The Society for Biodemography and Social Biology, formerly known as the Society for the Study of Social Biology and before then as the American Eugenics Society,Eugenics, Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology, (2014, pp 619-626) is dedicated to "furthering the discussion, advancement, and dissemination of knowledge about biological and sociocultural forces which affect the structure and composition of human populations."

History

Initially known as the American Eugenics Society, or AES, the Society formed after the success of the Second International Congress on Eugenics (

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, 1921). AES founders included

Madison Grant Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) was an American lawyer, zoologist, anthropologist, and writer known primarily for his work as a eugenicist and conservationist, and as an advocate of scientific racism. Grant is less noted f ...

, Harry H. Laughlin,

Irving Fisher Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29, 1947) was an American economist, statistician, inventor, eugenicist and progressive social campaigner. He was one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt def ...

Henry Fairfield Osborn Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. (August 8, 1857 – November 6, 1935) was an American paleontologist, geologist and eugenics advocate. He was the president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years and a cofounder of the American Euge ...

Charles Davenport Charles Benedict Davenport (June 1, 1866 – February 18, 1944) was a biologist and eugenics, eugenicist influential in the Eugenics in the United States, American eugenics movement. Early life and education Davenport was born in Stamford, Co ...

and

Henry Crampton Henry Edward Crampton (January 5, 1875 – February 26, 1956) was an American evolutionary biologist and malacologist who specialized in land snails. Crampton undertook the first major study of evolution in nature in his research in the Society ...

. The organization started by promoting racial betterment, eugenic health, and genetic education through public lectures, exhibits at county fairs, etc. The AES primarily used fitter family contests to help promote its mission. These fitter family contests took place in public festivals or fairs. Physical appearance, behavior, intelligence, and health were just a few of the qualities that the AES looks at while determining the fittest family. The AES would give out prizes, trophies, and medals to the winning families. Additionally, the AES would sponsor displays and exhibits that featured statistics on the births of "undesirable" or "desirable" children at the fairs and festivals. An example of such a display from the 1920s and 1930s statistics claimed as follows: Every sixteen seconds a child is born in the United States. Out of those children a capable, desirable child is born every seven and a half minutes, whereas a undesirable, feebleminded child is born every forty-eight seconds, and a future criminal is born every fifty seconds. To conclude, the display would argue that every fifteen seconds, a hundred dollars of taxpayers' money went towards supporting the mentally ill and undesirable. The AES also sought to promote eugenic policies at the US state and federal level. Harry H. Laughlin promoted eugenic sterilization in the early twentieth century. By the late 1920s eugenic sterilization laws were being enforced by more than two dozen US states, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (

Sterilization law in the United States Sterilization may refer to: * Sterilization (microbiology), killing or inactivation of micro-organisms * Soil steam sterilization, a farming technique that sterilizes soil with steam in open fields or greenhouses * Sterilization (medicine) render ...

). By 1933, California had enforced eugenically sterilization laws on more people than any of the other US states combined. These people mainly included people of color and foreign immigrants. These laws led to court cases and lawsuits, such as,

Buck v. Bell ''Buck v. Bell'', 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including th ...

,1927, and Skinner v. Oklahoma,1942. In 1926, the society published a ''Eugenics Catechism'', arguing that eugenics was supported by the Bible, and therefore ought to be promoted by Christians. During the presidency of

Henry Farnham Perkins Henry Farnham Perkins (1877–1956) was an American zoologist and eugenicist. Biography Early life and ancestry He was born at 205 South Prospect Street in Burlington, Chittenden County, Vermont in the house where he spent his entire life in the ...

from 1931 to 1933, the AES worked with the

American Birth Control League The American Birth Control League (ABCL) was founded by Margaret Sanger in 1921 at the First American Birth Control Conference in New York City. The organization promoted the founding of birth control clinics and encouraged women to control their ...

Margaret Sanger Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control ...

, a birth control activist, "was a member of the of the AES in 1956 and established the Birth Control League in 1921". Under the direction of

Frederick Osborn Major General Frederick Henry Osborn CBE (21 March 1889 – 5 January 1981) was an American philanthropist, military leader, and eugenicist. He was a founder of several organizations and played a central part in reorienting eugenics in the y ...

the Society started to place greater focus on issues of population control, genetics, and, later, medical genetics. In 1930, the Society included mostly prominent and wealthy individuals, and membership included many non-scientists. The demographics of the Society gradually changed, and by 1960, members of the Society were almost exclusively scientists and medical professionals. Consequentially, the Society focused more on genetics and less on

class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...

-based

eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...

. After the

Roe v. Wade ''Roe v. Wade'', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),. was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and st ...

decision was released in 1973, the Society was reorganized and renamed The Society for the Study of Social Biology.American Eugenics Society
Controlling Heredity
Osborn said, " e name was changed because it became evident that changes of a eugenic nature would be made for reasons other than eugenics, and that tying a eugenic label on them would more often hinder than help," The name was most recently changed to Society for Biodemography and Social Biology.

Journal

The Society's official journal is '' Biodemography and Social Biology'', which was originally established in 1954 as ''Eugenics Quarterly''. It was renamed to ''Social Biology'' in 1969 and to its current title in 2008.

List of presidents

1922–1926 (Political Economy, Yale University) * Roswell H. Johnson 1926–1927 (Cold Spring Harbor, Univ. of Pittsburgh) * Harry H. Laughlin 1927–1929 (Eugenics Record Office) * Clarence C. Little 1929 (Pres., University of Michigan) *

Henry Pratt Fairchild Henry Pratt Fairchild (August 18, 1880 – October 2, 1956) was a distinguished American sociologist who was actively involved in many of the controversial issues of his time. He wrote about race relations, abortion and contraception, and immig ...

1929–1931 (Sociology, New York University) *

1931–1934 (Zoology, University of Vermont) *

Ellsworth Huntington __NOTOC__ Ellsworth Huntington (September 16, 1876 – October 17, 1947) was a professor of geography at Yale University during the early 20th century, known for his studies on environmental determinism/climatic determinism, economic growth, econ ...

1934–1938 (Geography, Yale University) * Samuel Jackson Holmes 1938–1940 (Zoology, University of California) *

Maurice Bigelow Maurice Alpheus Bigelow (1872-1955) was an American social hygienist, early sex-educator and eugenist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1901. He served as president of the American Eugenics Society from 1940 until 1945, as directo ...

1940–1945 (Columbia University) *

1946–1952 (Osborn-Dodge-Harriman RR connection) * Harry L. Shapiro 1956–1963 (American Museum of Natural History) * Clyde V. Kiser 1964–1968 (differential fertility, Milbank Memorial Fund) * Dudley Kirk 1969–1972 (Demographer, Stanford University) * Bruce K. Eckland 1972–1975 (Sociology, University of North Carolina) * L. Erlenmeyer-Kimling 1976–1978 (Genetic Psychiatry) *

Gardner Lindzey Gardner Edmund Lindzey (November 27, 1920 – February 4, 2008) was an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association (APA). After completing a doctorate at Harvard University, Lindzey served as a professor or ...

1979–1981 (Center for Advanced Study, Behavioral Sciences) *

John L. Fuller John Langworthy Fuller (July 22, 1910 – June 8, 1992) was an American biologist and early pioneer of behavior genetics Behavioural genetics, also referred to as behaviour genetics, is a field of scientific research that uses genetic met ...

1982–1983 (Behavioral genetics) *

Michael Teitelbaum Michael S. Teitelbaum (born January 21, 1944) is a demographer and the former Vice President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York City. He is Senior Research Associate at the Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School. He publishes ...

1985–1990 (US Congress staff; US population policy) *

Robert Retherford Robert Curtis Retherford (1912–1981) was an American physicist. He was a graduate student of Willis Lamb at Columbia Radiation Laboratory. Retherford and Lamb performed the famous experiment revealing Lamb shift in the fine structure of hydrog ...

1991–1994 (East-West Institute, Hawaii; funded by AID) * Joseph Lee Rodgers 1994, 1995 (family influences) * Hans-Peter Kohler, 2007–2012 (University of Pennsylvania)https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~hpkohler/hpkohler-cv-web.pdf * Board: Jason Boardman, Timothy Gage, Ulrich Mueller, Christine Himes

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

(Status in 2012).

References

External links

The Society for Biodemography and Social Biology''Biodemography and Social Biology''
The academic journal. {{Authority control Biology organizations Eugenics in the United States

History

Journal

List of presidents

See also

References

External links