ANTHRO 2A Lecture Notes - Evolutionism, Eugenics, Franz Boas
Document Summary
Crux of historical method - insistence that each culture has its own history which means there"re plural cultures and histories. Eachpractice(etc) must be understood in relation to total culture. Scientific racism - arguments aboutdegeneracy and infertility, particularly concerning the wave of immigrants to us, caused by racial tensions that followed / during great depression. Idea that interracial marriage would produce infertile offspring. Charles davenport, biologist and eugenicist, argued that the influx of blood from s. e. Europe would make everyone darker, smaller, and become criminals. Europe: when there was famine or war there would be surge of immigration to us. Jan 1892 - us opens ellis island to handle new arrivals. 1930 - more than 28 mill ppl immigrated to us (base pop = 15 mill) Peak of immigration - 1/5 of pop was foreign born. In a lot of large cities, immigrants made up about 50% of the overall population.
