HIS 243LEC—A History of Eugenics

This course is designed to give undergraduates an introduction to the history of eugenics and to situate American eugenics in a broader global context. The course begins in 1883 in England, with Francis Galton, the English aristocrat who created the science of eugenics. It then focuses on the United States from the 1880s to the end of World War II. In the second part of the course we explore the expansion of British/American eugenics to Latin America, and Eastern and Western Europe, including Nazi Germany. In the third part of the course, we explore the history of eugenics after World War II, all the way down to the turn of the 21st century, when the mapping of the human genome and developments in genetic science and reproductive technologies fueled new concerns about eugenics in the United States and abroad. USH, EUR