Harry Laughlin

Harry H. Laughlin (1880-1943) was a sociologist and prominent eugenicist who worked towards enforcing compulsory sterilization of "unfit" Americans.

Early life
Harry Hamilton Laughlin was born in Iowa in March 1880. He graduated from Truman State University and later earned a doctorate in cell biology from Princeton University, allowing him to become a teacher at a high school.

Eugenics work
Although Laughlin was able to become the headteacher of the high school where he worked, his interests turned to eugenics and he began to correspond with eugenicist Charles Davenport, who invited him to join the Eugenics Record Office. Laughlin accepted and was made the managing director at the organization's research office in Long Island. He was a zealous supporter of the organization's goals and regularly gave lectures on them around the country. He also co-wrote a play, entitled a eugenical comedy in four acts for the enjoyment of the workers. In 1924 Laughlin gave an extensive testimony to Congress in support of the recent immigration act that forbid Asian immigrants from coming to the United States, citing the "excessive" insanity of Asian and South European immigrants. In 1927 Laughlin, who was at this point a member of the Eugenics Research Association, was involved in a study of US senator's heritage. When senator William Bruce refused to participate in the study, Laughlin wrote to his local newspaper to try and get information on Bruce's heritage.

One of Laughlin's main goals was to enforce compulsory sterilization of "unfit" people across America, with the twelve states that had already passed sterilization laws not strictly enforcing them, the exception being California. After studying the "problem", he concluded that the legalization was poorly worded and drafted his own version of the law, publishing it in his 1922 study of American eugenics laws. People he deemed unfit included alcoholics, epileptics, criminals, blind or deaf people, insane people and feeble-minded people. Eighteen states passed new sterilization laws based on this model.

In 1923 Virginia ordered rape victim Carrie Buck to be sterilized on the grounds of feeble-mindedness. During the ensuing legal case Buck v Bell, Laughlin described Buck's family as "shiftless, ignorant and worthless". The case eventually found the sterilization laws written by Laughlin to be constitutional and over 60,000 people went on to be sterilized before they were eventually stopped.

In 1933 the Nazi Party passed a eugenics law based on Laughlin's model and he was awarded an honorary degree for his work towards racial hygiene by the University of Heidelberg. This law ultimately led to the decline of support for eugenics groups and the Carnegie Institute concluded that Laughlin's work had no scientific merit, with a biographer branding him "the most racist and anti-Semitic of the early twentieth-century eugenicists". Laughlin died peacefully in January 1943.