Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from HouseofWorks.com.

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.

Several episodes of our show have touched on the progressive era in the United States

and this span from the late 19th into the early 20th centuries.

The progressive era was really focused on trying to make society better and to counteract

the downsides of industrialization and urbanization and rapid growth.

So just as examples, we've talked about people like Jane Adams known as the mother of social

work and we've talked about movements for women's suffrage, temperance and organized

labor.

And the temperance movement did lead to prohibition which was a spectacular failure, but other

than that, these episodes have generally talked about overall positive reforms in education

and public health and workplace safety, human rights.

But the progressive era also had a focus on making humanity better through eugenics.

Coined by English anthropologists Sir Francis Galton in 1883, eugenics began with positive

eugenics and this was encouraging the people who were considered the healthiest and the

most intelligent to have more children for the betterment of the species.

But in a few countries, including the United States, the focus turned toward negative eugenics

or stopping people who were considered not as good from reproducing.

Spurred by the same fears and prejudices and societal issues that were driving the progressive

movement in general, the eugenics movement in the United States focused on identifying,

mastering and even sterilizing people who were deemed to be unfit.

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