American eugenics was developed within a few inter-related organizations early in the twentieth century. Among them were the American Breeders Association - which formed a committee on human breeding called the Eugenic Section - the Galton Society, the American Eugenics Society, and the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. They spread their ideas through public lectures, exhibitions, state fairs, and the mass media. One photo in the exhibition shows Leon F. Whitney, a dog breeder and public relations man who was the secretary of the American Eugenics Society in the eugenics display at the Philadelphia exposition to celebrate the 150th anniversary of American independence. He is lecturing on eugenical theories of hair color. Eugenicists believed that the individual characteristics of people - such as intelligence or hair color - were transmitted in simple "unit characters" or Mendelian factors. This was based on extensive experimentation cross-breeding peas by the Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel in 1865. Eugenicists generalized Mendel's theory from peas to people, using it to buttress their claims that heredity controlled destiny - and that environment made little or no difference in one's physical, intellectual, and "moral" development.

Photo:

Unidentified photographer
Flashing Light Sign, n.d.
Collection of the American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia

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