Lately in class we have been investigating The Gilded (to be covered in a thin layer of gold) Age, an era that roughly took place between Civil War Reconstruction and WWI. This era was known for incredible industrial growth, prosperity, "good times", westward expansion, and worldwide expansion of American political, economic, and military power.
As the term Gilded Age implies this period looked good on the surface (prosperity, expansion, power, etc.) but was covering a vast array of political corruption, social problems, and human tragedies (Boss Tweed, White House scandals, the rise of Jim Crow racism/ lynching, Native American Genocide, Nativism, Jingoism, monopolies/ mega-corporations, the "lives" of immigrants, inadequate housing, poor education, extreme poverty, gangs, crime, drug abuse, disease, pollution, etc.).
But, in my opinion one of the most shocking "movements" (and virtually unknown) of this era was in the "scientific field" of American Eugenics. Their goal was to create, expand, and preserve a superior race of people (tall, strong, intelligent, talented...blond, blue-eyed, "Nordic" people) and eliminate the possibility of the unfit, the defective, the criminal element, and undeserving immigrants from contaminating American bloodlines.
This research was supported (hundreds of millions) by some of the wealthiest families/ corporations in America (Andrew Carnegie, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Harriman Foundation, Alexander Graham Bell, The Kellogg Family, etc.). It was also supported by the U.S. Government (laws, legal action), leading academic universities (mostly Ivy League), and by several religious/ charity organizations.
The action plan (adopted by 27 states) was to "improve" America 10% at a time (millions of people were identified) through the use of publically operated gas chambers, forced sterilizations/ castrations, incarceration, restrictive marriage laws, restrictive immigration policy, deportations, euthanasia, biological weapons like tuberculosis, abortion, etc.
Ultimately (without Due Process), over 60,000 were sterilized, thousands incarcerated/ institutionalized, thousands restricted entry/ deported, thousands not allowed to marry, and many eliminated through "lethal selection". "Positively", thousands of families were identified as superior/ "Fitter Families" and encouraged to have more babies!
In the 1920's, American Eugenicists developed relationships and shared our race science with German eugenicists...Hitler praised the Americans and used the "science" of American Eugenics to develop his own Master Race...
"I have studied with great interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny (children) would be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock...
There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception (of immigration policy) are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States."
"Educating the mind without educating the heart is like no education at all."
-Aristotle
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