Claims-Making and Socio-Cultural Context in the First U.S. Eugenics Campaign

Gender and Justice in the Progressive Era: An Investigation of Saint Louis Juvenile Court Cases, 1909–1912

“…Beliefs that "feeblemindedness" and "immorality" would be passed from parents to children led to fears about girls, particularly immigrants and members of the working class, becoming pregnant (Odem, 1995). Promoters of eugenics assigned the responsibility of procreation to girls and women, thus targeting them for intervention, and also did not differentiate between criminal and sexual behavior (Rafter, 1992). The juvenile justice system, reflecting these widespread social concerns, took upon itself the prevention and punishment of girls' sexual behavior.…”

Sterilizing the “Feeble‐minded”: Eugenics in Alberta, Canada, 1929–1972

“…The popularity of eugenics beliefs in the latter part of the 19 th century can be traced, in large part, to the faith and hope invested by politicians and social elites in a vision of “progress” and in the power of science to achieve this vision (Ladd‐Taylor 1997; McLaren 1990; Paul 1995; Rafter 1992; Reilly 1991). Underneath such “progressive” goals lay solidly‐entrenched patterns of structured social inequality and equally pervasive racist and sexist attitudes and beliefs.…”

“…Early eugenics proponents discussed “solutions” such as the advisability and effectiveness of segregation versus sterilization, the economic benefits of work farms as opposed to asylums, and the possibility of deporting “undesirables” (Menzies 1998; Polyzoi 1986). In the United States, the first large‐scale eugenics campaign began in 1870 and was instrumental in having fertile, feeble‐minded, female paupers designated as “dysgenic” (Rafter 1992: 17). Subsequent eugenics‐influenced government policies were invariably shaped by gender‐ and race‐based stereotypes and notions of appropriate behaviour (Carey 1998; Hasian 1996; Paul 1995).…”

Changing Images of Deviance: Nineteenth-Century Canadian Anti-Prostitution Movements

“…Of course, any analysis that attempts to encompass nearly a century within a few pages must draw heavily on as diverse a set of secondary sources as possible, despite the fact that both historians and sociologists now recognize these as interpretative constructions in themselves rather than unbiased ''facts'' (Rafter 1992b). Nevertheless, we also have raw facts in the form of annual reports of the Canadian Council of Women, the Canadian Social Survey Commission, and various institutions such as the ''Magdelan asylums,'' as well as the Canadian legal codes dealing with prostitution over changing times.…”