Artifact Description The artifacts that I have chosen are two posters from the 1920’s Kansas Free Fair show. Both are promoting the use of Eugenics to create a better society without stresses on society such as alcoholism and criminality. Eugenics did not just come in the form of selective breeding but also as sterilization for undesirables of society. Such as the case of Buck v. Bell, sterilization was forced upon a second generation epileptic with promiscuous tendencies. It is important to note and remember that Eugenics and sterilization occurred with both white and black Americans. The first photograph is listing what society could rid itself of in three generations if two ideal parents where to have children. The second photograph is a chart of the different combinations of parents and their outcomes. They also pose the question of why people are so worried about their animal’s pedigree, but when it comes to humans it does not matter.

Artifact Analysis

From previous studies I have learned that Eugenics were proposed and implemented to be a good thing for society. From these two examples they seem to be trying to ‘help’ society by eliminating potential members of society that require public assistance. This brings up the issue of what is society’s responsibility when caring for its members? Washington states in Medical Apartheid that “preventing a child’s birth is a draconian method of protecting it from abuse”(211). In the welfare case rather than child abuse; it would be society paying for that child. These two posters are not promoting sterilization but rather selective breeding which Washington fails to discuss specifically in her chapter.

Washington decides to look into darker dystopian part of Eugenics, which is also important in studying the topic. She equates the sterilization of specifically black women to genocide. Washington quotes United Nations Resolution 260 (III) A from 1948, “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, . . . to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part . . .” (199). Although the forced sterilization of black women could be considered an attempt at exterminating the race, white women also were victims of forced sterilization such as Carrie Buck. Even prominent, educated blacks agreed in the benefits of Eugenics. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “The mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly . . . if from that population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear their children properly” (197). It makes it difficult for me to agree with Washington in saying that it was genocide when prominent members of the race supported the practice and held to today’s standards, racist opinions.

Discussion Questions:

1. If eugenics was successful and undesirable traits were taken out of the gene pool, welfare would not exist because everyone would be hardworking and there wouldn’t be “pauperism.” Because eugenics did not workout we as a society have these issues, how responsible is a society in caring for its less fortunate members?
2. Margaret Sanger often would ask black leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois to write in support of eugenics, do you think that she put pressure on them to write in defense of eugenics or do you think that they genuinely believed in their benefits?
3. On Page 199, Washington quotes part of Resolution 260 (III) in her discussion of genocide. Because eugenics effected more than just a “national, racial, or religious group” could it still be considered an attempted genocide? Or was that rhetoric used as shock value while protesting?
4. Although forced sterilization seems barbaric are there situations where sterilization could actually benefit an individual or society in general? Or is all forced sterilization unethical and why?
   
   
   
   
   Link to the Artifact:    http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/06/01/136849387/found-in-the-archives-americas-unsettling-early-eugenics-movement
   
   
   -Lindsay Rynders