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31 Harv. J.L. & Gender 211 (2008)
Eugenic Feminism: Mental Hygiene, the Women's Movement, and the Campaign for Eugenic Legal Reform, 1900-1935

handle is hein.journals/hwlj31 and id is 213 raw text is: EUGENIC FEMINISM: MENTAL HYGIENE, THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT, AND THE CAMPAIGN FOR EUGENIC LEGAL REFORM, 1900-1935 MARY ZIEGLER* It is well for every woman, however, to think this matter through and to realize that any women's movement that is correlated with sterility is doomed to fail and annihilation. What shall it profit us eugenically to have women delve in laboratories, or search the heavens, or rule the nations, if the world is to be peopled by scrub- women and peasants? - ANNA M. BLOUNT, Eugenics, in WOMAN AND THE LARGER CITIZENSHIP, 2847, 2904-05 (Shailer Mathews ed., 1913). I. INTRODUCTION In the first four decades of the twentieth century, the eugenics move- ment assembled a powerful coalition of hereditarian theorists, social work- ers, scientists, judges, legislators, and feminist reformers' to advocate an agenda of eugenic legal reform.2 This agenda centered on the belief that many undesirable traits are hereditary and that the law should be designed to remove those traits from the racial stock.' Far from deferring to the formula- tion of eugenics prescribed by the coalition, feminists redefined the science to create a unique eugenic feminism. Despite this important contribution to the eugenics movement, however, historical accounts have failed to rec- ognize the unique perspectives of feminist reformers and their influence on eugenic theory. At the start of the twentieth century, the eugenics movement focused on which of several possible legal solutions would best address the problems * Mary Ziegler is a 2007 graduate of Harvard Law School, and is currently working as a law clerk for the Honorable John Dooley of the Vermont Supreme Court. See Howard Horwitz, Always With Us, 10 AM. LITERARY HIST. 317, 319 (1998). 2 See Michael Willrich, The Two Percent Solution: Eugenic Jurisprudence and the Socialization of American Low, 1900-1930, 16 LAW AND HIST. REV. 63 (1998) (offering an account of the use of eugenic theory in Chicago's Municipal Court). Many historians of Progressive-era legal reforms have emphasized the expansion of legal authority in that period. See, e.g., MORTON J. HORWTZ, THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LAW, 1870-1960 (1992). Progressive legal theorists embraced a more holistic approach to law, which invoked demography, genetics, statistics, and psychology. See generally JAMES T. KLOPPENBERG, UNCERTAIN VICTORY: SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND PROGRESSIVISM IN EURO- PEAN AND AMERICAN THOUGHT, 1870-1920 (1986); MORTON WHITE, SOCIAL THOUGHT IN AMERICA: THE REVOLT AGAINST FORMALISM (1949). 1 The term eugenics, as used herein, connotes this belief. MERRIAM-WEBSTER COL- LEGIATE DICTIONARY 399 (10th ed. 1996).

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