eugenics

Introduction & Top Questions
Early history
Eugenics organizations and legislation
Popular support for eugenics
Anti-eugenics sentiment
The “new eugenics”

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eugenics summary

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greylag. Flock of Greylag geese during their winter migration at Bosque del Apache National Refugee, New Mexico. greylag goose (Anser anser)

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Related Questions

How can gene editing be used to treat genetic disease while also raising ethical concerns?
How did Charles B. Davenport support the American eugenics movement?
How did Gregor Mendel’s discoveries about heredity influence eugenicists?
How did Madison Grant’s book The Passing of the Great Race promote eugenic ideas?
How did Nazi eugenics contribute to the persecution and extermination of Jews and other groups?
How did Plato’s Republic describe selective breeding in human society?
How did biological determinism support eugenic ideas?
How did compulsory sterilization laws affect disabled and institutionalized people in the United States?
How did eugenicists use intelligence tests to classify people?
How did eugenics become popular in American schools and colleges during the 1930s?
How did eugenics influence the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924?
How did “fitter families” contests promote eugenics at American fairs?
How did genetic screening raise concerns connected to the idea of “new eugenics”?
How did positive eugenics differ from negative eugenics?
How did social Darwinism help eugenics gain support in the late 1800s?
How did the Eugenics Record Office collect and use family information in the United States?
How did the Nazi Marriage Subsidy Law try to increase the birth rate of people the Nazis called Aryan?
How did the Nürnberg Laws enforce Nazi racial ideology?
How did the Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell support compulsory sterilization?
How was Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection connected to eugenics?
What did Francis Galton propose in Hereditary Genius?
What did the Nazi Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health allow the government to do?
What organizations and individuals financed the Eugenics Record Office?
What role did Harry H. Laughlin play in American eugenics policies?
Which U.S. state passed the first compulsory sterilization law in 1907?
Which human traits did early eugenicists claim were inherited?
Which prominent scientists and political leaders supported eugenics in the United States?
Who coined the term eugenics in 1883?
Who directed the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor?
Why did eugenicists compare human reproduction with the breeding of crops and livestock?
Why did eugenicists place more importance on heredity than on environment?
Why did eugenics organizations change their names after World War II?
Why did public support for eugenics decline after World War II?
Why do privacy, personal choice, and human diversity matter in discussions of human genetics?
Why does cystic fibrosis show that genes do not completely determine a person’s health?
Why were claims that intelligence and criminal behavior were inherited difficult to prove?
Why were early intelligence tests used by eugenicists culturally biased?
What is eugenics?
When was eugenics popular?
What was the American eugenics movement?
What is a backcross in genetics?
How is a recessive gene backcrossed differently from a dominant gene?
How is genetic testing done?
Why is biology important?
Why is DNA fingerprinting important?
What are some concerns about the use of DNA fingerprinting?
What are the main steps in the PCR process?

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External Websites

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Eugenics
New England Journal of Medicine - Â“Ridding the Race of His Defective BloodÂ” Â— Eugenics in the Journal, 1906Â–1948
National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Eugenics
NIH Intramural Research Program - Unfit to Breed: AmericaÂ’s Dark Tale of Eugenics
ABC listen - Boyer Lectures - Back to the future of eugenics
National Human Genome Research Institute - Eugenics: Its Origin and Development (1883 - Present)
Facing History and Ourselves - The Origins of Eugenics
UC Berkeley Public Health - The legacy of eugenics
Open Library Publishing Platform - Canadian History: Post-Confederation - Eugenics
Social Sciences LibreTexts - Modern-Day Eugenics
English Heritage - Eugenics in Britain
The Canadian Encyclopedia - Eugenics in Canada

Britannica Websites

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eugenics - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Francis Galton Francis Galton, detail of an oil painting by G. Graef, 1882; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

eugenics

genetics

Written by

Philip K. Wilson

Medical Historian, The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Penn State College of Medicine. Author of Surgery, Skin & Syphilis: Daniel Turner's London (1667-1741).

Philip K. Wilson

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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

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Last updated

Oct. 16, 2026 •History

eugenics, the selection of desired heritable characteristics in order to improve future generations, typically in reference to humans. The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by British explorer and natural scientist Francis Galton, who, influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, advocated a system that would allow “the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.” Social Darwinism, the popular theory in the late 19th...

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