The Eugenics Movement
The Eugenics Movement in the USA in the beginning of the 20th century was so powerful that it contributed to legislation that ultimately curtailed emigration to the United States. It greatly influenced the passage of the Quota Laws of the 1920s which favored immigrants from Northern Europe, specifically White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS). It viewed immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe as “undesirable” or “dysgenic.” Describe your reaction to the content of the Cold Spring Harbor website illustrating these points. Discuss what may have surprised or interested you the most. What is your understanding of why eugenics was referred to as a pseudoscience? Which groups were targeted and why? Describe your perception of how the Eugenics Movement in the USA during the beginning of the 20th century paralleled Hitler’s ideas in Germany in the 1940s. http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/list3.pl
