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May 2002, Vol 92, No. 5 | American Journal of Public Health 707-708
© 2002 American Public Health Association

EDITORIAL

Taking Better Baby Contests Seriously

Martin S. Pernick, PhD

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Martin S. Pernick, PhD, Department of History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003 (e-mail: mpernick@umich.edu).


   INTRODUCTION
 
At state fairs across early-20th-century America, "better baby" and "fitter family" contests rivaled livestock breeding and hybrid corn exhibits in popularity. Their history has not been completely forgotten today. However, medical historians typically mention such contests only in passing, mostly as a source of amusing anecdotes to leaven their accounts of otherwise somber topics such as infant mortality and eugenics.

Historians of eugenics also use these competitions to illustrate the supposedly benign side of a movement whose other activities are now largely regarded as abhorrent. Better baby contests show the attractive but toothless face of "positive" eugenics, the effort to . . . [Full Text]


   "POSITIVE" AND "NEGATIVE" EUGENICS
 

   BETTER BABY CONTESTS, PUBLIC HEALTH, AND GENDER RELATIONS
 

   THE SCIENTIFIC WAY TO BETTER BABIES, CROPS, AND LIVESTOCK
 

   References
 



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