Eugenics includes a wide range of programmes to manage the hereditary contribution of individuals to the next general. Some approaches focused on individuals and pedigrees. Others focused on statistics and census information.
Eugenics programmes always were controversial in the places and periods they were proposed. They were widely understood to be overtly and covertly discriminatory. Eugenics campaigns didn’t need science, but some deployed science to make their arguments seem stronger (and some scientists took central roles in these campaigns because they thought science would improve the campaigns). The relationship between eugenics and scientists is a subject of significant research.
This essay examines the reception by the medical and eugenic communities of Lionel Penrose’s research on “mental deficiency” in the 1930s. In 1928 Lionel Penrose began work at the Royal Eastern Counties Institution in Colchester, More…
Charles Darwin’s pedigree was one of the premiere objects on display in the recent “We Are Not Alone” exhibition at Wiener Holocaust Library in September 2021, superbly curated by Professor Marius Turda. Darwin’s pedigree was present in the form of a large, framed genealogy – an item loaned from UCL Science Collections. It More…
G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a well-known essayist in Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was a critic of eugenics, as well as a critic of many other issues. Chesterton’s essay, “What More…
Albert Edward Wiggam (1871-1957) was an American psychologist and populariser of eugenics. He was called “one of the most influential promoters of eugenic thought”. He had exceptional skills as a popular lecturer (Wikipedia). Wiggam was the More…
UCL Galton Collection is hard to find. It has been made increasingly invisible. This has happened through actions taken by its caretakers to depreciate its digital access, ignore communities of interest, and pretend it no More…
Professor Lionel Penrose FRS (1898-1972) was the third Galton Professor of Eugenics at University College London (UCL). He took up this post in 1945. He retired in 1965. As Galton Professor, Penrose also held associated More…
Professor Lionel Penrose (1898-1972) was the third Galton Professor of Eugenics at University College London (UCL). He took up this post in 1945. He retired in 1965. As Galton Professor, Penrose also held associated roles as More…
UCL Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment has taken the decision to de-name the R A Fisher Centre for Computational Biology owing to Fisher’s life-long commitment to eugenics research and campaigning. It is now the UCL Centre for More…
This is the text of a presentation I delivered in September 2019 titled, “Eugenics, Karl Pearson and the Legacy of Anglo-Saxon Nativism”. It was for the conference “Universities and their contested pasts”. At the time, the UCL More…
The “eugenics tree” is one of the most reprinted images associated with the history of the subject. The source is Laughlin (1923: 15, figure 3). It was used at the Second International Congress of Eugenics (September More…
Copyright 2022 Professor Joe Cain
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