Frederick Osborn
Frederick Henry Osborn | |
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Born | March 21, 1889 |
Died | January 5, 1981 | (aged 91)
Allegiance | United States |
Service/ | Major General |
Battles/wars | World War II |
Alma mater | Princeton University Trinity College, Cambridge |
Other work | philanthropist |
Part of a series on |
Eugenics in the United States |
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Major General Frederick Henry Osborn CBE (March 21, 1889 – January 5, 1981) was an American philanthropist, military leader, and eugenicist. He was a founder of several organizations and played a central part in reorienting eugenics in away from overt racism in the years leading up to World War II.[1] The American Philosophical Society considers him to have been "the respectable face of eugenic research in the post-war period."[2] Osborn was the nephew of the paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn.
World War I and the founding of organizations
Osborn graduated from Princeton University in 1910 and attended Trinity College, Cambridge, for a postgraduate year. His family had made their fortune in the railroad business, and he went into the family business up until the outbreak of World War I, when he served in the American Red Cross in France as Commander of the Advance Zone for the last 11 months of the war. In 1928, he retired from industry and became a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History studying eugenics, anthropology, and population.
Osborn was one of the founding members of the
According to
In the following decades, Osborn remained skeptical of the
An admirer of the reforms instituted in 1930s Sweden through the efforts of economist Gunnar Myrdal and his wife Alva Myrdal, Osborn emphasized the eugenic potential of extended state support in childcare, recreation, housing, nursery services, and education as a means of stimulating fertility among desirable populations. He argued that the aim of eugenics should be to ensure that every child was wanted. Osborn believed that in this system, which he called the "true freedom of parenthood," the parents most capable of rearing children would be likelier to have more.[9]
World War II and later life
Many civil rights leaders alleged that, even after the revelation of genocide in World War II, eugenic influences remained strong in the United States because of Osborn and other leaders of the Population Council (including John D. Rockefeller, Lewis Strauss, Karl Compton, and Detlev Bronk). He also encouraged and endorsed programs in Nazi Germany that sterilized Jews, Poles, and others deemed "unsuitable" to breed.[10] Although Hitler's genocidal tactics and acts caused revulsion in the United States, he continued to promote eugenic ideals.[11]
In 1940, Osborn was selected by
Osborn served at Princeton, as a charter trustee from 1943 to 1955, and as a member of several advisory boards, including the Curriculum Committee and Psychology Department Council.[12]
During the postwar years, one of Osborn's lasting influences was shifting the emphasis of American eugenics to
Osborn was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1948.[13]
In 1954, Osborn played a central role in the founding of the journal
In 1968 Osborn published The Future of Human Heredity: An Introduction to Eugenics in Modern Society, in which he complained that Hitler had "prostituted eugenics" but that the original goals of raising the average intelligence and character of future generations could be by programs advocating population control directed at convincing women of less intelligence, especially among the poor, to reduce their births voluntarily in order to "further the social and biological improvement of the population."[15] In summary, he noted: "Eugenic goals are most likely to be attained under a name other than eugenics."[15]
References
- ^ a b Merchant, Emily Klancher (2021). Building the Population Bomb. New York: Oxford University Press.
- ^ "APS, 1983". Archived from the original on September 28, 2005.
- ^ "A Digital Reading of Twentieth-Century Demography | Population Association of America". ekmerchant.github.io. Retrieved 2021-06-01.
- JSTOR 2732519.
- ^ "The Office of Population Research, from The Princeton Companion". Archived from the original on February 22, 2005.
- ^ "Office of Population Research". pop.princeton.edu.
- PMID 15856597– via PubMed.
- ^ "404 - File Not Found" (PDF). www.ssc.uwo.ca. Archived from the original on September 9, 2005.
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: Cite uses generic title (help) - ISSN 1728-4457.
- ^ "Eliminating the Inferior: American and Nazi Sterilization Programs: Institute for the Study of Academic Racism - Ferris State University". www.ferris-pages.org.
- ^ The Continuing Struggle against Genocide: Indigenous Women's Reproductive Rights by: D. Marie Ralstin-Lewis Published by University of Minnesota Press
- ^ "Frederick H. Osborn Papers, 1941-1963 - Finding Aids". findingaids.princeton.edu.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-03-08.
- ^ Biannual Journal of the Study of Social Biology Archived 2005-11-17 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c Messall, Rebecca (2004-09-09). "The Long Road of Eugenics: From Rockefeller to Roe v. Wade". Thumanlifereview.com. Retrieved 2021-09-23.
- Osborn FH. "History of the American Eugenics Society," Social Biology, vol. 21 no. 2 Summer 1974, 115-126
- Saxon, W. "Frederick Osborn, a general, 91, dies; Headed Army Information Unit and Held U.N. Post--Was Leader in Studies on Population Served on U.N. Commissions." New York Times Jan 7, 1981. p. B12.
- "The History of the Journal Social Biology, 1954-1999," Social Biology, Fall-Winter 1999, Vol. 46, Num. 3-4.
- "Frederick Henry Osborn Papers," American Philosophical Society (APS), 1983, published online.
- Edmund Ramsden, "Social Demography and Eugenics in the Interwar United States" Population and Development Review, Vol. 29, No. 4. (Dec., 2003), pp. 547–593.
External links
- Frederick H. Osborn Papers via American Philosophical Society
- Frederick H. Osborn quotes and excerpts
- "Study of Education at Princeton and the 1954 Advisee Project", assisted by Osborn, sought to "replace grand assumptions about university education with quantifiable facts and could potentially 'bring into view an entirely new horizon of educational accomplishment.'"
- Frederick H. Osborn Papers, 1941–1963, "correspondence and reports related to Osborn's service at Princeton." (papers not available online)
- Social Biology: Biannual Journal of the Study of Social Biology, Duke University.