In 1916, eugenicist Madison Grant published the book The Passing of the Great Race; or The Racial Basis of European History, hereafter The Passing of the Great Race, where he claimed that northern Europeans, or Nordics, are biologically and culturally superior to the rest of humanity. Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York City, New York, published the volume. Grant claimed that the Nordic race was at risk of extinction and advocated for the creation of laws in the US to decrease the population of people he considered inferior. According to Grant’s biographer Jonathan Spiro, Grant’s book synthesized a range of racist and pseudoscientific eugenics claims in prose that was accessible to the public. In the US, The Passing of the Great Race was praised by politicians, including former presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, and cited as justification for laws that restricted immigration based on ethnicity and nationality. Adolf Hitler referred to The Passing of the Great Race as his Bible, and during the Nuremberg Trials in the 1940s, Nazi leaders who were prosecuted for war crimes committed during World War II presented the book as evidence that eugenics did not solely originate in Germany but rather had deep roots in the United States.
Details
- The Passing of the Great Race; or The Racial Basis of European History (1916), by Madison Grant
- Hoff, Aliya R. (Author)
- Schnebly, Risa Aria (Editor)
- Arizona State University. School of Life Sciences. Center for Biology and Society. Embryo Project Encyclopedia. (Publisher)
- Arizona Board of Regents (Publisher)
- literature
- Eugenics
- Nuremberg War Crime Trials, Nuremberg, Germany, 1946-1949
- Involuntary sterilization--Law and legislation
- Interracial marriage--United States
- Interracial marriage--Law and legislation
- United States. Immigration Act of 1924
- American Museum of Natural History
- American Eugenics Society
- American Defense Society
- Immigration Restriction League (U.S.)
- Nazis
- Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945. Mein Kampf
- New York Zoological Park
- New York Zoological Society
- Denali National Park and Preserve (Alaska)
- Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
- Grant, Madison
- Racism in medicine
- segregation
- Sterilization, Involuntary
- Genocide
- Abortion, Eugenic
- Negative Eugenics
- Positive Eugenics
- Heredity
- European Continental Ancestry Group
- race
- Pseudoscience
- Racism
- Genealogy and Heraldry
- Pedigree
- Anthropology
- Anthropology, Physical
- Publications
- Grant, Madison, 1865-1937. passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history,
- Grant, Madison, 1865-1937. The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history, New York, C. Scribner, 1916.
- Sterilization of women--Law and legislation; People
- United States Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965
- Nazi Party members (Germany); World War, 1939-1945
- National Socialist German Workers’ Party members (Germany)
- Racial crossing. Miscegenation
- Relation to race and discrimination
- Law--United States (General)--Medical legislation--Eugenics. Sterilization
- Eugenics and state. State policy (General)
- Heredity and social problems
- Eugenics in literature--American--Literary history--20th century
- Inheritance
- Racism in US history
- American Eugenics