Eugenics (1900 - 1940)

From

c. 1900

To

c. 1940

Location

Tasmania

Eugenics was an influential doctrine popular from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. While not discounting the role of environmental factors, it placed considerable emphasis on heredity in shaping an individual's characteristics. Eugenics had a racist element in that it emphasised the superiority of the white race. Its advocates believed that in order for white people to maintain their dominance in the world, governments should intervene to promote the physical fitness of white children.