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Harry Bruinius is the author of Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity. He was born in Chicago and attended Yale University, where he studied theology, and Columbia University, where he studied journalism. He is a frequent contributor to The Christian Science Monitor, a professor of journalism at Hunter College, and the founder of The Village Quill. He lives in Manhattan.
Harry Bruinius's website
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How did you get
access to the letters, diaries, and public records you did while researching
Better For all the World, and where did that research lead you?
The research trail for the American eugenics movement led me to a number of
archives around the country. The primary repository of documents, photos, and
other material is located at the American Philosophical Society Library in
Philadelphia. Most all of the papers of Charles Davenport and the Eugenics
Record Office, the loci of my story, are housed here. At the Pickler Memorial
Library at Truman State University in Missouri, the papers of my other main
character, Harry Laughlin, remain available to researchers. Another important
repository can be found at the California Institute of Technology Archives in
Pasadena, which includes the papers of the Human Betterment Society.
But one of the most exciting collections turned out to be the Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory Archives in New York, where I found a treasure trove of untapped
sources on the family life of Charles Davenport, including the diaries of his
father and mother. I corrected a long-established misunderstanding of Davenport,
which maintained that he had been beset by "conflicting ...
Jonathan Eig is a former senior writer for The Wall Street Journal. He is the New York Times bestselling author of five books, including Ali: A Life, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, and Opening Day: The Story ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Better for All the World
Try:
The Birth of the Pill
by Jonathan Eig
Audrey Clare Farley is a scholar of twentieth-century American culture with special interests in science and religion. She earned a PhD in English literature at University of Maryland, College Park. She now teaches U.S. ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Better for All the World
Try:
The Unfit Heiress
by Audrey Farley
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