Document
About this Digital Document
This paper traces the history of eugenics at Lehigh University, a practice aiming to "improve the genetic quality of the gene pool in a human population through selective breeding". Introduced in Lehigh's curriculum between the 1920s and 1950s, eugenics initially appeared in biology courses like BIOL 9 "Genetics" in 1927, leading to a dedicated course, BIOL 14 "Genetics and Eugenics," by 1938-1939. Prominent faculty like Dr. R. W. Hall and Dr. Neil Carothers advocated these ideas, influencing students who wrote on "Heredity and Eugenics". The explicit mention of eugenics was removed from course descriptions around the mid-1940s due to "anti-Nazi backlash". Today, eugenics is taught at Lehigh exclusively from a critical historical and ethical perspective within humanities courses.
Full Title
A Brief History of Eugenics at Lehigh University.
Contributor(s)
Creator: Dayi, Kevser
Creator: Klayman, Sydney
Creator: Lucien, Nick
Creator: Rizzo, Teresa
Creator: Zimmerman, Amy
Thesis advisor: Servitje, Lorenzo
Date Issued
2025
Language
English
Type
Genre
Form
electronic documents
Department name
Health, Medicine, and Society
Media type
Citation
@mastersthesis{dayi2025,
title = {A Brief History of Eugenics at Lehigh University.},
author = {Dayi, Kevser and Klayman, Sydney and Lucien, Nick and Rizzo, Teresa and Zimmerman, Amy},
year = {2025},
keywords = {Genetics, eugenics, Biology},
abstract = {This paper traces the history of eugenics at Lehigh University, a practice aiming to "improve the genetic quality of the gene pool in a human population through selective breeding". Introduced in Lehigh's curriculum between the 1920s and 1950s, eugenics initially appeared in biology courses like BIOL 9 "Genetics" in 1927, leading to a dedicated course, BIOL 14 "Genetics and Eugenics," by 1938-1939. Prominent faculty like Dr. R. W. Hall and Dr. Neil Carothers advocated these ideas, influencing students who wrote on "Heredity and Eugenics". The explicit mention of eugenics was removed from course descriptions around the mid-1940s due to "anti-Nazi backlash". Today, eugenics is taught at Lehigh exclusively from a critical historical and ethical perspective within humanities courses.},
language = {English},
}
