A eugenics society is a society formed to promote the idea of eugenics. In particular, the two best-known were the British Eugenics Society and the American Eugenics Society, though smaller ones were also at universities such as the Cambridge Eugenics Society. Many prominent people were members of these societies, though with the decline in the popularity of the idea of eugenics, most of them disbanded or at least shrank in size.
Such societies generally worked to lobby for eugenic policies or to fund eugenics research projects or publications. The Human Betterment Foundation in Pasadena, California, for example, distributed materials on compulsory sterilization in the state, with the hope of encouraging other states and countries to adopt similar laws.
Famous quotes containing the word society:
“The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)