Eugenics

1938 · ref. 60519 — Los Angeles CA & Providence RI: The Institute of Family Relations 607 South Hill St. 1938. Two pieces. 1st - 8vo. 4 pp unpaginated. self-printed softcovers photo illust. of Popenoe on front cover crease fold from mailing minor dustsoiling; 2nd - 4to. 8.5 x 11 in. 1 leaf. TLS on letterhead “Copy” and Osborn’s initials in ink crease folds wear & minor tears at folds some age toning still VG- set. These two scarce original promotional brochure and TLS reflect the ongoing efforts by prominent eugenicist Paul Popenoe dubbed “the father of marriage counseling” to spread and inculcate followers into his racist eugenics policies. The letter to the YMCA at Brown University to drum up speaking tour dates from the Institute’s Educational Director Loran Osborn writes that “his Popenoe’s fee is $100 per day . . . and he is perfectly willing to speak two of three times in a day. . . .” His speaking subjects included “A Biological View of the Jewish Problem” “The Progress of Eugenics” “Should Women Compete with Men” and others in the same vein. Popenoe advocated sterilization for those who were deemed unfit to reproduce and marriage counseling for healthy “White” couples and whose lectures often stated that “continued limitation of offspring in the White race simily inites the Black Brown and other races to finish the work already begun by Birth Control and reduce the “Whites” to a subject race. Most of Popenoe’s beliefs became institutionalized into conservative Christian movements and evangelical churches in Southern California and his Institute of Family Relations influenced generations of marriage counselors. See; Chariot Washington & Hall Exhumed: Reckoning with the History of Eugenics in Marriage and Family Therapy The Family Journal Vol. 30 Issue 4 June 1 2022. The Institute of Family Relations, 607 South Hill St., paperback