The Society for Biodemography and Social Biology

History

The American Eugenics Society was founded as an independent nonprofit in 1926 in New Haven, Connecticut, near the home of the Society’s first president, Yale University economics professor Irving Fisher. The Society was co-founded by a group of scholars and academics, including Madison Grant, Harry H. Laughlin, Henry Crampton, and Henry F. Osborn. The group’s establishment was inspired by the 1921 Second International Congress of Eugenics, which revealed a lack of an organized eugenics movement in the United States. Both before and after the Society was established, Yale University was a major center of the American eugenics movement, with Yale alumnus Governor Wilbur Cross (D-CN) commissioning a Connecticut-wide survey of genetic “defectives” in the state in 1935. ^{2 3}

The Society’s first major goal was to create a network of 100 academics as an Advisory Council to direct the national eugenics movement. The Society intended to conduct research, spread eugenics ideas, and advocate for eugenics-related government policies. Students at Yale and other universities were invited to talks and surveyed on their family goals, including whether they considered eugenics factors when choosing a romantic partner. At other events, the Society invited families to engage in friendly eugenics competitions, including taking IQ tests and evaluating each others’ physical appearances. The Society’s members cultivated the norm of using the phrase “eugenically yours” as a replacement for “well wishes.” ²

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., of the billionaire Rockefeller family, studied population control theory at Brown University, was a member of the Society, and a trustee of the Bureau of Social Hygiene. The Rockefeller Foundation financed the eugenics movement in the 1930s, including the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute’s Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Germany. ^{4 5 6}

By 1930, the Society had a membership of 1,260. ⁷ As early as the mid-1930s, the Society struggled to maintain enough dues-paying members to achieve financial stability. In the late 1930s, the Society also had its first leadership dispute, with a prominent member being involuntarily removed from the Society’s board. ²

The Society lost substantial popularity and public sympathy during and after World War II, particularly with the revelations of Nazi Germany’s eugenics programs and the Holocaust. In 1936, Society president Ellsworth Huntington simultaneously praised Nazi Germany as “doing some good work for eugenics” while condemning antisemitism, calling Nazi policies toward Jews “a very grave mistake.” ²

Partially in response to negative image of eugenics, the Society renamed its major publication in 1968, and then renamed the organization as a whole to “the Society for the Study of Social Biology” in 1973. ²

In 2008, the Society renamed itself again, this time to “the Society for Biodemography and Social Biology.” ⁸

In 2019, the Society disbanded. ¹

Policies

The American Eugenics Society promoted restrictive immigration policies through its Committee on Selective Immigration in the name of protecting the American gene pool. Specific policies supported by the Committee included immigration quotas set by country based on the so-called genetic strength of the country, the deportation of so-called dysgenic immigrants, and the use of eugenic examinations of potential immigrants as a filter. One Committee report argued that preserving the purity of the white race was a higher priority than the economic gains from importing low-skilled Mexican labor. ²

The Society supported sterilizing “those who are evidently inferior biologically” based on supposed physical and mental shortcomings, through both voluntary means and state-mandated involuntary means. Cross identified three percent of the American population as dysgenic enough to warrant sterilization. Another founding member, Harry Laughlin, drafted a plan to sterilize, deport, or segregate 10 percent of Connecticut’s population. ²

The Society supported abortion as a eugenic tool, especially as a means of limiting the reproduction of racial minorities, and often under the guise of “family planning.” ⁹ The Society became involved with various pro-abortion organizations and individuals; for instance, Margaret Sanger, who was a member of the Society, established the American Birth Control League (a predecessor organization to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America), which collaborated with the Society during the presidency of Henry F. Perkins. ¹⁰

Biodemography and Social Biology

In October 1928, the American Eugenics Society launched a monthly journal called Eugenics. However, later in 1930, the Galton Publishing Company took over the journal. But one year later in 1931, Galton abruptly closed and the journal ceased publication. In 1939, Eugenical News, a monthly publication of the Eugenics Research Association, was adopted by the Society, in effect reviving the project of its original Eugenics journal. Later in 1954, the Society launched Eugenics Quarterly, a more academic venture, focusing on scientific research into hereditary traits. ¹⁰

About a decade and a half later, in 1969, to accord with the organization’s changing focus, the organization renamed Eugenics Quarterly to Social Biology. By 2014, following a similar name change of the parent organization, the journal had become Biodemography and Social Biology. ^{10 11}