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 Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.... It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.... It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)