Harry H. Laughlin

Harry H. Laughlin was an American professor and a prominent figure in the eugenics movement in the early 20th century. He served as the superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, from 1910.1

Laughlin's work involved collecting data on American families to study inheritance patterns and advise on eugenic fitness. He classified individuals based on traits he deemed undesirable, such as feeblemindedness, criminality, and various diseases. His testimony before Congress influenced the Immigration Act of 1924, which significantly restricted immigration from certain countries. Laughlin also drafted a model law for involuntary sterilization, which was adopted by many U.S. states and upheld by the Supreme Court in the landmark case Buck v. Bell.1

Eugenics, the practice of selecting desired heritable characteristics to improve future generations, gained traction in the early 1900s but later faced criticism and became stigmatized, particularly after its misuse by the Nazis.1