Demography and Degeneration : Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth-Century Britain

Richard Soloway offers a compelling and authoritative study of the relationship of the eugenics movement to the dramatic decline in the birthrate and family size in twentieth-century Britain. Working in a tradition of hereditarian determinism which held fast to the premise that "like tends to beget like," eugenicists developed and promoted a theory of biosocial engineering through selective reproduction. Soloway shows that the appeal of eugenics to the middle and upper classes of British society was closely linked to recurring concerns about the relentless drop in fertility and the rapid spread of birth control practices from the 1870s to World War II. Demography and Degeneration considers how differing scientific and pseudoscientific theories of biological inheritance became popularized and enmeshed in the prolonged, often contentious national debate about "race suicide" and "the dwindling family." Demographic statistics demonstrated that birthrates were declining among the better-educated, most successful classes while they remained high for the poorest, least-educated portion of the population. For many people steeped in the ideas of social Darwinism, eugenicist theories made this decline all the more alarming: they feared that falling birthrates among the "better" classes signfied a racial decline and degeneration that might prevent Britain from successfully negotiating the myriad competive challenges facing the nation in the twentieth century. Although the organized eugenics movement remained small and elitist throughout most of its history, this study demonstrates how pervasive eugenic assumptions were in the middle and upper reaches of British society, at least until World War II. It also traces the important role of eugenics in the emergence of the modern family planning movement and the formulation of population policies in the interwar years. Front Cover 1 Title Page 2 Copyright Page 3 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 Preface to the Paperback Edition 12 Acknowledgments 16 Introduction 18 1 The Turn of the Century 30 The Diminishing Birthrate 32 Differential Fertility 39 2 Eugenics and the New Population Question 47 Gallon's Legacy 47 Disciples and Evangelists 56 Entering the Public Arena: The Eugenics Education Society 60 3 Deterioration and Decline 67 Urbanization and the Race 68 The Boer War and Race Deterioration 70 The Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration 72 Fertility and Biology 76 Civilization and Natural Selection 81 4 Class and the Religion of Race Culture 89 Positive Eugenics: Marriage and Selective Bre 92 Germ Plasm and Class 102 Eugenics: A New Religion 109 5 Eugenics and Neo-Malthusianism 115 Rational Selection: Selfish or Selfless? 116 Cause and Effect 118 Quality versus Quantity: Neo-Malthusianism and Negative Eugenics 123 The Unforged Alliance 130 6 Race-Motherhood 139 Galton, Pearson, and the Nature of Women 140 Education, Feminism, and Fertility 151 Eugenic Feminism 156 7 The Dysgenics of War 167 "Skimming the Cream": Eugenics and the Lost Generation 169 Reconstructing the Race 171 Eugenics and Pronatalism 175 Sex Ratios and Race Reconstruction 185 8 Eugenics and the Birth Control Movement, 1918 –1930 192 Vital Statistics and Demographic Strategies 193 The Persistent Dilemma: Nature versus Nurture 201 Facing Reality: Birth Control Is Here to Stay 204 The Natural Alliance 211 9 Reform Eugenics, Population Research, and Family Planning, 1930-1939 222 C. P. Blacker and New Directions 224 Eugenics and the National Birth Control Association 232 Research and Voluntary Parenthood 244 10 Race Suicide Revisited: The Menace of Underpopulation 255 "Are Our Children Today As Good As Their Grandfathers?" 255 Net Fertility and the Twilight of Parenthood 261 The Depopulation Panic 270 The PIC and "The Nosey Parkers" 276 Depopulation Doubted 282 11 Family Planning and the Fear of Population Decline 288 Birth Control and the Depopulation Scare 289 "And Everybody Wondered Why the Population Fell" 300 12 Feminism and Family Allowances 312 The "Female Famine" 313 "Yea, I Have a Goodly Heritage!": Eugenics and Family Allowances 321 Nazis and Eugenicists in a "Baby Mad" World 330 13 World War II and the Population Question 341 Keep the Eugenic Flag Flying 342 Differential Birthrates and Population Policy 348 The Revival of the Depopulation Scare 353 Beveridge, Family Allowances, and the Eugenicists 359 14 From Baby Boom to Birth Dearth 365 The "Unique Opportunity": The Royal Commission on 366 The Population and the Polls 372 The Failure of the Eugenic Dream 379 Notes 392 Works Cited 436 Index 454 Richard Soloway offers a compelling and authoritative study of the relationship of the eugenics movement to the dramatic decline in the birthrate and family size in twentieth-century Britain. Working in a tradition of hereditarian determinism which held fast to the premise that "like tends to beget like," eugenicists developed and promoted a theory of biosocial engineering through selective reproduction. Soloway shows that the appeal of eugenics to the middle and upper classes of British society was closely linked to recurring concerns about the relentless drop in fertility and the rapid spread of birth control practices from the 1870s to World War II.__Demography and Degeneration__ The waning years of the Victorian era and the approach of a new age aroused a great deal of commentary on the recent past and anxious speculation about the future.