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This study explored the work of nursing and the social influences of eugenic policies established during the Progressive Era (1890-1930) on the writing and passage of the Social Security Act of 1935. The research questions: "Did eugenic philosophy and practice influence the Social Security Act of 1935 in relation to Maternal Health Policy?" and 'What was nursing's influence on the Social Security Act of 1935?" required the social history research method. Data were evaluated with the conclusion that eugenic policies did influence the writing and passage of the Social Security Act. Also, that nurses, and other women, played a specific, important and constructive role in developing the Act. During the late 1800s and early 1900s prominent leaders of business, science, philanthropy, and social reform supported the eugenic agenda to assure the wellbeing of hard working "Anglo-Saxon" American citizens. Industrialization and scientific advances in medicine gave Americans the impression that the "production" of healthy, intelligent children could be controlled, efficient, and predictable. Better breeding as a means for social improvement, which fueled the eugenics movement's use of science to solve social problems through governmental involvement, had two sides. Positive eugenics increased information on health and illness prevention, and established well baby clinics; however, negative eugenics advocated controlled reproduction through sterilization of persons considered "unfit." By 1935, twenty-eight states had eugenic sterilization laws. Noted reformers during this time (Lillian Wald, Jane Addams, and Florence Kelley) worked with Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to establish the Federal Children's Bureau. The Bureau had a direct influence on the maternal and child health policy established by the Social Security Act of 1935. / This legacy continues today in the continued fight for women and children's social and economic rights.The Social Security Act's intention, economic security for all citizens, was not realized. Sections of the Act focused on maternalistic social views and sought to maintain a patriarchal family structure. The language of the Social Security Act created barriers to benefits for the most vulnerable. In fact, it seems reasonable to conclude that institutionalized health care disparities laid their roots in America through this legislation. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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In the early 20th century, there were few therapeutic options for mental illness and asylum numbers were rising. This pessimistic outlook favoured the rise of the eugenics movement. Heredity was assumed to be the principal cause of mental illness. Politicians, scientists and clinicians in North America and Europe called for compulsory sterilisation of the mentally ill. Psychiatric genetic research aimed to prove a Mendelian mode of inheritance as a scientific justification for these measures. Ernst Rüdin’s seminal 1916 epidemiological study on inheritance of dementia praecox featured large, systematically ascertained samples and statistical analyses. Rüdin’s 1922–1925 study on the inheritance of “manic-depressive insanity” was completed in manuscript form, but never published. It failed to prove a pattern of Mendelian inheritance, counter to the tenets of eugenics of which Rüdin was a prominent proponent. It appears he withheld the study from publication, unable to reconcile this contradiction, thus subordinating his carefully derived scientific findings to his ideological preoccupations. Instead, Rüdin continued to promote prevention of assumed hereditary mental illnesses by prohibition of marriage or sterilisation and was influential in the introduction by the National Socialist regime of the 1933 “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring” (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses).

Que l’on parle de « technosemen », de « cyborg babies » ou de « techno-birth », force est de constater que le recours aux nouvelles technologies de reproduction participe d’une reconfiguration des processus biologiques. On assiste à une technicisation du corps qui entraine sa parcellisation et rend possibles son exploitation et sa commercialisation en pièces détachées. Or, la mise en valeur des substances biologiques est souvent accompagnée de leur rematérialisation dans l’imaginaire social. En nous intéressant à l’industrie du don de gamètes, nous cherchons à comprendre comment elle marchandise les substances reproductives en reconstituant le corps du donneur. La littérature est abondante sur la participation des nouvelles technologies de reproduction au renouveau identitaire et sociétal. Nous souhaitons donc décaler le regard et réfléchir sur la manière avec laquelle la sélection génétique opérée en clinique de reproduction nous révèle des schémas sociaux qui interviennent dans la dimension identitaire du corps. Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, il s’agira d’analyser les discours entourant le recrutement et la présentation des donneurs sur les sites internet de banques de gamètes au Canada et aux États-Unis. Nous montrerons que l’industrie du don de sperme et d’ovules, qui s’insère dans ce que l’on appelle la bioéconomie, participe à la reproduction d’une vision des formations sociales qui est à la fois genrée, racialisée et stratifiée par classes sociales. / Whether we talk about “technosemen”, “cyborg babies” or “techno-birth”, it all comes down to one thing: the use of the latest reproductive technologies is part of a redesign of the biological processes. What we are witnessing is that the body is being technified and ultimately broken down in such a way that it can be exploited and marketed in spare parts. However, because they’re being valued, the biological substances are often also rematerialized in the social consciousness. In looking at the gamete donation industry, we are trying to understand how it treats the reproductive substances as commodities in reconstructing the donor’s body. There is plenty of literature on how the new reproductive technologies are contributing to the identity and societal renewal. Our goal is therefore to look beyond and reflect on how much the genetic selection performed in fertility clinics says about the social patterns that enter in the identity dimension of the body. This thesis analyses the rhetoric used on the websites of sperm and egg banks in Canada and in the United States to recruit and present the donors. We will show that sperm and egg donations, which come within what is now called the bioeconomy, replicate a certain vision of social groups which are altogether classified by gender, race and social class.

Dans ce mémoire, l’objectif poursuivi sera d’éclairer les dynamiques de genre, de race, de classe, de nation et de handicap à travers le phénomène du contrôle des capacités reproductives des femmes. Dans un premier temps, j’essaierai de comprendre comment les passés coloniaux du Canada et des États-Unis ont structuré leur rapport à la reproduction et comment celle-ci est devenue un enjeu politique de premier plan au sein de l’idéologie eugéniste. Dans un deuxième temps, j’explorerai quel a été le rôle de la science dans la mise en place, en Occident, de systèmes experts capables de guider la société vers le Progrès. Ces réflexions me permettront de retracer quel a été le contexte d’émergence des lois sur la stérilisation sexuelle et quels discours de légitimation ont été mis de l’avant afin de justifier l’appropriation des capacités reproductives de certaines populations jugées « indésirables ». Ainsi, je poserai l’hypothèse que les valeurs et présupposés « scientifiques » racistes, sexistes et classistes sous-jacents à l’élaboration de ces lois ont mené à des stérilisations forcées de certains groupes minorisés, c’est-à-dire les femmes autochtones au Canada et les femmes noires aux États-Unis. Je tenterai alors d’évaluer si, effectivement, les politiques de stérilisation aux Canada et aux États-Unis ont été discriminatoires dans leur formulation et dans leur mise en application à l’égard de ces populations. Finalement, je mobiliserai les figures de la welfare queen et de la squaw afin de comprendre comment ces identités assignées ont permis de légitimer un traitement différencié à leur égard et comment elles structurent encore aujourd’hui leur rapport à la sexualité et à la reproduction. / In this research, the objective pursued will be to throw light on the dynamics of gender, race, class, age, nation, and handicap by examining how women’s reproductive freedom has been historically constrained. First, I will examine how the colonial pasts of Canada and United States have shaped their relationships to reproduction. Then, I will analyze how the eugenic ideology relied on science to legitimate their enterprise of liberating society of its « unwanted » through the instauration of sexual sterilization acts. I will put forward the hypothesis that Indian women in Canada and African american women in the United States have been disproportionately targeted by these acts. The public identities of the welfare queen and the squaw will be mobilized to demonstrate how those images were used to legitimize the instauration of public policies designed to discriminate against these populations.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T14:16:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciana Costa Lima Thomaz.pdf: 4629609 bytes, checksum: e0c75ddd8fe34d9f36e7124278be8c2e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-09 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The traditional approach to medicine in the West was grounded on the classification of the endless human diversity in classes (complexions). With the rise of modern science, the focus of medicine gradually shifted to the physical and chemical processes proper to living matter. Consequently, the practice of medicine became dependent on the diagnosis of clinical entities, which were classified according to their etiopathogenic mechanisms, in turn dependent of biomolecular phenomena. Despite this mainstream direction, countless typological classifications burst out in the first decades of the 20th century in a wide range of contexts anthropology, criminology, psychology, education, etc. including medicine. To understand this phenomenon, this study focused on biotypological theories grounded on the assertion that there is an intrinsic relationship between human types and embryological layers, the work by Marcel Martiny (1897-1982) in particular. Analysis carried out within three overlapping spheres addressing sociohistorical, epistemological and historiographical aspects allowed identifying strong eugenic element in biotypological theory as formulated in the first half of the 20th century within the context known as medical Holism . This was also the background for Martiny, whose experimental work is restricted to anthropometric measurements that then were related with physiological and biomolecular phenomena exclusively by way of analogy. After World War I biotypological theory was depurated from all eugenic elements, whereas its lack of any empirical foundation was neglected and despite its contradictions, it is discussed even in our own days as if it were sound science / A medicina tradicionalmente vigente no Ocidente se baseava na classificação da heterogeneidade humana em diversos tipologias (compleições). Com a formulação da ciência moderna, gradualmente, a base da medicina passou a focar os fenômenos físicos e químicos que ocorrem na matéria viva. Assim, a prática clínica passa a depender do diagnóstico de entidades nosológicas, classificadas segundo seu mecanismo etiopatogênico, por sua vez, dependente de mecanismos biomoleculares. No entanto, nas primeiras décadas do século XX acontece uma explosão de classificações tipológicas numa variedade de contextos antropologia, criminologia, psicologia, pedagogia, etc. incluindo a medicina. Para abordar esse fenômeno, focou-se as teorias que afirmavam uma relação intrínseca entre as tipologias humanas e os folhetos embrionários, em particular, a obra de Marcel Martiny (1897- 1982). A análise realizada em três esferas superpostas, levando em conta aspectos histórico-sociais, epistemológicos e historiográficos, permitiu identificar fortes componentes eugenistas nas biotipologias desenvolvidas na primeira metade do séculos XX, dentro do chamado holismo médico . Esse é também o pano de fundo do trabalho de Martiny, que utiliza como método, basicamente, medições antropométricas, cuja vinculação aos fenômenos fisiológicos e biomoleculares é realizada de maneira puramente analógica. Depois da Segunda Guerra Mundial, a teoria das biotipologias foi depurada de seus elementos eugenistas, sua falta de fundamentação empírica foi omitida e, apesar de todas suas contradições, continua a ser apresentada como ciência provada em diversos contextos, especialmente, nas abordagens médicas holistas

This dissertation explores the intellectual discourse on race in the early twentieth century, particularly from 1919 to 1958, examining how British and American eugenicists and Caribbean nationalists debated the limits of colonial politics in the British Caribbean using academic and scientific language. These discussions emerged in the aftermath of World War I, the economic crises that led to the Great Depression, the political and labor unrest in the British Caribbean, and consequences of the Second World War. The dissertation’s goal is to examine how residents of the British Caribbean understood, appropriated, and challenged some of the principles of eugenics, particularly those espousing ideas of white superiority. The dissertation has taken great consideration of both private and published sources from white and black intellectuals in the Anglophone Caribbean to document the dissemination of concepts of race, ethnicity, and identity in the region during the interwar period. Additionally, focusing on such critical areas as education and social policies, it explores whether eugenic ideas influenced the twentieth-century governance of British West Indian colonies.

Depuis l’exploration naissante de l’économie endocrine du masculin jusqu’aux opérations de revitalisation pratiquées dans les années 1920 et 1930, cette thèse montre de quelle manière diverses opérations génitales, dont la vasectomie, participent des stratégies médicales de construction du masculin. En parallèle, la stérilisation masculine volontaire est explorée dans le cadre de projets eugénistes à partir d’une campagne pour la légalisation de la stérilisation en Grande-Bretagne, de débats au sein de la Ligue mondiale pour la réforme sexuelle et du mouvement néo-malthusien français. L’évolution des normes de masculinité et de paternité est enfin questionnée par le recours à la vasectomie comme moyen contraceptif de convenance. L’organisation de vasectomies clandestines, la répression et la réprobation sociale qu’elles suscitent interrogent la disposition de soi du côté des hommes et le rôle normatif de! la procréation. Le caractère polysémique des stérilisations permet ainsi d’explorer globalement les reconfigurations de la masculinité à une échelle transnationale. / From the nascent exploration of the endocrine system of the male to the revitalization operations performed in the 1920s and 1930s, this thesis shows how various genital operations, including vasectomy, contribute to medical strategies for the construction of masculinity. In parallel, voluntary male sterilization is explored in the context of eugenicist projects on the basis of a campaign for legalizing sterilization in Great Britain, the debates within the World League for Sexual Reform and the french neo-malthusian movement. The evolution of the norms of masculinity and paternity is finally questioned by the use of vasectomy as a convenient contraceptive method. The organization of clandestine vasectomies, the repression and social disapproval they generate question men's self-determination and the normative role of procreation. The polysemous nature of sterilizations thus makes possible the overall exploration of the reconfigurations of masculinit! y on a transnational scale.

Biologiste reconnu, notamment, pour sa contribution à la fondation de la génétique des populations, J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) est également membre du Parti Communiste de Grande-Bretagne entre 1942 et 1950 et, à partir de 1937, il défend avec force l'opinion que le marxisme est utile au travail scientifique. Notre étude porte sur les idées marxistes de Haldane et sur la manière dont elles sont historiquement produites. Elle examine d'abord son parcours intellectuel et propose de comprendre son adoption du marxisme dans le cadre d'une dynamique de recherche d'unité entre des conceptions des sciences, de la philosophie et de la politique. L'étude porte ensuite sur la manière dont fonctionne ce qui est caractérisé comme une vision marxiste du monde, c'est-à-dire un mode de production et de circulation de concepts. En particulier, l'assertion que fait Haldane d'un usage du marxisme dans son travail scientifique est confrontée à certains de ses travaux en génétique des populations, ainsi qu'aux idées qu'il émet concernant l'eugénisme. Cette confrontation permet de confirmer et de généraliser, contre Sarkar (1992) et Shapiro (1993), le résultat proposé par Hammond (2004) d'une effectivité du marxisme de Haldane dans ses sciences, et de préciser la manière dont elle se réalise. Finalement, nous proposons une compréhension du marxisme de Haldane comme un cas particulier de processus historiques plus généraux. Nous examinons l'histoire des idées marxistes sur les sciences et le phénomène d'engagement politique de scientifiques britanniques à cette époque, et interrogeons par là les racines politiques et sociales du marxisme de Haldane. / A prominent biologist, remembered as a prominent contributor to the theoretical foundations of population genetics, JBS Haldane (1892-1964) was also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain from 1942 to 1950. From 1937 on, he vigorously advocated the idea that Marxism was useful to scientific work.Our study focuses on Haldane's Marxist ideas and discusses the ways in which they were historically produced. We first consider the development of Haldane's intellectual positions and interpret his adoption of Marxism in the context of a dynamic search for unity between conceptions of science, philosophy and politics. Our study then focuses on the working of his Marxist thinking, which we characterize as a worldview, that is to say a mode of production and circulation of ideas. In particular, we examine the claim that Haldane made use of Marxism in his science using as evidence some of his work in population genetics and eugenics. This leads us to strengthen and generalize the case made by Hammond (2004) against Sarkar (1992) and Shapiro (1993) in favour of the impact of Haldane's Marxism on his science, and to a clarification concerning how this took place. Finally, we propose the interpretation of Haldane's Marxism as a special case of more general historical processes. We investigate the history of Marxist ideas of science and that of British scientists' political commitment at the time, and thus question the social and political roots of Haldane's Marxism.