THE ACUMEN GROUP
Examining eugenics and hereditarian thought in popular culture & everyday life


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THE ABCs of EUGENICS

A
THE AMERICAN BREEDERS ASSOCIATION
American Breeders Association was the first national membership-based organization promoting genetic and eugenic research in the United States. Its eugenics wing began in 1906, and promoted selective breeding, recording and controlling heredity in human beings, and minimizing the "threat" of inferior humans, to the general public.

T
TOMORROW'S CHILDREN
a 1934 film written by African American (Harlem Renaissance) writer Wallace Thurman about a young girl facing forced sterilization because of her poor and unfit family. The mainstream, Hollywood film was one of a handful of 30s films that specifically addressed eugenics and sterilizations.

W
WORLD FAIRS
World Fairs became unique spaces to promote popular eugenics by introducing concepts through exhibitions and photos understood by different nationalities. One exhibit titled “Pedigree-Study in Man” was featured at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933–34 and included a themed station “Century of Progress” to document how favorable traits in the human population could best be perpetuated.

Y
ROBERT YERKES
a eugenicist who advocated low-intelligence groups not be permitted to degrade the U.S. gene pool. He developed a mental acuity test to legally promote enforced isolation and sterilization of people with low test scores; and to preserve the quality of the U.S. population, by excluding Southern and Eastern Europeans from coming to the U.S.