Harry H. Laughlin
Encyclopedia
Harry Hamilton Laughlin (March 11, 1880 – January 26, 1943) was a leading American
eugenicist
in the first half of the 20th century. He was the director of the Eugenics Record Office
from its inception in 1910 to its closing in 1939, and was among the most active individuals in influencing American eugenics policy, especially compulsory sterilization
legislation. He is generally considered to be "among the most racist and anti-Semitic of early twentieth-century eugenicists."
, on March 11, 1880. He graduated from the First District Normal School (now Truman State University
) in Kirksville, Missouri
. He worked as a high school teacher and principal before his interest turned to breeding. This led to his correspondence with Charles Davenport
, an early researcher into Mendelian inheritance
in the United States. In 1910 Davenport asked Laughlin to move to Long Island
, New York
, to serve as the superintendent of his new research office.
The Eugenics Record Office
(ERO) was founded at Cold Spring Harbor, New York
, by Davenport with initial support from Mary Williamson Averell
(Mrs. E. H. Harriman) and John Harvey Kellogg
, and later by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Laughlin was made the managing director and was zealous in pursuing the goals of the institution, even co-writing a eugenical comedy in four acts for performance at the ERO for the amusement of the field workers being trained, and he regularly lectured to various groups around the country. In 1917 he earned a Doctor of Science from Princeton University
in the field of cytology
.
Laughlin provided extensive statistical testimony to the United States Congress
in support of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924
. Part of his testimony dealt with "excessive" insanity
among immigrants from southern Europe
and eastern Europe
. He was eventually appointed as an expert eugenics agent to the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. (The 1924 law applied national-origin quotas on immigrants which stopped the large Italian
and Russian
influx of the early 1900s). At least one contemporary scientist, bacterial geneticist Herbert Spencer Jennings
, condemned Laughlin's statistics as invalid due to the comparison of recent immigrants to more settled immigrants. In 1927 the Eugenics Research Association, of which Laughlin was an officer, began a study of the heritage of U.S. Senators
. Some senators were enthusiastic, others reluctantly complied, while Senator William Cabell Bruce
questioned whether eugenics was even a science and refused to participate. Nonplused, Laughlin wrote to Bruce's hometown newspaper in an attempt to get the information.
One of Laughlin's key interests was to aid in the proliferation of compulsory sterilization
legislation in the United States, which would presumably sterilize the "unfit" members of the population. By 1914, 12 states had already passed sterilization laws, beginning with Indiana
in 1907 and Connecticut
in 1909, however in most states the laws were not employed with significant vigor (California
was the sole exception to this). In his study of this "problem," Laughlin deduced that much of the state sterilization legislation was poorly worded and left it open to questions of constitutionality and confusion over bureaucratic responsibility. As a result, Laughlin drafted a "model law" for compulsory sterilization which would satisfy these difficulties, and published them in his 1922 study of American sterilization policy, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States. It included as subjects for eugenic sterilization: the feeble minded, the insane, criminals, epileptics, alcoholics, blind persons, deaf persons, deformed persons, and indigent persons. An additional 18 states passed laws based on Laughlin's model, including Virginia
in 1924. The first person ordered sterilized in Virginia under the new law was Carrie Buck
, on the grounds that she was the "probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring". A lawsuit ensued and Laughlin, who had never met Buck, gave a deposition endorsing her suitability for sterilization, calling the family members of “the shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South”. Other scientists from the ERO testified in person. The state won the case, which was appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1927. The resulting case, Buck v. Bell
, upheld the constitutionality of the laws that Laughlin helped write. Five months after the court confirmed the law Carrie Buck was sterilized. (A law allowing for the sterilization of repeat criminals was overturned in 1942, in Skinner v. Oklahoma
, but sterilizations of mental patients continued into the 1970s. Altogether, more than 60,000 Americans were sterilized. Virginia repealed its sterilization law in 1974). Laughlin also supported the passage of Virginia's Racial Integrity Act, which outlawed miscegenation
. (That law was overturned by the US Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia
in 1967).
The Reichstag
of Nazi Germany
passed the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
in 1933, closely based on Laughlin's model. Between 35,000 and 80,000 persons were sterilized in the first full year alone. (It is now known that over 350,000 persons were sterilized). Laughlin was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Heidelberg in 1936 for his work behalf of the “science of racial cleansing
.” (Five other Americans received honorary degrees the same year). However, reports about the extensive use of compulsory sterilization in Germany began to appear in US newspapers. By the end of the decade, eugenics had become associated with Nazism
and poor science. Support for groups like the American Eugenics Society
began to fade. In 1935, a review panel convened by the concluded that the ERO's research did not have scientific merit. By 1939, the Institute withdrew funding for the ERO, and the office was forced to close.
Laughlin was a founding member of the Pioneer Fund
, and was its first president, serving from 1937 to 1941. The Pioneer Fund was created by Wickliffe Draper
in order to promote the betterment of the race through eugenics. Draper had been supporting the Eugenics Research Association and its Eugenical News since 1932. One of the first projects that Laughlin pursued for the Fund was the distribution of two films from Germany depicting the success of eugenic programs in that country.
Laughlin himself eventually discovered that he suffered from epilepsy
, which was one of the subjects of study at the ERO and one of the criterion for compulsory sterilization under his own law. He and his wife, Pansy, married in 1902, but never had any children. After the ERO closed he returned in 1939 to Missouri, where he resided until his death on January 26, 1943.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
eugenicist
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
in the first half of the 20th century. He was the director of the Eugenics Record Office
Eugenics Record Office
The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States was a center for eugenics and human heredity research in the first half of the twentieth century. Both its founder, Charles Benedict Davenport, and its director, Harry H...
from its inception in 1910 to its closing in 1939, and was among the most active individuals in influencing American eugenics policy, especially compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization also known as forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization...
legislation. He is generally considered to be "among the most racist and anti-Semitic of early twentieth-century eugenicists."
Biography
Laughlin was born in Oskaloosa, IowaOskaloosa, Iowa
Oskaloosa is the county seat of Mahaska County, Iowa, United States. The population was 11,463 in the 2010 census, an increase from 10,938 in the 2000 census. -History:...
, on March 11, 1880. He graduated from the First District Normal School (now Truman State University
Truman State University
Truman State University is a public liberal arts and sciences university in Missouri, United States and a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. About 6,000 students attend Truman, pursuing degrees in 43 undergraduate and 9 Graduate programs. It is located in Kirksville in...
) in Kirksville, Missouri
Kirksville, Missouri
Kirksville is the county seat of Adair County, Missouri, United States. It is located in Benton Township. The population was 17,505 at the 2010 census. Kirksville also anchors a micropolitan area that comprises Adair and Schuyler counties. The city is perhaps best known as the location of Truman...
. He worked as a high school teacher and principal before his interest turned to breeding. This led to his correspondence with Charles Davenport
Charles Davenport
Charles Benedict Davenport was a prominent American eugenicist and biologist. He was one of the leaders of the American eugenics movement, which was directly involved in the sterilization of around 60,000 "unfit" Americans and strongly influenced the Holocaust in Europe.- Biography :Davenport was...
, an early researcher into Mendelian inheritance
Mendelian inheritance
Mendelian inheritance is a scientific description of how hereditary characteristics are passed from parent organisms to their offspring; it underlies much of genetics...
in the United States. In 1910 Davenport asked Laughlin to move to Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, to serve as the superintendent of his new research office.
The Eugenics Record Office
Eugenics Record Office
The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States was a center for eugenics and human heredity research in the first half of the twentieth century. Both its founder, Charles Benedict Davenport, and its director, Harry H...
(ERO) was founded at Cold Spring Harbor, New York
Cold Spring Harbor, New York
Cold Spring Harbor is a hamlet in Suffolk County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2000 Census, the CDP population was 4,975.Cold Spring Harbor is in the Town of Huntington.-History:...
, by Davenport with initial support from Mary Williamson Averell
Mary Williamson Averell
Mary Williamson Averell was born in New York City into a prominent New York family. The only daughter, she was tutored at home and completed her education at a finishing school with the “…expectation that one day she would become a fine wife and mother for some young man of equal or greater social...
(Mrs. E. H. Harriman) and John Harvey Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan, who ran a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition, enemas and exercise. Kellogg was an advocate of vegetarianism and is best known for the invention of the corn flakes breakfast cereal...
, and later by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Laughlin was made the managing director and was zealous in pursuing the goals of the institution, even co-writing a eugenical comedy in four acts for performance at the ERO for the amusement of the field workers being trained, and he regularly lectured to various groups around the country. In 1917 he earned a Doctor of Science from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in the field of cytology
Cell biology
Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...
.
Laughlin provided extensive statistical testimony to the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
in support of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act , was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already...
. Part of his testimony dealt with "excessive" insanity
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
among immigrants from southern Europe
Southern Europe
The term Southern Europe, at its most general definition, is used to mean "all countries in the south of Europe". However, the concept, at different times, has had different meanings, providing additional political, linguistic and cultural context to the definition in addition to the typical...
and eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. He was eventually appointed as an expert eugenics agent to the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. (The 1924 law applied national-origin quotas on immigrants which stopped the large Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
influx of the early 1900s). At least one contemporary scientist, bacterial geneticist Herbert Spencer Jennings
Herbert Spencer Jennings
-External links:**]]...
, condemned Laughlin's statistics as invalid due to the comparison of recent immigrants to more settled immigrants. In 1927 the Eugenics Research Association, of which Laughlin was an officer, began a study of the heritage of U.S. Senators
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
. Some senators were enthusiastic, others reluctantly complied, while Senator William Cabell Bruce
William Cabell Bruce
William Cabell Bruce was an American politician and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who represented the State of Maryland in the United States Senate from 1923 to 1929....
questioned whether eugenics was even a science and refused to participate. Nonplused, Laughlin wrote to Bruce's hometown newspaper in an attempt to get the information.
One of Laughlin's key interests was to aid in the proliferation of compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization also known as forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization...
legislation in the United States, which would presumably sterilize the "unfit" members of the population. By 1914, 12 states had already passed sterilization laws, beginning with Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
in 1907 and Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
in 1909, however in most states the laws were not employed with significant vigor (California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
was the sole exception to this). In his study of this "problem," Laughlin deduced that much of the state sterilization legislation was poorly worded and left it open to questions of constitutionality and confusion over bureaucratic responsibility. As a result, Laughlin drafted a "model law" for compulsory sterilization which would satisfy these difficulties, and published them in his 1922 study of American sterilization policy, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States. It included as subjects for eugenic sterilization: the feeble minded, the insane, criminals, epileptics, alcoholics, blind persons, deaf persons, deformed persons, and indigent persons. An additional 18 states passed laws based on Laughlin's model, including Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
in 1924. The first person ordered sterilized in Virginia under the new law was Carrie Buck
Carrie Buck
Carrie Buck was a plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court case, Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 , and was ordered to undergo compulsory sterilization for purportedly being "feeble-minded." The surgery was carried out while Buck was an inmate of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and...
, on the grounds that she was the "probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring". A lawsuit ensued and Laughlin, who had never met Buck, gave a deposition endorsing her suitability for sterilization, calling the family members of “the shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South”. Other scientists from the ERO testified in person. The state won the case, which was appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1927. The resulting case, Buck v. Bell
Buck v. Bell
Buck v. Bell, , was the United States Supreme Court ruling that upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the mentally retarded, "for the protection and health of the state." It was largely seen as an endorsement of negative eugenics—the attempt to improve...
, upheld the constitutionality of the laws that Laughlin helped write. Five months after the court confirmed the law Carrie Buck was sterilized. (A law allowing for the sterilization of repeat criminals was overturned in 1942, in Skinner v. Oklahoma
Skinner v. Oklahoma
Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, ex. rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 , was the United States Supreme Court ruling which held that compulsory sterilization could not be imposed as a punishment for a crime, on the grounds that the relevant Oklahoma law excluded white-collar crimes from carrying...
, but sterilizations of mental patients continued into the 1970s. Altogether, more than 60,000 Americans were sterilized. Virginia repealed its sterilization law in 1974). Laughlin also supported the passage of Virginia's Racial Integrity Act, which outlawed miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
. (That law was overturned by the US Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia, , was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v...
in 1967).
The Reichstag
Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
passed the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring or "Sterilization Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, which allowed the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who in the opinion of a "Genetic Health Court" Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring...
in 1933, closely based on Laughlin's model. Between 35,000 and 80,000 persons were sterilized in the first full year alone. (It is now known that over 350,000 persons were sterilized). Laughlin was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Heidelberg in 1936 for his work behalf of the “science of racial cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
.” (Five other Americans received honorary degrees the same year). However, reports about the extensive use of compulsory sterilization in Germany began to appear in US newspapers. By the end of the decade, eugenics had become associated with Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and poor science. Support for groups like the American Eugenics Society
American Eugenics Society
The American Eugenics Society was a society established in 1922 to promote eugenics in the United States.It was the result of the Second International Conference on Eugenics . The founders included Madison Grant, Harry H. Laughlin, Irving Fisher, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Henry Crampton...
began to fade. In 1935, a review panel convened by the concluded that the ERO's research did not have scientific merit. By 1939, the Institute withdrew funding for the ERO, and the office was forced to close.
Laughlin was a founding member of the Pioneer Fund
Pioneer Fund
The Pioneer Fund is an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences." Currently headed by psychology professor J. Philippe Rushton, the fund states that it focuses on projects it perceives will not be easily funded due to...
, and was its first president, serving from 1937 to 1941. The Pioneer Fund was created by Wickliffe Draper
Wickliffe Draper
Wickliffe Preston Draper was an American multimillionaire and an ardent eugenicist and lifelong advocate of strict racial segregation...
in order to promote the betterment of the race through eugenics. Draper had been supporting the Eugenics Research Association and its Eugenical News since 1932. One of the first projects that Laughlin pursued for the Fund was the distribution of two films from Germany depicting the success of eugenic programs in that country.
Laughlin himself eventually discovered that he suffered from epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, which was one of the subjects of study at the ERO and one of the criterion for compulsory sterilization under his own law. He and his wife, Pansy, married in 1902, but never had any children. After the ERO closed he returned in 1939 to Missouri, where he resided until his death on January 26, 1943.
See also
- Eugenics in the United States
- Human Betterment FoundationHuman Betterment FoundationThe Human Betterment Foundation was an American eugenics organization established in Pasadena, California in 1928 by E.S. Gosney with the aim "to foster and aid constructive and educational forces for the protection and betterment of the human family in body, mind, character, and citizenship"...
- Madison GrantMadison GrantMadison Grant was an American lawyer, historian and physical anthropologist, known primarily for his work as a eugenicist and conservationist...
- Paul B. Popenoe
- E.S. Gosney
Further reading
- Black, Edwin, "War Against the Weak" (Washington, Dialog Press 2007). Best book by far on all aspects of Laughlin and US eugenics
- Elof Axel CarlsonElof Axel CarlsonElof Axel Carlson is distinguished teaching professor emeritus at State University of New York at Stony Brook, as well as an American geneticist and noted historian of Science. Dr. Carlson earned his B.A. in 1953 from New York University, and his PhD in 1958 in zoology from Indiana University...
, "Times of Triumph, Times of Doubt: Science and the battle for public trust" (Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2006). ISBN 0-87969-805-5 - Harry H. Laughlin, Eugenical sterilization in the United States (Chicago: Psychopathic Laboratory of the Municipal Court of Chicago, 1922).