E. S. Gosney

Ezra Seymour Gosney (November 6, 1855 – September 14, 1942) was an American businessman and

By the 1920s he had built up a considerable fortune, owned one of the largest lemon groves in the state, and served as the director of numerous banks, trusts companies, and corporations.

While working in Pasadena, he became acquainted with biologist and eugenicist

The result of Gosney and Popenoe's research was a co-authored volume, Sterilization for Human Betterment: A Summary of Results of 6,000 Operations in California, 1909–1929, completed and published in 1929. The book argued that eugenic sterilization was scientifically supported, caused no harm to patients, and was legally sound. The book, distributed widely by Gosney, was used to promote compulsory sterilization legislation in other states and countries. Along with work by Harry H. Laughlin, it was one of the most influential texts on sterilization in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

In 1933 officials in Nazi Germany specifically referred to Gosney and Popenoe's book in the creation of their own sterilization legislation that year. They noted that the United States authors had provided proof that sterilization programs could be safe and effective. According to a U.S. health official at the time, who had just returned from a trip to Germany, "the leaders in the German sterilization movement state repeatedly that their legislation was formulated only after careful study of the California experiment." (quoted in Kühl 1994, p. 42-43) Gosney and Popenoe believed the population of mentally ill in the United States could be reduced by half in "three or four generations." The Sacramento philanthropist/eugenicist Charles Goethe wrote to Gosney in a 1934 letter:

You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought and particularly by the work of the Human Betterment Foundation. I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people. (quoted in Black 2003)

A follow-up study, Twenty-eight Years of Sterilization in California, was published by the pair in 1938. (The American Journal of Sociology reviewed it with a single sentence: "An awkward attempt to popularize the practice of sterilizing defectives"). The state of California would eventually sterilize over 20,000 patients in state-run hospitals under its eugenic laws; Nazi Germany would sterilize over 400,000.^{[citation needed]}

In 1926, Gosney had first begun to organize what would by 1928 become chartered as the Human Betterment Foundation: a philanthropic foundation to promote research and advocacy of eugenics, especially by means of sterilization. As Gosney put it, the Foundation would work for:

the advancement and betterment of human life, character, and citizenship, particularly in the United States of America, in such manner as shall make for human progress in life. It is not the primary intention of to engage in the care of the unfortunate or in any form of relief work, but rather to foster and aid constructive and educational efforts for the protection and betterment of human family in body, mind, character, and citizenship in life. (Gosney and Popenoe 1929, p.192)

The initial board of trustees was Gosney,

The Foundation also established links with the

• Eugenics in the United States

References

• "The Human Betterment Foundation," editorial reprinted from Eugenics, Vol. 3, No. 3: 110–113, in Collected papers on eugenic sterilization in California (Pasadena: Human Betterment Foundation, 1930).
• Edwin Black, "Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection", San Francisco Chronicle (9 November 2003). For the full Goethe quote, go here.
• E.S. Gosney and
  Paul B. Popenoe
  , Sterilization for human betterment: A summary of results of 6,000 operations in California, 1909–1929 (New York: Macmillan, 1929).
• Kühl, Stefan (1994). The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press.
  ISBN 0-19-508260-5
  .
• Reilly, Philip R. (1987). "Involuntary Sterilization in the United States: A Surgical Solution".
  PMID 3299450
  .
• Rosenbaum, Thomas F. Statement from the President. California Institute of Technology, Accessed January 15, 2021.