Eugenics and photography in Britain, the USA and Australia 1870–1940.

This essay traces the main ways in which photography was taken up and used by supporters of the eugenics movement, from the time that Darwin's cousin, the British polymath Francis Galton, first used it to demonstrate the role played by heredity in human intelligence, to the early 1940s, when the eug...

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Publicado en:Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A Vol. 92; pp. 71 - 86
Autor principal: Maxwell, Anne
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Elsevier B.V. Apr2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Eugenics and photography in Britain, the USA and Australia 1870–1940.
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        au: Maxwell, Anne
        affil: School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia
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        Eugenics
        Galton, Francis, Sir, 1822-1911
        Photography
        Social conflict
        Class differences
        United Kingdom
        Australia
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          United Kingdom
          Australia
          Eugenics
          Galton, Francis, Sir, 1822-1911
          Photography
          Social conflict
          Class differences
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      ab: This essay traces the main ways in which photography was taken up and used by supporters of the eugenics movement, from the time that Darwin's cousin, the British polymath Francis Galton, first used it to demonstrate the role played by heredity in human intelligence, to the early 1940s, when the eugenics movement lost much of its appeal. It is argued that Galton's composite photographs of the socially "fit" and "unfit" members of British society only broadly determined the pattern for how American and Australian eugenicists deployed photography, and that each country's differing social tensions caused them to evolve their own diverse set of photographic practices aimed at promulgating the eugenic cause. Using photographic examples drawn from Britain, the USA and Australia, the essay identifies the leading persons and eugenics organisations that deployed photography, the different kinds of photographic genres they used and the different ideological and statist ends to which their images were put. It concludes that compared to Britain where class differences were highlighted, the USA and Australia's strong respective histories of slavery and colonisation led to a more robust emphasis on race and in particular the preserving of racial purity and expansion of the white population.
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    language: English
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