WASHINGTON, DC—Archivists at the Library of Congress, working with historians from three universities in the United States and Europe, have traced back the roots of the controversial eugenics movement that occurred in the late 1800s and into the 1900s.
Although the concept of selective breeding had been around for centuries, the notion of preventing people with certain traits from passing them into the gene pool was a popular social philosophy, at least among the wealthy and educated, for much of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Indeed, several states in the U.S. even passed laws that allowed the forced castration of some individuals.
The scholars working on this project have recently discovered that, despite the commonly held belief that eugenics was originally intended to improve upon the traits passed on in the human race generally, that early eugenicists in reality merely wanted to castrate a man named Eugene.
"This changes everything we thought we knew about the movement," explained Professor of History Elizabeth Wallace, 55. "We had always thought that the eugenics movement was born from some deeply philosophical and ethical debates about the good of the human race, but it turns out that the major players just hated some guy named Eugene."
The man in question, however, remains quite a mystery. "There is never a last named mentioned in any of these journals and other documents," shared Brandon Hadfield, 39, archivist with the Library of Congress. "But it is clear as day that they had it in for this guy."
One of the newly rediscovered writings is a selection of 4 loose scraps of paper that were found in a book known to have belonged to Francis Galton, one of the most outspoken eugenicists of England in the 19th Century. It appears to be in Galton's handwriting, and reads in part, "Eugene deserves nothing less than to have his testicles forcibly removed with red hot garden shears."
Oddly, there was no mention in any of these same writings regarding passing on traits that Eugene had. The people involved apparently just couldn't stand him, as is apparent in other writings. "[Eugene] slurps his tea like an elephant at a watering hole. Oh! How his face offends me with that ridiculous grin!"
The historians who made the discovery have come to better understand the movement in light of all of the readings. "All things considered, I get it," offered Hadfield. "There is this one section of a journal somewhere, where Eugene is described as chewing with his mouth open, and reading road signs out loud. Also, apparently he was big into cats, and got pretty weird about it—like, always awkwardly bringing up his cats in conversation. So, I get it."
Although it is unclear whether this specific Eugene ever was castrated as sought, the team of researchers is now writing a book that suggests the entire eugenics movement stemmed from people's hatred for Eugene. Perhaps the notion of castrating Eugene was proposed under the guise of progress for the good of humanity, and others ran with it.
"Of course, we can't be certain of how things went down," said Hadfield, "but given the level of loathing I see in these writings about Eugene, I would not be surprised if these guys were willing to kill off hundreds of thousands of people just to get rid of him. He sounds insufferable."