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| Book Review | Indiana Magazine of History, 102.1 | The History Cooperative
102.1  
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March, 2006
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Reviews

Preaching Eugenics
Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement

By Christine Rosen
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. viii, 286. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00.)


Attention to the relationship between science and religion in the early twentieth century has been dominated by the Scopes Trial of 1925, where spokespersons for religion and science are depicted as stark adversaries. Christine Rosen, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., has added new dimensions to the discussion with Preaching Eugenics, an analysis of liberal religious leaders' support of the eugenics movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. Influential ministers, rabbis, and priests embraced—often enthusiastically—the eugenicists' goal of improving humanity through "better breeding." In one example, the Reverend Oscar Carleton McCulloch, of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Indianapolis, conducted one of the earliest family studies on the "degeneracy" of the so-called Ishmael family of Indianapolis in 1888. Others lent their names and participation to eugenics organizations such as the American Eugenics Society (AES), wrote messages for eugenics sermon competitions, and enrolled their families into "fitter families" contests. . . .

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