Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s

by Susan Currell (Editor), Christina Cogdell (Editor)

Overview

In a series of revealing essays, Popular Eugenics demonstrates that eugenic thought persisted in science and culture as well as in social policy and goes a long way toward explaining the durability of eugenic thinking and its effects on social policy in the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780821416914
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	11/21/2006
Edition description:	1
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Susan Currell is a lecturer in American literature at the University of Sussex and the author of The March of Spare Time.

Christina Cogdell is an assistant professor of art history at the College of Santa Fe and the author of Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s.

Editorial Reviews

Too often, popular culture historical topics receive a cursory glance. In contrast, Popular Eugenics is able to tease out significant historical themes from targeted analyses.... the book should be lauded for giving equal time to visual culture as it does to written culture.”
— Journalism History


“This fascinating collection on eugenics during the 1930s offers a vantage point on ‘ordinary eugenics.’... Their most provocative argument is that the ubiquity of eugenics in mass culture may be the most important explanation for why draconian policies attracted widespread support during the New Deal.”
— The Historian


“Currell and Cogdell do a wonderful job of showcasing the complexity of the eugenic movement during the 1930s. More importantly, they do a service to readers by showing that even as eugenicists endured a widening public critique, they never lost their general sense of racial and class superiority or bias.”
— Indiana Magazine of History

From the Publisher