Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering the key figures, scientific theories, and legal milestones of the Eugenics movement in American history.

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution

The theory published in England in 1859 stating that living things change from generation to generation and that new forms of life eventually develop from, and sometimes replace, old forms.

Natural selection

Darwin's described process where an organism well suited to its environment has the best chance of surviving to produce offspring, causing new traits and species to evolve over time.

Francis Galton

An English mathematician and cousin of Charles Darwin who coined the term 'eugenics' and advocated for improving the human race by 'breeding the best with the best.'

Eugenics

Derived from a Greek word meaning 'good in birth' or 'noble in heredity,' it is the science which deals with all influences that improve and develop the inborn qualities of a race.

Social Darwinism

A doctrine popularized by British thinker Herbert Spencer that applied Darwin’s theories to human society, featuring the concept of the 'survival of the fittest' to justify competition and social inequality.

Plessy v. Ferguson

An 1896 United States Supreme Court case that ruled 'separate but equal' facilities for white and Black people did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.

Jim Crow laws

A system of state and local legislation that established racial barriers and segregation in almost every aspect of American life.

Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance

A set of principles describing how hereditary particles are passed from parents to offspring, rediscovered in 1900 and consisting of the Principles of Dominance, Segregation, and Independent Assortment.

Genotype

The internal genetic information within an organism.

Phenotype

The external appearance of an organism, such as the color of a pea plant's seeds.

Alleles

Alternate forms of hereditary particles or genes.

Homozygous

A state where both alleles for a particular trait are the same, also referred to as a 'pure line.'

Heterozygous

A state where the alleles for a particular trait differ from one another, also referred to as a 'hybrid.'

Charles Davenport

A dominant figure in the American eugenics movement who founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) at Cold Spring Harbor to study human heredity and social traits.

Eugenics Record Office (ERO)

An institution established in 1910 to study human heredity and educate the public on using eugenics to solve social problems like 'pauperism' and criminality.

Pedigree charts

Family trees used by eugenicists like Charles Davenport to track supposedly inherited physical and behavioral traits across generations.

Thomas Hunt Morgan

An American biologist who experimented with fruit flies and discovered that genes on the same chromosome are linked rather than randomly assorted.

Charles W. Stiles

A scientist with the U.S. Public Health Service who proved that hookworm disease, caused by environment and lack of sanitation, was responsible for the 'dull and backward' behavior previously attributed to heredity.

Henry H. Goddard

Author of the 1912 study 'The Kallikak Family,' which claimed to prove that 'feeblemindedness' was a hereditary trait by comparing two branches of the same family.

The Kallikak Family

A study using a pseudonym (combining the Greek words for 'beautiful' and 'bad') to research the heredity of 'feeblemindedness' in two different lines of descendants.

Franz Boas

A leading anthropologist who challenged race science by arguing that a group's achievements are rooted in history and circumstances rather than inherited ability.

Regression toward the mean

A statistical concept discovered by Galton finding that, despite the quality of parent strains, most offspring tend to trend back toward the middle or average.