Timeline 1900 – 2024

Popularity of the Eugenics Society

In the 1930s the influence of the Eugenics Society was considerable. In 1931-2, its members delivered 210 lectures in 1931-2, a vast increase from the mere 11 they undertook in 1921. By 1936/37, the Society was sponsoring up to a dozen public lectures a month in universities, colleges and schools, religious bodies, public and social work, and a host of rotary and labour clubs, co-operative guilds, and women’s institutes on such matters as ‘Heredity and the Race’ and ‘Sterilization of the Unfit’, alongside regularly exhibiting at ‘Health Weeks’ attended by up to 15,000. Any look at its membership list at this time (http://www.eugenics-watch.com/briteugen/index.html) would reveal that it contained many of the leading physical and biological scientists of the day. The late 1930s probably marks the high water mark of its influence - the horrors of the Second World War would gradually erode the popularity of eugenics.