‘Improving the Race’: The Discourse of Science and Eugenics in Local News Coverage, 1905-1922

• In Event: Mediating Identities: Race, Class, and Gender

Abstract

This study explored how eugenics, as a form of science production, played a prominent role in the academy. Particularly, it analyzes the key role local and university-based media played in promoting eugenics as a form of science in Columbia, Missouri, an academic space that cultivated science-based discourse that elevated eugenics to a national and global phenomenon. By analyzing the University of Missouri Journalism School’s newspaper and the city’s news publication, the authors discuss how media discourse of science and eugenics focused on three themes: 1) bridging agricultural science with larger cultural ideals of breeding; 2) promotions of the superior and “normed” body; and 3) elevating ideas of morality and respectability using eugenics-inspired “science.” Feminist scholars have discussed how the body, science and culture determine a person’s social value and humanity. The social value of “fit” bodies played a key component of news coverage, thus helping elevate eugenics as a legitimate form of science.

Authors

• Rachel Grant, Xavier U - Louisiana

• Cristina Mislan, U of Missouri, Columbia