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“THE PEOPLE WHO NEED US READ BETWEEN THE LINES”: THE FACES OF EUGENIC IDEOLOGY IN THE POST-WWII UNITED STATES

Fair, Alexandra Kathryn
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3580-1871
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1556874590527973

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts, Miami University, History.
Called a “Mississippi Appendectomy” in some southern states and “la operacion” in Puerto Rico, coerced sterilization continued across America following World War II. Even after international condemnation of Nazi eugenic abuses, state Eugenics Boards continued sterilizing patients into the 1970s, particularly women. At the same time, eugenics organizations such as the Pioneer Fund financed new research in the service of white supremacy. This thesis contends that eugenic ideology never died. Instead advocates simply rearticulated eugenic terminology to sustain hierarchical conversations about the relative value of human reproduction in increasingly public spaces. Linguistic shifts in the eugenics movement coincided with the development of the medical economy, rising resistance to the Civil Rights Movement and the eventual dissolution of state eugenics boards. At every stage, discourse that successfully reframed eugenic rhetoric about human difference as fiscal or social conservativism allowed eugenicists to reconstitute themselves in factions of the conservative movement.
Nishani Frazier (Advisor)
Kimberly Hamlin (Committee Member)
Helen Sheumaker (Committee Member)
137 p.
African American Studies; History; Womens Studies
Eugenics, Sterilization, Pioneer Fund, Reproductive Rights, African American, women

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fair, A. K. (2019). “THE PEOPLE WHO NEED US READ BETWEEN THE LINES”: THE FACES OF EUGENIC IDEOLOGY IN THE POST-WWII UNITED STATES [Master's thesis, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1556874590527973

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fair, Alexandra . “THE PEOPLE WHO NEED US READ BETWEEN THE LINES”: THE FACES OF EUGENIC IDEOLOGY IN THE POST-WWII UNITED STATES. 2019. Miami University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1556874590527973.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fair, Alexandra . "“THE PEOPLE WHO NEED US READ BETWEEN THE LINES”: THE FACES OF EUGENIC IDEOLOGY IN THE POST-WWII UNITED STATES." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1556874590527973

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.