History of American Eugenics Movement

Two interesting article over at Neurophilosophy regarding the American Eugenics Movement. I think this image from the first article is a pretty telling example of the absolutely appalling perspective on intelligence that was held until relatively recently:

And a snippet from the second article:

In 1927, U.S. Supreme Court passed a landmark ruling - Buck vs. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 - that upheld a statute for compulsory sterilization of those considered to be mentally retarded, “for the protection and health of the state”.

The state of Virginia had adopted the statue in 1924. On September 10th of that year, Dr. Albert Sidney Priddy, superintendant of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, filed a petition to his board of directors to sterilize Carrie Buck, an 18-year-old patient at his institution.

Priddy told the board that Buck had a mental age of 9, that she was one of three children of unknown parentage, and that her 52-year-old mother, who had a mental age of 8, had a record of immorality and prostitution. Buck had by that time given birth to a child; the father was her adoptive mother’s nephew, who had raped the “feeble-minded” woman in 1923.