Browse Items (10 total)

A sign advocating for fit marriages, stating that "the ancestry of our children" should not be left to chance.

A chart entitled "Approximate Fecundity-Indices of American Women by Nativity Group for the Decade 1910-1920," showing relative rates of reproduction among racial and ethnic groups.

A chart tracing manic depression and mental illness in a family.

A page printed in "Eugenics: A Journal of Race Betterment," which argues that in order to help the poor, social workers must "sense the urgency of eugenics."

A certificate awarded to a donor to an "exhibition of eugenical materials" displayed at the American Museum of Natural History.

People view the Eugenic and Health Exhibit, put on by the American Eugenics Society at the Kansas State Free Fair.

In 1927 the Supreme Court ruled that Carrie Buck, shown here, could be subjected to compulsory sterilization by the state of Virginia. In his opinion, Oliver Wendell Holmes infamously wrote, in reference to Buck's family, that "three generations of…

A certificate (blank) that would have been awarded to a contestant in a Better Babies Competition in Shreveport, Louisiana

Photograph of the baby who was judged "the most perfect baby in the Panama Canal Zone" at a Better Babies Competition

Rankings of families participating in a Fitter Families Competition in Battle Creek