title: Eugenics visualized: the exhibit of the Third International Congress of Eugenics, 1932.
abstract: This article investigates the exhibit of the Third     International Congress of Eugenics, which was organized by Harry     Hamilton Laughlin and showcased at the American Museum of Natural     History in 1932. It argues that the exhibit's displays shaped popular     eugenic ideology by connecting particular eugenic principles to     specific visual representations that were experienced in relation to     binaries such as the artistically traditional and the modern, the     classical and the grotesque, and the scientific and the spectacle (or     the "freak" and the medical specimen). These dichotomies were, in turn,     experienced within the context of the exhibit's overall theme of     eugenics as anchored in the past and the future and concern over the     differential birthrate. The exhibit to the Third Congress provides     insight into growing tensions within the eugenics movement of the     1930s, the importance of positive eugenics, the aesthetics of heredity,     and how the "scientific truths" of a given era are publicized and     perpetuated.
authors.affiliation: Department of History, McMaster University.
authors.forename: Devon
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stillwell
mesh_terms: D003226:Congresses as Topic; D005053:Eugenics / Q000266:history*; D005085:Exhibitions as Topic; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D009519:New York City; D010781:Photography