Slavishak Edward
Susquehanna University, USA.
J Fam Hist. 2009 Jan;34(1):89-115. doi: 10.1177/0363199008327643.
By examining the professional lives of two popularizers of eugenic thought from the 1910s to the 1940s, this study illustrates the broader change from "mainline" to "reform" eugenics in the United States. Roswell Hill Johnson's university teaching, laboratory research, and later marriage counseling work contrasted greatly with George Seibel's forays into eugenic theater moral reform, and mass physical fitness movements. Yet both men shifted from a strict position of mandating other people's behavior in the name of national health and racial integrity to a more therapeutic stance that cast individual decisions in the context of managed family life. This study shows that for some, the transformation of eugenics in the 1930s meant adapting the traditional focus on superiority, inferiority, and reproduction by design to the language of a commercial marketplace.
通过审视20世纪10年代至40年代两位优生学思想普及者的职业生涯，本研究揭示了美国从“主流”优生学到“改良”优生学的更广泛转变。罗斯韦尔·希尔·约翰逊的大学教学、实验室研究以及后来的婚姻咨询工作，与乔治·塞贝尔涉足优生戏剧道德改革和大众健身运动形成了鲜明对比。然而，两人都从以国民健康和种族纯洁之名强制他人行为的严格立场，转变为在家庭生活管理背景下看待个人决策的更具治疗性的立场。这项研究表明，对一些人来说，20世纪30年代优生学的转变意味着将传统上对优劣和刻意繁殖的关注，转变为商业市场的语言。
