Today in Labor History January 1, 1934: A "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" went into effect in Nazi Germany. The Eugenics research that Hitler used to justify torture and genocide was inspired by similar research from the U.S. The American eugenics movement originated in the 1880s, from the biological determinist ideas of Francis Galton. He believed that selective breeding could improve the human race and allow them to direct their own evolution. The U.S. eugenics movement was heavily funded by the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. Biologist Charles B. Davenport founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) in 1911. The ERO trained field workers, who they sent to study people in mental hospitals and orphanages across the U.S. Davenport and others began to lobby for solutions to the problem of the "unfit." They lobbied for immigration restrictions and sterilization. Some even promoted the idea of extermination, well before Hitler became known for it. Some well-known eugenicists of the early 20th century included Alexander Graham Bell, Luther Burbank and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. The eugenics movement tended to target the poor, people with disabilities and mental illness, and communities of color as “unfit” for society. Their solutions included forced sterilization, which continued in the U.S. until as recently as 2010. From 1997-2010, California performed nonconsensual sterilizations on roughly 1,400 women prisoners. From 1929-1973, North Carolina sterilized the third highest number of people in the United States, roughly 7,600 people, predominantly African American women.
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