(a note on content)
Some of the stories in the exhibition feature racist, ableist, and/or homophobic medical terms which are offensive. As curators and writers of this exhibition, we have done our best to use these terms responsibly, with a view to appropriately contextualising and exploring these ideas and their history, and encouraging continuing critical thought in the interests of positive social change in the future.
While trying to address these issues squarely, we are also aware that we may ourselves use racist and ableist language naively or in error. As such, we welcome corrections and suggestions for improving the language used here, and encourage you to get in touch with us to help us learn and improve the language of the exhibition if you feel we have done so. The exhibition also features images of pathology specimens which include human organs.
An introduction to the history of eugenics and scientific racism at UCL and beyond, told through objects in its collections.
Making and Mobilising Difference is an exhibition about how scientists, academics and politicians at UCL and beyond contributed to the social and structural parameters for social injustice today. These are the stories of how identities came to be marginalized, how some people were dehumanised and how the language of science became ideology.
A note on content
Some of the stories in the exhibition feature racist, ableist, and/or homophobic medical terms which are offensive. As curators and writers of this exhibition, we have done our best to use these terms responsibly, with a view to appropriately contextualising and exploring these ideas and their history and encouraging continuing critical thought in the interests of positive social change in the future. While trying to address these issues squarely, we are also aware that we may ourselves use racist and ableist language naively or in error. As such, we welcome corrections and suggestions for improving the language used here, and encourage you to get in touch with us to help us learn and improve the language of the exhibition if you feel we have done so. The exhibition also features images of pathology specimens which include human organs.
Eugenics and Scientific Racism at UCL
Eugenics refers to the philosophy and practice of selective breeding of humans with desirable (or “superior”) hereditary traits. The term was coined by the scientist Francis Galton in his 1883 book, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. Galton is often described as a polymath whose contributions to a diverse range of contemporary fields – from statistics, to forensic science, sociology, meteorology and psychology – are widely celebrated. He developed an interest in inheritance as a result of the publication of (his cousin) Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859, and devoted a significant proportion of his career to developing research on human heredity, including research on early genetics and the development of methods for quantifying and measuring individual differences in mental and physical ability. With the social reformer Sibyl Gotto, Galton founded the Eugenics Education Society (later the Eugenics Society, and later still the Galton Institute) in 1907, with the aim to "effect improvement of the race" through promotion of the laws of heredity (Challis 2013).
The Eugenics Society provided a means by which the social and political implications of this work could be disseminated within society more broadly. Eugenics is perhaps most notoriously associated with the genocidal scientific racism of Nazi Germany, but its influence is much wider, and has had a lasting influence on law and policy relating to immigration, families, education, health and welfare throughout the world.
Galton had a close connection with University College London (UCL) and the University of London (UoL), the most significant being his funding the establishment of a Eugenics Records Office as part of the UoL in 1904, and an endowment he left to University of London which established the Galton Chair of Eugenics at UCL in 1911. This position was held until 1933 by Galton’s nominated candidate, Karl Pearson, a mathematician, biostatistician, racist and anti-Semite, and subsequently by Ronald Fischer (1933-1949), who in the early 1950s opposed UNESCO’s post World War statement which aimed to debunk scientific racism, arguing that innate differences in emotional and intellectual ability existed between people of different races (UNESCO 1952) and wrote in support of the underpinning ideology of Nazi eugenics (Weiss 2010). After various changes in name and configuration, the Galton Laboratory was eventually incorporated into the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at UCL in 1993.
This virtual exhibition explores aspects of the history of eugenics and scientific racism through 21 essays, written by UCL MA Museum Studies students, relating to objects in its collections.
Works cited
Challis, Debbie. 2013. Archaeology of Race. The Eugenic Ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie. London: Bloomsbury.
Galton, Francis. 1883. Inquiry into Human Faculty and its Development. London: Macmillan.
Reports and recommendations of the Inquiry into the History of Eugenics at UCL. Available at: Inquiry into the History of Eugenics at UCL | President & Provost - UCL – University College London
UNESCO. 1952. The Race Concept: Results of an Inquiry. Paris: UNESCO. Available at: The Race concept: results of an inquiry - UNESCO Digital Library
Weiss, Sheila Faith. 2010. After the Fall: Political Whitewashing, Professional Posturing, and Personal Refashioning in the Postwar Career of Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer. Isis 101(4): 722-758. DOI:10.1086/657474
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