War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, Expanded Edition by Edwin Black Page A
Authors: Edwin Black
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and euthanasia mills never happened. Within weeks of the plan’s launch in Rocky Hill, Governor Cross lost the 1938 election. With Cross out of office, Laughlin’s entire project was quietly abandoned. World War II broke out in 1939. Nazi atrocities and eugenic fascism shocked the world. After World War II, as the smoke cleared from millions murdered in the name of racial supremacy, international law officially declared that hampering reproduction of any ethnic group constituted “genocide.”
After World War II, most states drastically curtailed or abolished their eugenic campaigns and sterilization programs—but not North Carolina. Many North Carolinians were still targeted for bloodline termination because of their poverty, ancestry, or appearance. The prospect became a passion for hold-out eugenicists across the nation. They found common cause with confirmed eugenicists in several of North Carolina’s best universities. Several leading doctrinaire eugenicists found a home at Bowman Gray School of Medicine, now known as Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The school hosted the first department of medical genetics in America. These eugenicists included Dr. William Allan and Dr. Nash Herndon, both senior members of the genetics faculty. Allen had been an unrepentant race eugenicist for decades and throughout the Nazi era. He was a leader in the Eugenics Research Association and an international giant of medical genetics. Herdon, who succeeded Allan, served as president of the American Eugenics Society and helped to found North Carolina’s Human Betterment League.
Since both professors were rabid eugenicists, they attracted the support of Wycliffe Draper, an unabashed Nazi enthusiast and heir to a New England textile fortune. Draper donated money to Bowman Gray School of Medicine. “In 1950,” according to a confidential university investigation, “Draper made a gift of $40,000 in response to a proposal by Dr. Herndon to conduct a genetics study of an all-white North Carolina mountain population. The research focused on groups of geographically isolated mountain families, who tended to have defined concentrations of certain genetic traits and were thus of significant interest to medical genetics researchers. In 1951, Draper made an additional $40,000 grant for this project.” Among Draper’s stipulations for additional funding, he demanded that “the department not officially advocate interracial marriage.” The school agreed to the conditions, according to the report, and eventually, Draper granted an additional $100,000.
According the university report, further funding was to be contingent upon three provisos: “1) To seek to have race and immigration laws maintained, enforced, and strengthened; 2) To justify (explore) by scientific research the attitudes they reflect; 3) To explain and defend these attitudes by teaching and publicity.” In other words, the new Draper grants would establish the school as a prestigious outpost of racial eugenics. It is unclear if Draper paid any additional monies.
Others around the nation rallied to North Carolina’s eugenic crusade.
Racist Massachusetts financier Clarence Gamble, heir to the Proctor and Gamble fortune and a Nazi zealot, donated large sums to finance research and individual sterilizations as well as related state efforts. Gamble believed that most of North Carolina’s unfit were still roaming free of institutions—and needed to be apprehended. In a 1951 article for the North Carolina Medical Journal, Gamble wrote, “There are undoubtedly more persons outside of institutions for whom the operation [sterilization] is appropriate than there are within.” In that article, Gamble calculated, “the 468 sterilizations of the last biennium will mean 390 fewer feebleminded North Carolinians, an important accomplishment of this public health procedure.” It was always about population control.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, sterilizations continued
After World War II, most states drastically curtailed or abolished their eugenic campaigns and sterilization programs—but not North Carolina. Many North Carolinians were still targeted for bloodline termination because of their poverty, ancestry, or appearance. The prospect became a passion for hold-out eugenicists across the nation. They found common cause with confirmed eugenicists in several of North Carolina’s best universities. Several leading doctrinaire eugenicists found a home at Bowman Gray School of Medicine, now known as Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The school hosted the first department of medical genetics in America. These eugenicists included Dr. William Allan and Dr. Nash Herndon, both senior members of the genetics faculty. Allen had been an unrepentant race eugenicist for decades and throughout the Nazi era. He was a leader in the Eugenics Research Association and an international giant of medical genetics. Herdon, who succeeded Allan, served as president of the American Eugenics Society and helped to found North Carolina’s Human Betterment League.
Since both professors were rabid eugenicists, they attracted the support of Wycliffe Draper, an unabashed Nazi enthusiast and heir to a New England textile fortune. Draper donated money to Bowman Gray School of Medicine. “In 1950,” according to a confidential university investigation, “Draper made a gift of $40,000 in response to a proposal by Dr. Herndon to conduct a genetics study of an all-white North Carolina mountain population. The research focused on groups of geographically isolated mountain families, who tended to have defined concentrations of certain genetic traits and were thus of significant interest to medical genetics researchers. In 1951, Draper made an additional $40,000 grant for this project.” Among Draper’s stipulations for additional funding, he demanded that “the department not officially advocate interracial marriage.” The school agreed to the conditions, according to the report, and eventually, Draper granted an additional $100,000.
According the university report, further funding was to be contingent upon three provisos: “1) To seek to have race and immigration laws maintained, enforced, and strengthened; 2) To justify (explore) by scientific research the attitudes they reflect; 3) To explain and defend these attitudes by teaching and publicity.” In other words, the new Draper grants would establish the school as a prestigious outpost of racial eugenics. It is unclear if Draper paid any additional monies.
Others around the nation rallied to North Carolina’s eugenic crusade.
Racist Massachusetts financier Clarence Gamble, heir to the Proctor and Gamble fortune and a Nazi zealot, donated large sums to finance research and individual sterilizations as well as related state efforts. Gamble believed that most of North Carolina’s unfit were still roaming free of institutions—and needed to be apprehended. In a 1951 article for the North Carolina Medical Journal, Gamble wrote, “There are undoubtedly more persons outside of institutions for whom the operation [sterilization] is appropriate than there are within.” In that article, Gamble calculated, “the 468 sterilizations of the last biennium will mean 390 fewer feebleminded North Carolinians, an important accomplishment of this public health procedure.” It was always about population control.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, sterilizations continued
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