Eugenics movement

Ashley Bell

Stop # 536

Mr Hepler

U.S. History II: 1877 - Present

1 November 2010

Eugenics Movement in America

Eugenics is a class of genetics and a social movement that is centered on improving the genetic make-up of the human population by getting rid of undesirable genes carried by individuals. Eugenics is a word of Greek origin that is made up of the words 'Eu' and 'Genics'; which means good and generation or origin respectively. Therefore, the word literally means 'Good Generation or Origin'. Eugenics is largely based upon Darwin's theory that seeks to explain the evolution of civilization by using the hypothesis of "man's descent from animal"; in the case of humans it was a gradual evolution from 'apes'. The theory is based on the premise that all things living and non-living have a common ancestor and that all life is related in one way or another.

Charles Darwin, photographed by Julia Margaret Cam...

English: Caricature of Charles Darwin from Vanity ...

Francis Galton, the English eugenicist who wrote e...

The origin is from a 'simplistic ancestor'; however, with the passage of time subsequent mutations modified the genetic composition and gave rise to different species and eventually, the world took its form as we know it today. The theory further presumed that the survival of various species that emerged as results of the mutations were the result of simple adaptive mechanism to the ever-changing environment.

The stronger species survived by passing on the desirable traits on to their progeny; however, the species that couldn't adapt and their genetic code were not desirable enough soon perished and became extinct (Gross, et al 1983, Pp 450-458). This is known as a process of 'Natural selection' that is stronger species are favored by nature and thus, are the ones who survive in the end. Therefore, the main foundation of the eugenics movement was to eliminate those,