in the U.S. in the late 19th century. However, unlike in Britain, eugenicists in the U.S. focused on efforts to stop the transmission of negative or “undesirable” traits from generation to generation. In response to these ideas, some US leaders, private citizens, and corporations started funding eugenical studies. This lead to the 1911 establishment of The Eugenics Records …show more content…
population. Stricter immigration rules were enacted, but the most ominous resolution was a plan to sterilize “unfit” individuals to prevent them from passing on their negative traits. During the 20th century, a total of 33 states had sterilization programs in place. While at first sterilization efforts targeted mentally ill people exclusively, later the traits deemed serious enough to warrant sterilization included alcoholism, criminality chronic poverty, blindness, deafness, feeble-mindedness, and promiscuity. It was also not uncommon for African American women to be sterilized during other medical procedures without consent. Most people subjected to these sterilizations had no choice, and because the program was run by the government, they had little chance of escaping the procedure. It is thought that around 65,000 Americans were sterilized during this time