CALL FOR PAPERS

“The Public and Private History of Eugenics”

In 1883, Francis Galton coined the term eugenics and defined it as: “the science of improving stock … to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had.” Between the late nineteenth and early twenty-first centuries, under the expansive rubric of “race betterment,” eugenics was wide-ranging and accorded scientific, political, and popular support.

In the United States, over the course of the twentieth century, eugenics encompassed Progressive reform efforts to secure improved maternal and infant health care, racially motivated immigration policies, and coercive sterilization legislation. In its most virulent form, eugenics provided the impetus for race-based genocide during the Holocaust. Following World War II, state-ordered sterilization accelerated in some states, and eugenicists found a new arena in population control and family planning. In more recent years, eugenics has resurfaced within academia and the echoes of eugenics have been detected in stem-cell research and specialty sperm and egg donor firms. The shameful aspect of eugenics has compelled Governors of California, Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina to publicly apologize for their state’s eugenics policies, particularly in regard to sterilization and reproductive surgeries.

This issue will explore the challenges of researching and writing about eugenics in all of its variations. We welcome submissions about all aspects of eugenics history, especially those focusing on bringing the history of eugenics to the public. Possible topics include: forced or coercive sterilization campaigns; historical perspectives on cloning, in-Vitro fertilization and sperm banks; consumer eugenics; remembering eugenics in order to prevent it; stereotypical images and the history of normalcy; local, state-level and/or institutional efforts to expose or hide eugenics; development of exhibits or websites on the history of eugenics; native communities and eugenics; recovering the stories of the sterilized; and teaching eugenics.

Please submit a one-page proposal and short vita listing relevant qualifications by JANUARY 15, 2006 to:

Lindsey Reed
Managing Editor, The Public Historian
Department of History
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Email: lreed@ltsc.ucsb.edu