Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Timeline
  • Published:

Engineering American society: the lesson of eugenics

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 1, pages 153–158 (2000)Cite this article

We stand at the threshold of a new century, with the whole human genome stretched out before us. Messages from science, the popular media, and the stock market suggest a world of seemingly limitless opportunities to improve human health and productivity. But at the turn of the last century, science and society faced a similar rush to exploit human genetics. The story of eugenics — humankind's first venture into a `gene age' — holds a cautionary lesson for our current preoccupation with genes.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The eugenic tree.
Figure 2: Leaders of the American eugenics movement.
Figure 3: Eugenics Pavillion at Texas State Free Fair, 1920.

References

  1. Galton, F. Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (Dent, London, 1883).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  2. Galton, F. Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences (MacMillan, London and New York, 1869).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  3. Davenport, C. B. First study of inheritance of epilepsy. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. 38, 641–670 (1911).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Davenport, C. B. Huntington's chorea in relation to heredity and eugenics. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 1, 283–285 (1915).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Presser, S. A. & Davenport, C. B. Mutlitple neurofibromatosis (Von Recklinghausen's disease) and its inheritance: With description of a case. Am. J. Med. Sci. 156, 506– 541 (1918).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Davenport, C. B. Heredity of albinism. J. Heredity 7, 221 –223 (1916).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Selden, S. Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America (Teachers College, New York, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Davenport, C. B. Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding (Holt, New York, 1912).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Davenport, C. B. Eugenics Record Office Bulletin Number 6: The Trait Book (Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1912).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Davenport, C. B. & Laughlin, H. H. Eugenics Record Office Bulletin Number 13: How to Make a Eugenical Family Study (Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1915).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Allen, G. E. The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910–1940: An essay on institutional history. Osiris 2, 225– 264 (1986).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Anonymous. Onania, Or the Heinous Sin of Self–Pollution and All Its Frightful Consequences in Both Sexes, Considered (Corbett, London, circa 1710).

  13. Carlson, E. A. The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 2001.)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Dugdale, R. The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity (Putnam, New York, 1877).

    Google Scholar 

  15. Davenport, C. B. & Estabrook, A. H. Eugenics Record Office Memoir #2: The Nam Family. A Study of Cacogenics (Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1912)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Goddard, H. H. The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeblemindedness (Macmillan, New York, 1912).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  17. Estabrook, A. H. in Eugenics, Genetics, and the Family Vol I, 398 –404 (Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, 1923).

    Google Scholar 

  18. Weismann, A. in Essays Upon Hereditary and Kindred Biological Problems 67– 106 (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1891).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Chase, A. The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism (Knopf, New York, 1977).

    Google Scholar 

  20. Tift, W. S. Ellis Island (Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1989).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Adams, G. The Age of Industrial Violence (Columbia Univ. Press, New York, 1967).

    Google Scholar 

  22. United States House of Representatives. Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization: Biological Aspects of Immigration, 66th Congress, Second Session, April 16–17, 1920 (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1921).

  23. United States House of Representatives. Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization: Analysis of America's Modern Melting Pot, 67th Congress, Third Session, November 21, 1922 (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1923).

  24. United States House of Representatives. Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization: Europe as an Emigrant-Exporting Continent and the United States as an Immigrant–Receiving Nation, 68th Congress, First Session, March 8, 1924 (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1924).

  25. United States Department of Justice. Legal immigration, fiscal year 1998. US Immigration and Naturalization Service Annu. Report 2, 1–11 (1999 ).

  26. Gobineau, J. A. The Inequality of Races (New York: Fertig, New York, 1853).

    Google Scholar 

  27. Davenport, C. B. Eugenics Record Office Bulletin Number 9: State Laws Limiting Marriage Selection in Light of Eugenics (Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1913).

    Google Scholar 

  28. Grant, M. The Passing of the Great Race or the Racial Basis of European History (Scribners, New York, 1921).

    Google Scholar 

  29. Reilly, P. R. The Virginia Racial Integrity Act revisited: the Plecker–Laughlin correspondence: 1928–1930. Am. J. Med. Genet. 16, 483–492 (1983).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  30. Lombardo, P. A. Miscegenation, eugenics and racism: Historical footnotes to Loving v. Virginia . Univ. Calif. Davis Law Review 21, 421– 452 (1988).

    Google Scholar 

  31. Sharp, H. C. The severing of the vasa deferentia and its relation to the neuropsychopathic constitution. NY Med. J. 75, 411– 414 (1902).

    Google Scholar 

  32. Ridley, M. Eugenics and liberty. Prospect August/September, 44 –47 (1998).

  33. Lombardo, P. A. Three generations, no imbeciles: New light on Buck v. Bell. NY University Law Review 60, 30–62 (1985).

    Google Scholar 

  34. Gould, S. J. in The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections on Natural History 306– 318 (Morton, New York, 1987).

    Google Scholar 

  35. Reilly, P. R. The Surgical Solution (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 1991).

    Google Scholar 

  36. Hardy, G. N. Mendelian proportions in a mixed population. Science 28, 49–50 (1908).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. Paul, D. B. & Spencer, H. G. The hidden science of eugenics . Nature 374, 302–304 (1995).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Muller, H. J. Genetic variability, twin hybrids, and constant hybrids, in the case of balanced lethal factors. Genetics 3, 422– 499 (1918).

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  39. Altenburg, E. & Muller, H. J. The genetic basis of truncate wing: An inconstant and modifiable character in Drosophila. Genetics 5, 1–59 ( 1920).

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  40. Muller, H. J. in A Decade of Progress in Eugenics, 138–144 (Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, 1934).

    Google Scholar 

  41. Newman, H. H., Freeman, F. N. & Holzinger, K. J. Twins: A Study of Heredity and Environment (Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1937).

    Google Scholar 

  42. Kevles, D. In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Knopf, New York, 1985).

    Google Scholar 

  43. Pearl, R. The Present Status of Eugenics (Sociological Press, Hanover, Minneapolis, Liverpool, 1928).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This article was inspired by original documents and photographs from the collection of the Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement, of which the authors are the editor (D.M.) and editorial advisor (E.C.). The Image Archive is supported by a grant from the Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) Program of the United States National Human Genome Research Institute.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. DNA Learning Centre, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbour, New York, USA

    David Micklos

  2. State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York, USA

    Elof Carlson

Authors
  1. David Micklos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elof Carlson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Related links

Related links

FURTHER INFORMATION

Hardy-Weinberg law

Image archive on the American Eugenics movement

The DNA learning centre at CSHL

Galton - Biography and works

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Micklos, D., Carlson, E. Engineering American society: the lesson of eugenics . Nat Rev Genet 1, 153–158 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35038589

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35038589

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing