There was a time which, historically speaking, was not that long ago, when eugenics (the scientific study of selectively breeding human beings) was a very popular field of study and public policy. It was embraced by many as the answer to poverty, mental illness, and retardation. It was hard if not impossible to separate it from racial, ethnic, and cultural prejudices too. As a result, it wasn't until Adolph Hitler came along with his theories of racial superiority that gave this subject a bad name. But even with the world's memory of what happened then in the name of "science", has it disappeared? Perhaps the following will shock the reader.
We have heard about the experiments that government functionaries did on black men by deliberately infecting them with syphilis and did not treat them because they were conducting an experiment of sorts. This was just one example of how people in positions of power have taken it upon themselves to use helpless and unwilling participants in their social engineering experiments.
Shortly after the ceremony at Bear Mountain when 10,000 acres and $1 million passed from Mary Harriman (wife of Edward H. Harriman, the railroad magnate and archetypal robber baron) handed to the state of New York, her other major legacy was also initiated. She also gave $25,000 and a mansion on a 75-acre estate in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, to the Eugenics Record Office (ERO). This organization opened its doors on October 1, 1910 and began a long series of research and experiments dedicated to what they called science but in reality was an effort to reinforce their elitist view of what a society should be, with grossly prejudiced and biased evidence. This evidence was collected by field researchers hired by them who used criteria also invented by them. Bear in mind, that Mrs. Harriman was also the mother of Averill Harriman, who was Governor of New York at one time and whose legacy is viewed as progressive.
Conceived of and directed by biologist Charles B. Davenport, the ERO had two main purposes: 1. Conduct research on human heredity, particularly the inheritance of "social traits" and 2. Educate the public about the importance of eugenic research and its implications for public policy.
Eugenics is the science of improving the human race through "better breeding," and would, largely due to the work of the ERO, soon become a very popular social reform movement throughout the United States and the world. Supported by a broad coalition of educated, upper middle class and upper class, "Progressive" Americans, eugenics initiatives issuing from the ERO over the next three decades were successful in limiting immigration, tightening marriage restriction laws, and creating "eugenical" sterilization laws in more than a dozen states. But the eugenicists' most enduring triumph was in its codification of a crude and cruel hereditarian view of human beings.
Although the work of the ERO was national (and sometimes international) in scope, due to Mary Harriman's deep interest in and hopes for eugenics, the Ramapo Mountains were an early locus of eugenic activity. The region is located near the New York/New Jersey border, Florence G. Smith, who trained in the ERO's summer school for eugenic fieldwork in 1913, began eugenic fieldwork in the Ramapos that autumn. Her work continued until sometime in 1915, which was plenty of time to compile the evidence her masters wanted.
Financial support for her work was provided by Mary Harriman, who personally reviewed all of the research conducted by Miss Smith. Traveling throughout the Highlands region to conduct her interviews, Smith focused particularly on the community at Sterling Mines. She became familiar and accepted by those whom her research sought to victimize; thus she became a wolf amongst the unsuspecting sheep. Mrs. Harriman also arranged for Smith to administer Stanford-Binet intelligence tests in a number of the region's rural schools - the very same schools where Mrs. Harriman had introduced classes in "home economics," and "industrial arts" At the time she was hailed for advancing education in the remote hamlets, but her motive was actually to prepare the children for the sort of occupations they would be expected to fill when they grew older. In full effect, she was implementing the first of a series of movements toward creating a permanent servant class.
The source of Smith's report comes from the C.B. Davenport Papers, American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia. Smith's manuscript begins with a straightforward history of the Sterling Mine, and then moves into descriptions of individual members of the community, complete with photographs and a detailed map of all the houses in the village. Smith took special note of the "tidiness" and "thrift" of both the homes and their inhabitants. Some of the descriptions read as follows: "... never works steadily, is fond of fishing and trapping... wears his hair long and has a most unkempt appearance. Is boy-like in his lack of responsibility, good-natured, and unreliable. When in town is the butt of jokes at the corner grocery.
And, from another case history "...early env't was poor in every respect. Her family lived in one of a group of 5 log huts in a small clearing about a mile up on Pochuck Mountain... Those from the mountain who worked out did so very irregularly and usually only when they were in need of some immediate necessity. They never worked during the hunting season or when food was plenty, depending upon fishing, small game, what they could gather from their small clearing, and what they could get from the orchards and fields of their more thrifty neighbors. The farmers never made complaint when they helped themselves to food and in fact never interfered with them if they could help it, being thankful if their barns escaped burning. The people were practically always mated after they reached maturity and changed consorts whenever it suited their taste or convenience. They lived in every way in a most primitive fashion. On the whole they were fairly capable when they chose to work, were skillful at hand work, were rather shrewd and cunning, prided themselves upon having enough knowledge of the law to escape punishment, were independent and child-like in their inability to keep things to themselves."
Even the most sophomoric observer can see that the reports were slanted toward the built in prejudices of the observer with the forgone conclusion already having been arrived at. Although these reports were always constructed with an eye to show how "backward", "defective," "degenerate," and "feeble-minded" the people were, they occasionally captured some sense of the true nature of the mountain inhabitants. One former resident, who had been born in 1818 and had spent his life around Greenwood, Arden, and Sterling Mines, was described to Smith as "having a perceptible amount of Indian blood." From living informants' memories, Smith described him as "tall and lithe, had straight black hair, sharp dark eyes, high cheek bones, and a light brown skin. According to all descriptions he was active, energetic, and naturally intelligent. I am told that he could read and write but that he told people that he did not want any of his children to read and write because it would make devils of them. He seems to have been considered a character in the community, and is remembered for his droll humor, which is said to be very much the same style as that of his daughter... He was an expert ax man and a good hunter..."
Ethel Thayer was another ERO fieldworker who was on "special assignment" for Mary Harriman, from 1913 to 1918. Among her reports from those years is a lengthy study of the Beaver Pond community. In the records of the ERO, Thayer's report is prefaced by a ten-foot-long pedigree chart, showing all the "bad blood" in a particular family from the area. All eugenics "family study" narratives began with a "progenitor," some individual who was cast as the primordial source of the tainted protoplasm that ran down through the generations. One of the sons of the progenitor identified by Thayer for this Beaver Pond family was "reported to have been a shiftless, worthless, individual as indeed he must have been to choose for a home a place having nothing whatever to attract a man of any ambition." The picture painted of Beaver Pond was that all the residents were descended from the "shiftless" progenitor: "All the families being related, practically no outside influence is brought to bear, and except in rare instances, the 'mountaineers' are left to follow their 'natural bent' which is a crooked one. Several detrimental facts concerning them are known in a general way, and long residents of the county are not inclined to make any exceptions in their accusations of the community. For instance, they are known to steal timber in great quantities from the adjoining mountainsides, and at one time certain individuals were brought to trial for it. There are known certainly to have been several stills in the vicinity."
How different is this brand of research and analysis than those which most of us laugh at like, "Blacks have rhythm", "All Irish are alcoholics", "all Italians are in the Mafia", and "Puerto Ricans all play loud music and have large families"? As ridiculous as this sounds today, at one time it was viewed as scientific evidence to justify implementing public policy.
In description after description, the eugenicists took great offense at the less acquisitive, less legalistic, habits of their rural neighbors. For example, "In the majority of cases the men are heavy drinkers, but they manage to provide for their families without outside aid. The sober members of the community are a minority but they work the gardens of their intemperate relatives when the occasion arises, the wives to attend to the cattle, and since their needs are few, they are comfortably met. The moral standards are generally low. The propensity toward sex offense manifested in the first generation persists to the present. Illegitimate unions, though not approved by the more self-controlled members of the family, are looked upon indifferently, and since no outsiders are involved, no attempt is made to check immorality where it occurs."
For deceased ancestors, the narrative made such statements as, "Had a progressive spinal disease, and was practically a cripple before his death. He is said to have been shiftless and alcoholic. Mentality undetermined, but undoubtedly inferior." (highlight mine). The most common characterization of Beaver Pond inhabitants was as "feeble-minded," a term used by eugenicists as a catch-all for anyone who did not measure up to their norms, which almost became accepted as a professionally accepted term by these researchers.
About a teenage girl Thayer wrote, "... is a quiet child, is courteous and fairly responsive ... It is probable that her mentality will develop to nine years and that she will remain a moron or a borderline case; a type which probably makes up a large part of the community."
The eugenic fieldworkers did not invent the characterizations, but relied on the "testimony" of neighbors and kin. In the case of the Beaver Pond settlement, 125 members of the family were interviewed, but most importantly, and most likely to share the racial and class stereotypes of the eugenic fieldworkers, were the middle class, educated, professionals in rural towns. For the Beaver Pond study, Thayer interviewed a local Justice of the Peace, a local doctor, a local school principal, and Gladys Mendu, social worker for the State Charities Aid Association.
A brief examination of others active in the establishment and growth of the Harriman State Park shows with little doubt just how "acceptable" eugenical ideas were in the early Twentieth Century. Henry Fairfield Osborn, President of the American Museum of Natural History and an enthusiastic proponent of the Museum's role in nature education in the Park, was one of the most prominent American eugenicists, who frequently used his position at the Museum to advance the eugenics cause.
Dr. Robert Latou Dickinson, whose delicate sketches of Highland's vistas graced the New York Walk Book, was a member of the American Eugenics Society. He perfected the medical procedures for sexual sterilization, and like other eugenicists, was keen to see the operation curb the reproduction of America's "unfit."
Will Monroe, the Montclair Normal School professor who did such yeoman service in building trails in the Park, was a "volunteer collaborator" for the ERO, using the section he taught in eugenics in his Genetic Psychology course to gather data on "defective" families.
The most generous financial sponsor of eugenics besides Mary Harriman, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was a faithful supporter of the Park and its programs. Forest management, nature study, trail building, and eugenics - all pioneered at Harriman State Park - were all "Progressive." They shared the underlying impulse to purify, cleanse, and ameliorate the ills of a rapidly urbanizing society.
What is clear from a study of the eugenics movement is that the attempt at regeneration went hand in hand with a narrative of degeneration told about the mountain dwellers of the nearby mountains. The "strenuous life" of Harriman's recreational camps were designed to fit eugenicists' image of restoring a lost vitality to educated middle-class Americans through a return to nature. Those people who still largely lived in nature, were simultaneously seen as "unfit," and would have to go.
Some local historians have done a great deal to bring to light the history of the dispossession of Park inhabitants. The existence of eugenic assumptions and ideals, particularly among individuals closely involved with the planning of the Park, and more particularly the assignment of eugenic fieldworker Ethel Thayer by Mary Harriman to a study of the Beaver Pond region, suggests that there was a very real connection between the "regeneration" of the region into a forested recreational landscape for urban dwellers, and the narrative of "degeneration" told about the region's natives.
To Mary Harriman and the eugenicists, living in the mountains was seen not as either a conscious choice of lifestyle or a consequence of economic necessities, but as an indication of genetic inferiority (much as was viewed criminality, alcoholism, and incestuousness). Before he died her husband Edward had attempted to "improve" the mountaineers by encouraging them to move into more settled areas in the Ramapo Valley.
In a 1911 letter to Mary Harriman, ERO Director C. B. Davenport applauded the Harrimans' effort: "The Ramapo Mountains had been recognized as a source of defectives, and Mr. Harriman did a very practical piece of work in eugenics when he had the hovel dwellers go to the villages."
After the donation of 10,000 acres of the Harriman estate to New York, the stage was set for the ultimate removal effort of the mountain dwellers via the rule of eminent domain. It must also be added that in the early days of this often-named park system, other social engineering decisions had been placed into effect. For instance, in those days the Rockland Lake area was only allowed to accept black people one day a week. At which time no others were to use the area. Essentially black people had to make an appointment to use an area supported by their own tax dollars. It is also known and observed that the bridge overpasses on its roads are unusually low. So much so that large trucks are incapable of traversing under them. This too was part of the plan. In those days busses stood taller at the curb and whose clearance would not allow them to pass under these overpasses. Therefore, in the days before automobiles became commonly owned by middle and lower income classes in this country, this segment of the population could only visit the parks on public transportation like busses. These busses were not capable of traversing the road system within the parks, so that they must be segregated to certain areas which they could get to. These areas were all high use places, which, if accessible only by mass transit, would only be crowded, and hardly a quiet place where the average person could get away from it all for peach and quiet. Those areas were by design only to be used by the elitists who concocted this scheme. One early founder stated that the park was to become a "great playground for humanity". Well, certain areas would come to be that, but the more desirable spots were as a practical matter off limits and inaccessible for the largest portion of humanity. At least until the car became common which then changed this part of the great plan forever.
After reading the eugenics studies of the Ramapo Mountain communities, it is easier to understand how no objections were raised when the state systematically destroyed these communities. Perceived as full of "degenerates," they only stood in the way of the more progressive valley folk who were eager to tramp and camp in places that had been the mountaineers' home for generations.
All of that research was crude and done in the days before we understood genetics and the DNA molecule. We are now in a time when a grand experiment called "The Human Genome Project" is in full swing. As an outcome all sorts of genetic improvements are being bandied about. Yes, cures for cancer and other disease may arise from it, but also remember the other possibilities. I recall a program on Larry King of only a few short years ago wherein Dr. Michael Silver; director of genetics at Princeton University was a guest. He was making a case for cloning human beings. His attitude was basically, "You can't stop us. If you outlaw it in this country then we'll go somewhere else. Like it or not we will do it!" I had never been so offended and aggravated by a single TV show in my life. I was not so angered by what the doctor said he would do, but at his smug and arrogant attitude that there was nothing we could do to stop him. The worst part was that I knew he was right.
My question then is, now that we do have a deeper understanding of heredity, how far will we go before we stop, if ever? Will we just search for disease cures? Or will it ripple and snowball into runaway research into "improving man"? If we seek to do this, then what will be the criteria for traits requiring improvement and who will formulate this criteria? Above all remember that the original eugenicists were supposed to come from progressive backgrounds. If this is an example of what a progressive philosophy can create, what then can we expect if an outrightly chauvinistic or fascistic philosophy gains control of the agenda and its criteria? Can Frankenstein and visions of Orwell be far behind?

REFERENCES

Dann, K. 1996. Mary Harriman, Eugenics, and the Harriman State Park. Museum Papers. Bear Mountain, NY.
Smith, A. 2000. The Real Agenda at Work. Dutchway Publications. Thiells, NY.

Copyright © 2001 AJS