Unit 2: Eugenics

Some of the material in this unit may be considered advanced, but I think the challenge is worth while. These activities have students look actively at the science that was once believed to speak truth about the differences between the races and as a result justified discriminatory policy and legislation in the US. Being able to see and debunk the experiments themselves, students begin to see more specifically how the ideas presented in the previous lesson about race have been transformed over the years. In this unit students will be asked to think about what is the origin of race? Where do notions of racial superiority come from and how are they flawed? Most specifically students should be able to answer how did science reinforce the prejudices that were around in the mid-19th century?

Activity 1: 

Samuel Morton – Skull measurements

Quickwrite: What are qualities of “good science”? How would you describe “bad science”?

Students can record their ideas in a T chart that can also be created on the board to collect what students share out. 

Mini-Lesson:

In the early 20th century many people believed that the brains of “Aryans” or Caucasians were larger than the brains of people of other racial backgrounds. This myth was predicted on the research of Samuel Morton. Renowned evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould investigated Morton’s notes, revealing major flaws in if methodology.

Samuel Morton:

- Doctor and anatomy Professor at UPenn

- had the largest collection of human skulls

-Morton divided up humans into four races: Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, and Africans

-Tried to show a connection between brain size and intelligence

1849

1. People began to question slavery in America (there was a need to scientifically prove racial hierarchy - superiority)

2. Beginning of Enlightenment period and the start of we identify as science and use of scientific method.

- There was no peer review or standard for science

(Used to be societies depended heavily on religion for guidance, began to value empirical – what you can see - data)

1833 - Slavery Abolition Act 1833 in England

1863 - Emancipation Proclamation

1865 –13th Amendment Abolishes slavery

Eugenics - is the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the goal of improving the species. In a historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of "improving human genetic qualities." (Eu (good or well being) – euphoric, euphemism, utopia, eulogy). The English mathematician Sir Francis Galton first coined the term in 1883. He wrote, "Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control that seek to improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally."1 What Galton saw as a new branch of scientific inquiry became a dogmatic prescription in the ranking and ordering of human worth. His ideas found their most receptive audience at the turn of the century in the United States.

Activity:

Analyze Samuel Morton’s Data from  his "1849 paper “Observation of the Size of the Brain in Various Races and Families of Man” according to the questions on the sheet. Then read Stephen Jay Gould’s notes on his recreation of Morton’s experiment.

Race Matters: Samuel Morton and the Birth of American Race Science (1849)

Background: Historical Context

• What was going on in the United States in the 1850s?

• Who was Samuel Morton?

II. What were some of the consequences of Morton’s writings? (There are at least two – Agassiz and Native Americans. Explain both)

The following quotations are from Morton’s Crania Americana, published in 1839. They suggest how physical differences can become markers that predict a group’s intelligence, personality traits, even morality.

Europeans

The Caucasian Race is characterized by a naturally fair skin, susceptible of every tint; hair fine, long and curling, and of various colors. The skull is large and oval, and its anterior portion full and elevated.

The face is small in proportion to the head, of an oval form, with well proportioned features. . . . This race is distinguished for the facility with which it attains the highest intellectual endowments. . . .

The spontaneous fertility of [the Caucasus] has rendered it the hive of many nations, which extending their migrations in every direction, have peopled the finest portions of the earth, and given birth to its fairest inhabitants. . . .

Asians

This great division of the human species is characterized by a sallow or olive colored skin, which appears to be drawn tight over the bones of the face; long black straight hair, and thin beard. The nose is broad, and short; the eyes are small, black, and obliquely placed, and the eye-brows are arched and linear; the lips are turned, the cheek bones broad and flat. . . . In their intellectual character the Mongolians are ingenious, imitative, and highly susceptible of cultivation [i.e. learning]. So versatile are their feelings and actions, that they have been compared to the monkey race, whose attention is perpetually changing from one object to another. . .

Native Americans

The American Race is marked by a brown complexion; long, black, lank hair; and deficient beard. The eyes are black and deep set, the brow low, the cheek-bones high, the nose large and aquiline, the mouth large, and the lips tumid [swollen] and compressed. . . . In their mental character the Americans are averse to cultivation, and slow in acquiring knowledge; restless, revengeful, and fond of war, and wholly destitute of maritime adventure. They are crafty, sensual, ungrateful, obstinate and unfeeling, and much of their affection for their children may be traced to purely selfish motives. They devour the most disgusting [foods] uncooked and uncleaned, and seem to have no idea beyond providing for the present moment. . . . Their mental faculties, from infancy to old age, present a continued childhood. . . . [Indians] are not only averse to the restraints of education, but for the most part are incapable of a continued process of reasoning on abstract subjects. . . .

Africans

Characterized by a black complexion, and black, woolly hair; the eyes are large and prominent, the nose broad and flat, the lips thick, and the mouth wide; the head is long and narrow, the forehead low,

the cheek-bones prominent, the jaws protruding, and the chin small. In disposition the Negro is joyous, flexible, and indolent; while the many nations which compose this race present a singular diversity of

intellectual character, of which the far extreme is the lowest grade of humanity. . . . The moral and intellectual character of the Africans is widely different in different nations. . . . The Negroes are proverbially fond of their amusements, in which they engage with great exuberance of spirit; and a day of toil is with them no bar to a night of revelry.

Like most other barbarous nations their institutions are not infrequently characterized by superstition and cruelty. They appear to be fond of warlike enterprises, and are not deficient in personal courage; but, once overcome, they yield to their destiny, and accommodate themselves with amazing facility to every change of circumstance. The Negroes have little invention, but strong powers of imitation, so that they readily acquire mechanic arts. They have a great talent for music, and all their external senses are remarkably acute.

List the adjectives Morton uses to define each of the four groups. Circle every adjective that has a positive connotation. Is there a link between the number of positive adjectives that Morton uses in describing a group and his estimate of its moral or intellectual “worth”?

Activity 7:

IQ – Test

QW: What does it mean to be smart? How can you measure intelligence?

Mini-Lesson: 

- In addition to Samuel Morton’s Experiments in 1949 (which was later proved faulty by Stephen Gould in 1981) other experiments, tests, and data collection was arranged to determine intelligence levels of different groups in the US. 

- Yet, like Samuel Morton’s experiments which were deeply flawed, so too were these tests and their results. 

Activity: IQ Test simulation

• Pretend it is the 1903, you have just arrived in Ellis Island from a rural village in Italy, or perhaps you a black American whose parents were only recently emancipated. 

• You are asked to take the following exam. 

• You have exactly 3 minutes to fill in the missing element of each drawing.

After reviewing the test engage students in a reflective discussion about their experience and thoughts about the test.

Discussion: What do you notice?

What type of learners might this appeal to? ·Is there a cultural bias to this test? Were there places for more than one right answer? Who has access to what at this time?

Need to Insert graph results of military personnel in the 20s that took the test.

If you believe this data is true, what kinds of laws would you pass?

• Immigration restriction

•  Education funding 

• Why spend money on those who can’t lean? 

• Birth of tracking within schools – an industrial schools etc. 

• Anti-Miscegenation codes to prevent racial mixing 

•  Sterilization: people sterilized against their will in the USA and Puerto Rico 

Homework assignment: Write a letter to Lewis Terman explaining what is flawed about his test, and what he might consider changing in the test to improve it, so that it can actually measure intelligence if at all?

Activity 4:

Sterilization - still today

I realized that my students did not fully grasp the meaning of the types of legal and health policies that were passed as a result of the studies conducted by Morton and Terman and others like them. One year, when I taught the course an article came out about a group of people who were suing the state for forced sterilization. Its not an easy topic, but reading this made the consequences of the former studies much more visceral. 

Thousands Sterilized, a State Weighs Restitution 

By Kim Severson 

New York Times December 9, 2011 

Questions: 

1. What types of people were singled out to be sterilized?

2. What is happening today for those people?

3. What was the purpose of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina?

4. Who recommended people for sterilization, and based on what criteria?

5. What groups seemed to be most affected by the practice of the Eugenics Board?

6. Why is it challenging to identify all the people who were affected by the Eugenics Board?

7. How were people convinced of compelled to accept the sterilization? Were all of them even aware of what was happening?

8. Why do you think “outrage has been slow to build” about this history of Eugenics in the US?

9. Why do you think the practice of sterilization was able to go on for as long as it did?

Activity 5:

Reflection on “Race Science”

Forgotten History of Eugenics in America

 Directions: Now that we have taken an in-depth look at both Samuel Morton’s skull capacity experiments, and Lewis Terman’s IQ Test experiment. What can you conclude about using science to determine how one race may be more intelligent than another race? Look back at both experiments, their results and consequences, and answer the following questions. 

1. Under what circumstances is Samuel Morton and Lewis Terman’s research helpful or harmful? To whom? Please use direct examples from the charts and readings to explain your answer. (2 paragraphs min.)

2. What might be the current consequences of research that looks at racial distinctions? Use the research that we studied over the past week. (2 paragraphs min.)

Activity 6: 

US Census

When I first taught this course, the US census was being distributed. I brought in a copy and asked students to fill it out. I have to say that most of them were perplexed by the race and ethnicity question. We discussed it for a couple minutes, and then read Courtland Milloy's piece from the Washington Post. We read it as a class, fairly slowly, especially the last part since it gets a bit academic and complex. 

The difficulties many Americans have with labels are reflected in their responses to the nation’s census. Every ten years, the United States government conducts a count of people living in the nation. A census is more than a count, however. It is a statistical portrait of the nation that provides detailed information about who we are and how we live. Every census has asked about race and every census has defined race differently.

As the 2000 census approached, many Americans urged the government to abandon questions dealing with race. Others favored the idea of adding a new box to the census form labeled “Multiracial.” The government responded to the criticism by allowing individuals to check more than one “racial” box. After receiving his census questionnaire, journalist Courtland Milloy of the Washington Post wrote this article.

Questions:

1. What did the US change in 2000?

2. Why do you think they made this change? 

3. What are some of the complications of the census that the author raises? 

4. The 2000 census provides no information on whether others view a given American as white, Latino, or something else. For the first time in American history, the 2000 census recognized the way individuals defined themselves as an important piece of information. If race is becoming a matter of “self identification,” what word or words describe the reality of racism—the negative ways some people view themselves and others based on skin color?

5. To what extent does the government’s response to criticisms of its racial categories address the issues raised by critics?

6. Why do you think the government provided a button on its “census help line” just for people with “questions about the meaning of race”? 

7. What traits does the census make significant?

8. What consequences does it assign to the presence or absence of those traits?

9. A paradox consists of two true statements that seem to contradict one another. What is the paradox that Courtland Milloy sees in the 2000 census?

10. Why does Milloy regard that paradox as “destructive”?