CHICAGO METRO HISTORY FAIR

2015 SUMMARY STATEMENT

Attach an annotated bibliography (AB) that is divided between primary and secondary sources.
Submit two copies of the SS and AB at the competition. Please type.

Student name(s) _____________________________________________________________

Carl Arkebauer
___________________________________________________________________________
Title _The Eugenics Debate: Civil Rights Failures & Catastrophic Consequences_______
Check if applicable (and respond to Question 3):
This project uses the 2015 National History Day theme, Leadership & Legacy in [Chicago/Illinois] History
Project Category:

Exhibit

Website

Paper

Student Composed
Word-Count:

Student Composed
Word-Count: 1500

Total Word-Count
(excluding citations):

Documentary Performance
Time:

Time:

1. THESIS STATEMENT

Present the projects argument or interpretation in two sentences. If you are using the NHD theme, you might want to make it
evident in your thesis statement.
In the mid-1910s, Chicago became the center a worldwide debate about eugenics that led many white Americans to embrace
this movement as the scientific solution to social problems involving defective people who were a burden to themselves
and society. Consequently, federal and state eugenics-based laws were adopted that are now considered serious civil rights
failures, and then Germany adopted similar laws and used eugenics to justify killing millions of people during WWII. After the
world discovered the catastrophic consequences of the eugenics movement, diplomacy led to reforms designed to prohibit
the atrocious human rights violations it perpetrated.

2. SUMMARY OF PROJECT

Briefly explain your project and its conclusion. Include: How and why did change happen and what was the impact? Why is
it historically significant? What historical meaning or importance can we learn from your findings?
Despite opposition by the Catholic Church and refuting evidence supplied by sophisticated geneticists, the movement gained
momentum in America for three main reasons: (1) intense racism white Southerners felt towards newly freed African
Americans, (2) ethnic prejudice that grew in intensity as enormous numbers of southern and eastern European immigrants
arrived with different physical traits, political and religious beliefs, and customs, and (3) economic and social fears associated
with mentally and physically disabled people and others supported by state institutions. By the early 1910s, the movement
was being organized into a scientific discipline. The debate about infant euthanasia that started in Chicago helped popularize
eugenics ideas worldwide. In an effort to eliminate undesirable segments of society, elite Americans relied on eugenics to

3. Required for projects using the National History Day theme only.

Explain how this project integrates the NHD theme Leadership & Legacy in [Chicago/Illinois] History into its argument.
The History Fair theme, Debate and Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures and Consequences, is the foundation of my exhibit. First, my exhibit
focuses on the eugenics-based debate involving infant euthanasia that brought worldwide attention to Chicago in the mid-1910s. Dr. Harry J.
Haiselden, a prominent Chicago physician, publicly urged parents to let their defective newborn die even though surgery could save his life. The
parents agreed and the baby died, triggering an enormous controversy. Largely because Haiselden vigorously publicized and promoted these deaths
(he even wrote and starred in a feature film warning against the marriage of defectives and allowing disabled children to live), hundreds of reviews,
letters, articles and editorials were published on both sides of the eugenics debate.
The next part of my board will focus on the domestic consequences of this pro-eugenics publicity: legislation that is now considered a civil rights
failure. First, the eugenics lobby actively advocated for involuntary sterilization of epileptics, the "feebleminded," and "hereditary defectives" in an
effort to prevent these individuals from reproducing, thereby reducing the burden of "social dependents" who had to be supported in state institutions.
Second, eugenicists supplied scientific ammunition to pass new laws and strengthen existing laws forbidding interracial marriage to prevent
contamination of the white race. Third, eugenicists were recruited to support selective immigration restrictions to stem the flood of "inferior stock"
represented by the Italian and eastern European Jewish immigrants.
The next part of my board will focus on the catastrophic international consequences of the eugenics movement. American philanthropists contributed
massive amounts of money to eugenics organizations in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and Hitler used the American model sterilization
law as a basis for sterilizing 400,000 disabled Germans who were viewed as a waste of resources. In 1939 the need for hospital beds for wounded
Nazi soldiers prompted a "final solution" for "lives not worth living," so doctors identified more than 70,000 physically and mentally disabled people
who murdered at hospitals. In 1941 medical and other personnel with euthanasia experience were reassigned to concentration camps in Poland,
where gas was used to kill millions of Jews and other ethnic groups viewed to be enemies of Third Reich.
When the full extent of Nazi atrocities were discovered after WWII, the eugenics debate was silenced when both the public and scientific communities
realized the catastrophic consequences of this movement. The newly created United Nations successfully responded to these horrors with
diplomacy. In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, representing the first global expression of rights to which all human
beings, including hundreds of millions of disabled people, are inherently entitled.
Because my exhibit board discusses both debate and diplomacy, as well a their successes, failures and consequences, my project integrates the
History Fair theme, Debate and Diplomacy: Successes, Failures and Consequences.

4. PROCESS
A. What historical question did you start off withand how did it change once you began doing your research?

B. What kinds of sources did you use as evidence to develop your argument (for example, letters, photographs,
government documents, interviews, etc.)?
I used a wide variety of sources as evidence to develop my argument. I discovered a number of excellent primary resources that discussed
had first-hand accounts the eugenics debate about infant euthanasia in Chicago, including newspaper articles from 1915-1917. I also found
an excellent book that was published recently about the infant euthanasia debate in Chicago that went on to describe Dr. Haiseldens efforts
to publicize his views on eugenics around the world, including a detailed account of his feature film called The Black Stork. I also used
letters, government documents and newspaper articles from around the country (all primary resources) that describe the national
consequences of the eugenics debate, including race-mixing prohibitions, involuntary sterilization laws and ethnically based immigration
restrictions from the 1920s and 1930s. I also found similar resources that describe the spread of American-style eugenics to Nazi Germany