Full Reading List on Eugenics History and Modern Effects

Purpose and Overview

This list is a tool for learning about the eugenics movement’s history and modern effects. I want more people to know this information. I want to aid in the ability to recognize and reject modern eugenics. The history is also something that should be more widely taught.

Print means I found them in books or do not know if they are online and available for download. I have marked academic articles as such. Some of these may not be 100% accurate. I am working on providing a publication date for each source.

My area of knowledge is mostly on the United States and a few other areas. It is hard to confirm the news sources, or the academic premise, for some articles. For this reason, some sections have fewer links/sources. If anyone finds these articles cannot be verified, please let me know. A source appearing here does not mean I agree or endorse everything in that source.

Last updated August 28, 2018: Added news article on North Dakota, a section for Japanese eugenics, some articles on the sterilization of incarcerated women, and a few other links and titles here and there.

Sections 

• Primers
• Secondary American Eugenics Sources – Print
• Secondary American Eugenics Sources – Non-Print
• Primary American Eugenics Sources – Non-Print
• American Eugenics: 1927 Buck v. Bell U.S. Supreme Court decision (all sources)
• Eugenics in Nazi Germany (all sources)
• Czech Eugenics (all sources)
• Canadian Eugenics (all sources)
• Australian Eugenics (all sources)
• New Zealand Eugenics (all sources)
• Russian Eugenics (all sources)
• Mexican Eugenics (all sources)
• Irish Eugenics (all sources)
• Swedish Eugenics (all sources)
• Japanese Eugenics (all sources)
• Hungarian Eugenics (all sources)
• Modern Effects of Eugenics: Beyond Genomics and Genetics
• Modern Effects of Eugenics: Genomics and Genetics
• Other Bibliographies and Reading Lists

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Primers 

• A History of Eugenics in the United States and Germany [PDF] by Kit Mead
• Overview of Eugenics

Secondary American Eugenics – Academic Print Sources

• Better for All the World – Harry Bruinius
• Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck by Adam Cohen
• Eugenic Nation – Alexandra Minna Stern
• In the Name of Eugenics – Daniel J. Kevles
• War Against the Weak – Edwin Black
• Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America –Steven Selden
• A Disability History of the United States, chapter “Three Generations of Imbeciles are Enough” – Kim E. Nielsen
• A Century of Eugenics: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era – edited by Paul A. Lombardo
• “A Heritage of Ableist Rhetoric in American Feminism from the Eugenics Period,” in Feminist Disability Studies, essay by Sharon Lamp and W. Carol Cleigh
• Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in TwentiethCentury North America by Randall Hansen & Desmond King
• Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity by Theodore M. Porter

Secondary American Eugenics Sources – Non-Print Sources

General-ish 

• Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement
• American Philosophical Society image repository on American eugenics
• Eugenics in the United States and Britain, 1890 to 1930: A Comparative Analysis, 1979 [Academic]
• Disproportionality of Black individuals sterilized, 2006 [academic, link to quote from book]
• Ellis Island’s Forgotten Hospital, Oct. 2007
• Nikola Tesla the Eugenicist, Nov. 2012
• On the 1912 eugenics “Trait Book,” Mar. 2014
• Ensuring the rights of parents with disabilities, section “History of parenting rights in the disability community,” Sep. 2014
• For the Public Good: The Shameful History of Eugenics in the United States, Nov. 2014
• ETSU faculty speaks on the forced sterilization of women of color, Feb. 2015
• The Black Stork: Eugenics Goes to the Movies, Feb. 2016
• Sterilization’s Cruel Inheritance, Mar. 2016
• The Hidden History of Eugenics: Fitter Families and the “Feebleminded,” Aug. 2016
• The Forced Sterilization of Native American Women (overview, Aug. 2016); Article here [academic]
• Reproductive Rights and State Institutions: The Forced Sterilization of Minority Women in the United States, 2014 [Academic Senior Thesis]
• Article on No Más Bebés, film on forced sterilization of Mexican immigrant women
• Jeff Sessions’ Praise of the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act Recalls a Dark Past, Feb. 2017
• WordPress blog (last updated 2009), “mississippi appendectomy,” documenting women of color’s coercive sterilizations
• From Word to Practice: Eugenic Language in Sterilization Legislation in North America (1905-1945) [Academic, PDF], 2015, also includes Canadian provinces
• A US immigration history of white supremacy and ableism, Jan. 2018
• I’m an environmental journalist, but I never write about overpopulation. Here’s why, July 2017

Alabama

• Tuskegee, Charles Davenport, and Eugenics, Apr. 2016

California

• Website on California Eugenics
• Sterilized in the Name of Public Health: Race, Immigration, and Reproductive Control in Modern California, Jul. 2005 [Academic]
• When California Sterilized 20,000 of its Citizens, Jan. 2016
• A Eugenics Registry: The History of California’s Forced Sterilizations, Dec. 2016
• Stanford’s History with Eugenics, Dec. 2016
• Sexual Deviance and “Mental Defectiveness” in Eugenics-Era California, Mar. 2017
•  It’s Time for California to Compensate Sterilization Patients, Dec. 2016
• Trove of data discovered on California’s eugenics history, Jan. 2017
• A Q&A on the History of Coerced Sterilization in California, Feb. 2017
• Eugenics, sterilization, and historical memory in the United States, 2016 [academic]

Colorado

• “Colorado routinely sterilized the mentally ill before 1960,” Nov. 1999

Connecticut 

• Guest Post: Eugenics and “Social Hygiene” in Hartford, CT, Oct. 2014
• Connecticut’s Little Known Brush with Eugenics, Nov. 2015

Indiana

• Indiana Eugenics: History & Legacy
• The inconvenient truth about David Starr Jordan, Feb. 2016

Iowa

• Regulating Degeneracy: Eugenic Sterilization in Iowa, 1911-1977, 1995

Kansas

• Eugenics practices ended in Kansas 50 years ago, Nov. 2011
• The Women of Reform: Kansas Eugenics, 2014 [Academic]

Maine 

• Forgotten African American Stories, Told in Comic Books, Apr. 2015
• The Dark Secrets of this Now-Empty Island in Maine, Jul. 2016
• A little hall with a big, complicated history (about University of Maine) April 2018

Maryland

• Controlling the Feebleminded Population: The Sterilization Eugenics Debate in Maryland, 1900-1960, Mar. 2012 [Academic]

Michigan

• Living with the Legacy of ‘Racial Hygiene’ in Michigan, 2004
• A dark medical history, Feb. 2008

Minnesota

• The Eugenics Crusade of Charles Fremont Dight
• Eugenics: Deadly medicine, Mar. 2008
• The Tragedy of Eugenic Sterilization with Molly Ladd-Taylor, Nov. 2017

New Hampshire

• Eugenics at Dartmouth College: John Hiram Gerould and Human Heredity [academic]

New Jersey

• On Henry Goddard and coining the word “moron,” Feb. 2014
• Jersey Roots: Children of the Pines: New Jersey’s proposal to sterilize ‘pineys,’ Mar. 2014
• Eugenics at Princeton, Apr. 2015

North Carolina

• The Eugenics Movement in North Carolina, Sep. 2016 [Academic]
• The Price of American Eugenics, Nov. 2014
• Bad Girls, Eugenics, and Samarcand Manor, Jul. 2016
• The State of Eugenics, 2017 [documentary]
• How the Carnegie Corporation contributed to NC’s shameful past, 2011

North Dakota

• Eugenics and Sterilization in North Dakota, 1913, Jan. 2018

Vermont

• From Degeneration to Regeneration: The Eugenics Survey of Vermont, 1925-1936, 1991 [Academic]

Virginia

• Influence of Virginia’s Eugenical Sterilization Law, 2004
• The eugenics apologies, 2003
• The Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics’ role in targeting non-white people for sterilization, Nov. 2007
• DeJarnette’s ugly, complicated legacy, Mar. 2014
• Nurse in Virginia recalls forced sterilizations at Lynchburg institution, Mar. 2014
• See section on Carrie Buck as well

Wisconsin

• “Wisconsin river town and its ‘hereditary defectives’ were focus for famed psychologist,” Aug. 2011
• “Policing the “Wayward Woman”: Eugenics in Wisconsin’s Involuntary Sterilization Program,” 2013 [Academic; available to read online at JSTOR]
• Wisconsin’s Strange History of State-Sponsored Sterilization, Aug. 2016

Primary American Eugenics Sources – Non-Print

• Eugenics Record Office Archives

American Eugenics: Carrie E. Buck, and the 1927 Buck v. Bell U.S. Supreme Court decision (all sources)

• On Buck v. Bell, The Real Tragedy of Eugenics, and Adam Cohen’s Imbeciles, 2016
• Carrie Buck’s letters, and badly written narratives about them, Oct. 2017
• The Legal Status of Eugenical Sterilization — Harry H. Laughlin (1930)
• Three Generations, No Imbeciles – Paul A. Lombardo
• The Sterilization of Carrie Buck – Ray Nelson & J. David Smith (1989)
• Text of Supreme Court Decision
• All Buck v. Bell Documents at Georgia State University of Law
• The Supreme Court Ruling that Led to 70,000 Sterilizations
• All of Buck’s papers can be found at the State Library of Virginia in Richmond.
• Buck v. Bell Highway Marker and Pictures of Central Virginia Training Center

Eugenics in Nazi Germany

• The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics
• Harry Laughlin’s model law they based theirs on
• Remembering the Holocaust and the disabled who died in “Aktion T-4”
• Remembering the victims of Aktion T-4
• Germany to probe Nazi-era medical science
• The Nazi Connection – Stefan Kühl
• Pride against Prejudice – Jenny Morris (discusses Nazi eugenics and is available to read and/or download here)

UK

• The British Eugenics Society
• Eugenics in the United States and Britain, 1890 to 1930: A Comparative Analysis, 1979 [Academic]
• The eugenics movement Britain wants to forget, 2010
• “tinkers and gipsies” – the historic tragedy of the attempted eradication of Scotland’s Travellers (May 2018)

Czech Eugenics

• Eugenics and special education in the Czech lands during the Interwar Period: The beginning of segregation against disabled and Roma (academic)

Canadian Eugenics (all sources)

• Institutional life in Alberta’s eugenic years (academic)
• Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in TwentiethCentury North America by Randall Hansen & Desmond King
• Living archive on eugenics in Canada
• Beyond the Asylum: Professionalization and the Mental Hygiene Movement in Canada, 1914-1928* (academic)
• The Alberta Eugenics Movement and the 1937 Amendment to the Sexual Sterilization Act (academic)
• From Suffrage to Sterilization: Eugenics and the Women’s Movement in 20^th Century Alberta (academic)
• Overview of eugenics in Alberta
• Who was targeted in Alberta’s eugenics programs
• Documentary with Leilani Muir and others sterilized in Alberta
• Interviews with disabled people’s experience with reproductive health/issues and/or eugenics in Alberta

Australian Eugenics (all sources)

• Eugenics Society of Victoria (academic)
• Eugenic Ideology and Racial Fitness in Queensland, 1900-1950 (academic)

New Zealand Eugenics (all sources)

• The Dark, Untold Story of Eugenics in New Zealand, Dec. 2017

Russian Eugenics (all sources)

• The Strength of a Loosely Defined Movement: Eugenics and Medicine in Imperial Russia (academic)

Mexican Eugenics (all sources)

• Dreaming of a cosmic race: José Vasconcelos and the politics of race in Mexico, 1920s–1930s (academic)

Irish Eugenics (all sources)

• Eugenics and the outer limits of good breeding

Swedish Eugenics

• These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution

Japanese Eugenics

• Reporting on the recent lawsuits and history of Japan’s eugenics law by The Mainichi

Hungarian Eugenics

• Eugenics and Nation in Early 20th Century Hungary by M. Turda (book)

Modern Effects of Eugenics: Beyond Genomics and Genetics

• A History of Eugenics in the United States and Germany, section “Is Eugenics Still Here?”
• Forced sterilization continues today
• The troubling persistence of eugenic thought in modern America
• Eugenics are alive and well in the United States
• Screening sperm donors for autism? As an autistic person, I know that’s the road to eugenics, Dec. 2015
• Eugenics today: where eugenic sterilisation continues now (June 2018)
• The Eugenicist Doctor and the Vast Fortune Behind Trump’s Immigration Regime, July 2018
• Jeff Sessions’ Praise of 1924 Johnson-Reed Act Recalls a Dark Past (Feb. 2017)
• Sterilization is not justice (on sterilizing incarcerated Tenn. women in plea deals for reduced time)  Feb. 2018
• California Prisons Were Sterilizing Female Inmates, 2013

Modern Effects of Eugenics: Genomics and Genetics

• A Century of Eugenics: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era, edited by Paul A. Lombardo (academic)
• Behavior and Genetics, Part Two: Eugenics, Apr. 2010
• Backdoor to Eugenics – The Risks of Prenatal Diagnosis for Poor, Black Women (academic)
• Disability, Feminism, and Eugenics, Jan. 1996 (conference paper)
• After Bell sterilized Carrie Buck, he was told “a hundred years from now… your descendants may well be proud.” And other reasons Adam Cohen is wrong about eugenics and gene editing, Mar. 2017
• We need to call some modern practices eugenics – and don’t, Jan. 2017
• How CRISPR gene editing could lead to “market-based eugenics,” Jan. 2017
• Precision Medicine and Advancing Genetic Technologies—Disability and Human Rights Perspectives (academic)
• Will my disabled daughter have a place in this genetic wonderland?
• Eugenics web category at Genetics and Society
• No Good Eugenics (Response to an op-ed on gene editing)
• What is Newgenics? (focused on Alberta and Canada)
• Future Past: Disability, Eugenics, and Brave New Worlds [Video]

Other Bibliographies and Reading Lists

• Eugenics Bibliography by Paul Lombardo
• Historians and the American Eugenics Movement at the University of Puget Sound