The Briefing Room

General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => History => Topic started by: mountaineer on July 26, 2016, 12:09:00 pm

Title: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: mountaineer on July 26, 2016, 12:09:00 pm
These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution
By Jordan G. Teicher
SLATE (http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2016/07/05/_of_nordic_archives_by_anne_karin_furunes.html)
Quote
In 2005, Norwegian artist Anne-Karin Furunes (http://ryanleegallery.com/exhibitions/anne-karin-furunes/) was browsing in the library at Sweden’s Uppsala University when she happened upon a curious collection of photographs. They were photos of unidentified people categorized according to groups such as “criminals,” “Gypsies,” and “Jews.”

The photos, she learned, were from the archive of the State Institute for Racial Biology, a eugenics institution established in 1922. Its first director, the physician Herman Bernhard Lundborg, believed that unsavory genes needed to be rooted out of the Swedish population to ensure the dominance of a superior race. The institute’s research was ultimately used to justify a shameful government program that led to the forced sterilizations of nearly 63,000 people—a vast majority of whom were women—between 1935 and 1975. Many European nations created similar programs in the years leading up to World War II.

“I believe the photos were made as part of a process of mapping their so-called ‘research.’ Lundborg was systematically mapping the Swedish people,” Furunes said via email.

The anonymous faces of the men, women, and children moved Furunes, so the next year she returned to the library with the intention of using the photos for a series of artworks. The resulting project, “Of Nordic Archives,” was recently on display at Ryan Lee Gallery in New York City.

“I wished to bring their portraits back into our time without the label from the archive, to present them as people again,” she said.    ...
(http://ryanleegallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Of-Faces-IV-Portraits-of-Pictures-286x330.jpeg)

Rest of article and photos (http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2016/07/05/_of_nordic_archives_by_anne_karin_furunes.html)
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: Timber Rattler on July 26, 2016, 12:20:39 pm
And in America, Virginia led the way for eugenics, backed by SCOTUS and Oliver Wendell Holmes...

https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/VA/VA.html

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/01/27/a-dark-past-should-virginia-pay-those-it-robbed-of-the-right-to-bear-children

http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/eugenics/5-epilogue/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: mountaineer on July 26, 2016, 07:31:25 pm
And in America, Virginia led the way for eugenics, backed by SCOTUS and Oliver Wendell Holmes...
My mother had a friend whose father was a doctor in 1930s Virginia. He admitted to many sterilizations of black women.
Looks like none of these countries that sought to eradicate the black race ever succeeded.
 :nono:
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: Cripplecreek on July 26, 2016, 07:51:43 pm
And in America, Virginia led the way for eugenics, backed by SCOTUS and Oliver Wendell Holmes...

https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/VA/VA.html

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/01/27/a-dark-past-should-virginia-pay-those-it-robbed-of-the-right-to-bear-children

http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/eugenics/5-epilogue/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

Teddy Roosevelt was a fan of eugenics as well.

Letter sent from TR to Dr Charles Davenpoort in response to a pro eugenics letter.

(http://i.imgur.com/VF6CyNn.jpg)
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: geronl on July 26, 2016, 07:52:45 pm
Progressives are still big on this stuff. I think Bill Gates' foundation spends a lot on mass sterilizations in Africa.
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: geronl on July 26, 2016, 07:54:49 pm
Teddy Roosevelt was a fan of eugenics as well.


I wonder how many of the TR biographies even mention that.
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: Timber Rattler on July 26, 2016, 08:01:21 pm
My mother had a friend whose father was a doctor in 1930s Virginia. He admitted to many sterilizations of black women.
Looks like none of these countries that sought to eradicate the black race ever succeeded.
 :nono:

They abducted poor women in Appalachia too, sent them to Lynchburg for sterilization, and then dropped them back off in front of their shacks, still sore from the surgery.  I had some family members who were abducted and sterilized in this manner, and we have never forgotten about it.
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: Cripplecreek on July 26, 2016, 08:04:15 pm
I've read that the German attempts to breed racial purity actually further diluted German blood.

They were too concerned with those physical traits that fit their vision of racially superior Germans while ignoring actual bloodlines.
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: geronl on July 26, 2016, 08:04:44 pm
They abducted poor women in Appalachia too, sent them to Lynchburg for sterilization, and then dropped them back off in front of their shacks, still sore from the surgery.  I had some family members who were abducted and sterilized in this manner, and we have never forgotten about it.

"We're from the government and we are here to cut you."
Title: Re: These People Were Likely Victims of a Swedish Eugenics Institution (racial purity efforts in 1922)
Post by: ABX on July 26, 2016, 08:19:58 pm
And in America, Virginia led the way for eugenics, backed by SCOTUS and Oliver Wendell Holmes...

https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/VA/VA.html

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/01/27/a-dark-past-should-virginia-pay-those-it-robbed-of-the-right-to-bear-children

http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/eugenics/5-epilogue/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

It was also widely used against Native Americans.
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/543.html