Harry H. Laughlin Eugenics Collection

Donated to Pickler Memorial Library by the family of Harry H. Laughlin in the 1940s, this collection includes both a library and a manuscript collection. An alumnus and former faculty member, Dr. Laughlin was the Director of the Eugenics Record Office and internationally known for his research in this field. The book collection has as its core Dr. Laughlin’s personal library and contains publications primarily on eugenics, genetics and related topics but does include other subjects. We continue to add publications in the field of eugenics to this collection. The Finding Aid to the Harry H. Laughlin Papers is accessible online to help researchers locate information in the manuscript collection.

Recent Acquisitions

Daar, Judith. The New Eugenics: Selective Breeding in an Era of Reproductive Technologies. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2017.

Durst, Dennis L. Eugenics and Protestant Social Reform: Hereditary Science and Religion in America, 1860-1940. Eugene, Pickwick Publications, 2017.

Haller, Mark H. Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought. New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1963.

Kline, Wendy. Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001.

Kluchin, Rebecca M. Fit to be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980. New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 2009.

Ordover, Nancy. American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism. Minneapolis, University Minnesota Press, 2003.

Saini, Angela. Superior: The Return of Race Science. Boston, Beacon Press, 2019.