A01=Wendy Kline
Author_Wendy Kline
Category=GTM
Category=JBSF
Category=JHBD
Category=PSAK
civilization
cloning
disability
disability rights
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
eq_society-politics
eugenics
family
family values
female sexuality
femininity
fit
forced sterilization
gender
gender studies
genetic screening
human betterment foundation
human population
iq testing
maternity
medical ethics
mental health
mental illness
motherhood
nazi eugenics
negative eugenics
nonfiction
panama pacific international exposition
parenthood
positive eugenics
poverty
reproductive rights
sexuality
social morality
sterilization
unfit
womens studies
Product details
- ISBN 9780520246744
- Weight: 318g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 21 Nov 2005
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Wendy Kline's lucid cultural history of eugenics in America emphasizes the movement's central, continuing interaction with popular notions of gender and morality. Kline shows how eugenics could seem a viable solution to problems of moral disorder and sexuality, especially female sexuality, during the first half of the twentieth century. Its appeal to social conscience and shared desires to strengthen the family and civilization sparked widespread public as well as scientific interest.
Kline traces this growing public interest by looking at a variety of sources, including the astonishing "morality masque" that climaxed the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition; the nationwide correspondence of the influential Human Betterment Foundation in Pasadena, California; the medical and patient records of a "model" state institution that sterilized thousands of allegedly feebleminded women in California between 1900 and 1960; the surprising political and popular support for sterilization that survived initial interest in, and then disassociation from, Nazi eugenics policies; and a widely publicized court case in 1936 involving the sterilization of a wealthy young woman deemed unworthy by her mother of having children. Kline's engaging account reflects the shift from "negative eugenics" (preventing procreation of the "unfit") to "positive eugenics," which encouraged procreation of the "fit," and it reveals that the "golden age" of eugenics actually occurred long after most historians claim the movement had vanished. The middle-class "passion for parenthood" in the '50s had its roots, she finds, in the positive eugenics campaign of the '30s and '40s.
Many issues that originated in the eugenics movement remain controversial today, such as the use of IQ testing, the medical ethics of sterilization, the moral and legal implications of cloning and genetic screening, and even the debate on family values
Wendy Kline is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati.
