"Not by a Decree of Fate:" Ellen Richards, Euthenics, and the Environment in the Progressive Era.

IF 0.7 1区 哲学 Q4 BIOLOGY
Journal of the History of Biology Pub Date : 2023-10-01 Epub Date: 2023-09-15 DOI:10.1007/s10739-023-09733-9
David Pd Munns
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

In 1904, Ellen Richards introduced "euthenics." By 1912, Lewellys Barker, director of medicine and physician-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, would tell the New York Times that the "task of eugenics" and the "task of euthenics" was the "Task for the Nation." Alongside the emergence of hereditarian eugenics, where fate was firmly rooted in heredity, this article places euthenics into the same Progressive Era demands for the scientific management over environmental issues like life and labor, health and hygiene, sewage and sanitation. I argue that euthenics not only heralded women as leaders in the quest for what Richards and eugenicists termed "racial improvement," but also aimed to make reforms through environmental and educational changes rather than hereditary interventions. Seeking to recuperate the figure of Ellen Richards in the history of science, I place Richards and her euthenics more into the debate over eugenics rather than over the emergence of home economics. Building on the work of Donald Opitz, Staffan Bergwik, and Brigette Van Tiggelen, this article shows, first, how Richards' career threads the needle between the home and the laboratory as sites of science making, not as separate spheres but as overlapping realms, and helps recover how domestic concerns shaped the focus of the life sciences. Second, this article shows how euthenics shaped eugenics by looking at the writings of American eugenicists Charles Davenport, Paul Popenoe, and David Starr Jordan. Third, the article describes how euthenics took root in new academic departments of domestic science, home economics, and departments child welfare and family life in the 1920 and 1930s, most notably the department of euthenics at the Kansas State Agricultural College from 1926 and the Institute of Euthenics at Vassar College after 1923.

《不是命运的命令》:艾伦·理查兹,《进化论与进步时代的环境》。
1904年,Ellen Richards提出了“安乐死”。到1912年,约翰·霍普金斯医院的医学主任兼主任医师Lewellys Barker告诉《纽约时报》,“优生学的任务”和“安乐死的任务”是“国家的任务”,本文将安乐死置于进步时代对生命与劳动、健康与卫生、污水与卫生等环境问题进行科学管理的要求之中。我认为,安乐死不仅预示着女性是理查兹和优生学家所说的“种族改善”的领导者,而且旨在通过环境和教育变革而不是遗传干预进行改革。为了恢复科学史上艾伦·理查兹的形象,我把理查兹和她的安乐死更多地放在关于优生学的辩论中,而不是关于家政学的出现。本文以唐纳德·奥皮茨、斯塔凡·伯格维克和布里吉特·范·蒂格伦的工作为基础,首先展示了理查兹的职业生涯是如何将家庭和实验室作为科学制造的场所,而不是作为单独的领域,而是作为重叠的领域,并有助于恢复国内问题如何塑造生命科学的焦点。其次,本文通过观察美国优生学家Charles Davenport、Paul Popenoe和David Starr Jordan的著作,展示了安乐死是如何塑造优生学的。第三,文章描述了安乐死是如何在1920年代和1930年代在新的家庭科学、家政学、儿童福利和家庭生活学系扎根的,最著名的是1926年堪萨斯州立农业学院的安乐死系和1923年后瓦萨学院的安乐死研究所。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Journal of the History of Biology
Journal of the History of Biology 生物-科学史与科学哲学
CiteScore
1.40
自引率
12.50%
发文量
29
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: The Journal of the History of Biology is devoted to the history of the life sciences, with additional interest and concern in philosophical and social issues confronting biology in its varying historical contexts. While all historical epochs are welcome, particular attention has been paid in recent years to developments during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. JHB is a recognized forum for scholarship on Darwin, but pieces that connect Darwinism with broader social and intellectual issues in the life sciences are especially encouraged. The journal serves both the working biologist who needs a full understanding of the historical and philosophical bases of the field and the historian of biology interested in following developments and making historiographical connections with the history of science.
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