review of the Eugenics Archive

The Eugenics Archive documents the history of the now-discredited scientific theory of eugenics. The archive is hosted by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) through its Dolan DNA Learning Center (DNALC). It has over 2,500 images and several “online exhibits” describing the different reasons behind and impacts of the eugenics movement. Eugenics corrupted true genetic theory; using a narrow interpretation to try and “better” the human race by encourage the “fit” to reproduce and discouraging the “degenerate” from doing the same. It also served to reaffirm white supremacy, by casting Western European whites (Caucasoid) as the most fit, and African (Mongoloid) as degenerate.

By today’s digital standards The Eugenics Archive is simple and low-tech. (The main site has not had significant changes since at least 2004). The images are primarily organized by “topic” although keyword and chronological searches are also available. Each topic has a passage explaining its history. There are also nine in-depth interpretive essays (called virtual exhibits) about eugenics, presented in “flash” format so a few images could be included alongside, these images expand when the mouse hovers over them. The text of these essays explain the social and political climate that helped foster the widespread acceptance of eugenics, and also describes the consequences of this theory—such as immigration “reform” and forced sterilization. These essays are written by scholars, but presented in such a way that those without a background in the subject can grasp the concepts.

Although the essays are well-written, the presentation is problematic. It requires several pages to read the essay, yet only one set of images is used for the entire essay. An opportunity to better integrate images into this text is lost, there are also no links between the essays and the rest of the images or the topics they discuss. The archive seems to have begun to address this lack of interactivity through the introduction of a new blog. This blog has sporadic postings on modern topics that relate to eugenics (such as heredity and the storm surround the 2009 health care debates)—and it does it in such a way as to encourage a “shared authority” between audience and writer, encouraging the visitor to explore the archive and make their own decisions.

The archive itself contains around 2,500 images. However the word “image” is somewhat misleading, as most of the items presented are digital copies of textual documents, although many pictorial images also appear. The archive collects a large variety of documents from archives in the United States and England, discussing mostly the movement in America (all the interpretive essays focus on this aspect), but there is also acknowledgement of how the Nazi’s took the ideas of eugenics and developed the theories of the “master race” from them.

The Eugenics archive is a useful repository of images about this dark period in American life. While it presently suffers from a lack of interactivity, the new blog, if used properly, can help to fix this problem.