Propaganda is the distorting use of information to promote or publicize a cause. It denotes a biased or misleading nature. Propaganda has been used in relation to eugenics by perpetuating the idea that sexual sterilization or restricted immigration would eventually lead to improving humanity by eliminating the feeble-minded as well as support improvements more generally in social policies. Channels of eugenic propaganda include: rhetoric, posters and advertising, education, books, newspaper and magazine articles, public speaking, travelling and museum exhibitions, “Better Baby” and “Fitter Family” contests, plays, radio broadcasts, motion pictures, and even fashion shows and comic strips (O’Brien 2013), all of which represented certain parts of the population as “other” and lesser, and eugenics as an utopian ideal. Propaganda has helped make eugenics an enduring undercurrent in popular culture. Today, new ways of framing disability and eugenic goals are used, especially for prospective parents.

Language, and Metaphors
Eugenics propaganda is unified by its ‘alarm movement’ tactics, which created a sense of fear towards specific sub-groups of the population, who are portrayed in a simplistic and stereotypical manner (O’Brien 2013). Generally, eugenics propaganda focused on disability, race, social class, education, or some combination thereof, depending on the groups endorsing it. Eugenics propaganda is also unified in its portrayal of eugenics as the next step of human evolution (Huxley 1936). Those with favourable traits were encouraged to have children, while undesirables were encouraged or forced to sterilize. Language was an important tool used to dehumanize the targets of eugenic ideas. Psychological categories of the 1920s, including “moron,” “imbecile”, and “idiot” were used to categorize those with disabilities into a negative “other” who could be treated as sub-human, and subsequently entered vernacular language as derogatory terms. In Western Canadian eugenic legislation, the words “insane”, “lunatic”, “mentally defective”, “mentally incompetent”, “evil”, “person of unsound mind”, and “mentally disordered” were used in various Acts related to the feeble-minded.

Notable metaphors were also used in propaganda language to describe feeble-mindedness. These included: disease, war (the feeble-minded as an enemy force to be battled), natural catastrophe, religious and altruistic metaphors (the feeble-minded as immoral or evil people, or in need of “protection” and “guidance”), and object metaphors (the feeble-minded as poorly functioning human beings, incapable of making their own choices) (O’Brien 2013). These metaphors helped manipulate many groups of people into endorsing sterilization legislation or immigration restriction, thereby deciding what kind of people should be allowed to be part of society, or even exist at all through procreation.

Media
One way in which eugenic propaganda operates is through the use of powerful images. Photographs of different races, of criminals, and of the “feeble-minded” were often juxtaposed with images of “healthy” people (Maxwell 2008) to reinforce a sense of “other” in eugenics propaganda. At the same time that images were used to de-humanize certain groups of people, they were also used to portray the eugenics movement as a metaphor for life and human evolution, such as the “tree of eugenics” logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference (1921), later used by various eugenics organizations, including the Eugenics Record Office in the United States.

Members of eugenics organizations, such as the British Eugenics Society, the American Eugenics Society, and the Eugenics Society of Canada, made active efforts to publish newspaper and magazine articles on eugenics and sterilization (Felder & Veindling 2013), as well as their own reviews. Propaganda novels such as Eduardo Urzaiz’s Eugenia: A Fictional Sketch of Future Habits (1919) and Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road (1932) began to appear, and eugenics became a theme present in works by famous authors including Yeats, Woolf, and Hemingway (O’Brien 2013). In addition, numerous eugenic advocates and researchers published their own works relating eugenic theory and practice to their peers and the public. Textbooks and college curriculums were used to reinforce eugenic messages, or to re-interpret classic literature such as Shakespeare in eugenic frameworks (Strobl 1999).

Eugenic societies and advocates also arranged public lectures and exhibitions, particularly for those who could not afford subscription to societies, or who found reviews too complex to follow (Pocock 1938). The American Eugenics Society submitted exhibits to Health Exhibitions, and organized branches, drawing-room meetings, lectures, and film shows as part of their pro-eugenics propaganda (Pocock 1938). Touring exhibitions such as “Work and Leisure” (1939) in Europe provided information on hygiene and eugenics (Felder & Veindling 2013). Exhibitions also encouraged the public to investigate their own genealogies, and in America, money was invested in creating and finding family pedigrees for exhibition displays (Pocock 1938). In the same spirit, eugenics was further popularized through “Better Babies” and “Fitter Families” contests, held at state and local fairs (O’Brien 2013). These were often backed by government, and “aimed at manipulating people’s reproductive and child-rearing decisions” (Pernick 2002, p 707).

Ultimately, however, most eugenic advocates agreed that film and broadcasting were the most successful means of reaching the public (Pocock 1938). Notable propaganda films include Nazi Germany’s To Prevent is Better than to Cure (Vorsogen ist besser als heilen) (1939) (Felder & Veindling 2013), the United States’ The Black Stork (1917), A Eugenics Catechism (1923), Tomorrow’s Children: The Goal of Eugenics (1934), and Canada’s Dangerous Lives (1938) (Pocock 1938).

As eugenics fell from favour after the Second World War, eugenic propaganda continued, albeit in different forms. Modern methods of framing eugenic goals include genetic counseling, new methods of reproduction, implementation of technology based on the Human Genome Project, and constant news press on these topics (O’Brien 2013). Especially noteworthy is the powerful influence the medical industry has on framing disability for prospective parents (O’Brien 2013). Although society promotes a modern message where discrimination is condemned by society at large, there is another message that a fetus with disabilities is undesirable, and that it is acceptable to abort it (O’Brien 2013). Eugenics propaganda has left a lasting impact on modern popular culture through its extensive use in media, and over the last century is believed to have permeated “all manner of American institutions” (Barker 2011). Eugenics continues to be a commonly explored theme in popular culture. Actively deconstructing metaphors is an important step in recognizing modern eugenic propaganda.

Canadian Examples
The Eugenics Society of Canada began creating pro-eugenics propaganda upon its establishment in 1930, claiming that “developments in Nazi Germany [are] worthy of emulation” and that “Canada, too had to be ‘purified,’ but in its own particular way” (Canadian Eugenics Movement as cited in Jasmin, n.d.). Notable society members included Clarence Hincks, C. B. Farrar, Helen MacMurchy, and William Hutton (who also headed the society) (Wheatley 2013). The society hoped to encourage the production of “well-born” citizens, meaning men and women of desirable physical, mental, and moral attributes (Wheatley 2013). Measures included limitation of immigration, changes to the Marriage Act to prevent unions between the “feeble-minded”, institutionalization of the feeble-minded, and sterilization (Wheatley 2013).

A travelling exhibit of eugenic propaganda toured Canada in the 1920s, from Montreal to Vancouver. This exhibit was organized by the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene (CNCMH), and was designed to warn Canadians about the “feeble-minded” (Wheatley 2013). The tour included the poster ‘Four Types of Mental Deficiency: Idiot, Mongolian Idiocy, Imbecility, and Moron’, whose caption read: “The feeble-minded can be divided into three groups. (1) Idiots with a mental age less than three years; (2) Imbeciles with a mental age between three and seven years; (3) Morons with a mental age of between seven and eleven years. The moron group has been largely neglected in Canada and has contributed greatly to criminality, vice and pauperism. - The Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene conducts activities to secure better provision for the control of feeblemindedness” (CAMH Archives cited in Wheatley 2013). Each “feeble-minded” classification was illustrated with a photograph.

The Eugenics Society of Canada also sponsored a radio address series in 1938, known as “The Future of the Race”. This series approved the sterilization laws of the United States at the time (Hansen and King, p. 115). Pro-eugenics propaganda movies were also produced in Canada, such as Dangerous Lives (1938), which also served as a large source of revenue for the Canadian Social Hygiene Society and the Health League of Canada (Pocock 1938). Other movies produced in the early twentieth century, such as Nation Building in Saskatchewan: The Ukrainians (1921) and The Education of the New Canadians (1921), which featured shots of prize-winning Canadian babies, re-inforced eugenic ideals as important to the nation, and implied that being a true Canadian was dependent on gender, race, and sexuality (Gittings 2002).

-Colette Leung

• Barker, M, 2011, Eugenic Propaganda, Old And New. 5 December 2011. Swans Commentary. Available from: . [5 May 2014].

• Currell, S & Cogdell, C 2006, Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s, Ohio University Press, Athens, OH.

• Elks, MA 2005, 'Visual Indictment: A Contextual Analysis of "The Kallikak Family" Photographs', Mental Retardation: A Journal Of Practices, Policy And Perspectives, 43, 4, pp. 268-280, ERIC, EBSCOhost, viewed 5 May 2014.

• Felder, BM & Veindling, PJ (eds) 2013, Baltic eugenics: Bio-politics, race and nation in interwar Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania 1918-1940, Rodopi, New York.

• Gates, R 1937, 'View on race and eugenics: propaganda or science?', The Eugenics Review, 28, 4, p. 334, Medline, EBSCOhost, viewed 5 May 2014.

• Gittings, CE 2002, Canadian National Cinema: Ideology, Difference and Representation, Psychology Press, Toronto.

• Hansen, R & King, D 2013, Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in Twentieth Century North America, Cambridge University Press, New York.

• Huxley, JS 1936, “Eugenics and Society”, Eugenics Review, 28, 1, pp.11, DNA Learning Centre, viewed 16 June 2014.

• Jasmin, O n.d., Eugenics in Canada. Available from: . [19 June 2014].

• Macnicol, J 1989, 'Eugenics and the campaign for voluntary sterilization in Britain between the Wars’, Social History Of Medicine, 2, 2, pp. 147-169, Historical Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost, viewed 5 May 2014.

• Maxwell, A 2008, Picture Imperfect : Photography And Eugenics 1870-1940 / Anne Maxwell, n.p.: Brighton [England] ; Portland, Or. : Sussex Academic Press, 2008., NEOS's Catalog, EBSCOhost, viewed 5 May 2014.

• McLaren, A 1990, Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885-1945, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto.

• O’Brien, GV 2013, Framing the moron: the social construction of feeble-mindedness in the American eugenic era, Manchester University Press, Manchester.

• Pernick, MS 2002, 'Taking better baby contests seriously', American Journal Of Public Health, 92, 5, pp. 707-708, OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 5 May 2014.

• Pocock, H 1938, 'Eugenics Propaganda', The Eugenics Review, 30, 1, p. 77, Medline, EBSCOhost, viewed 5 May 2014.

• propaganda 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 05 May, 2014, from http://www.britannica.com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/EBchecked/topic/478875/propaganda

• Strobl, G 1999, 'The Bard of Eugenics: Shakespeare and Racial Activism in the Third Reich', Journal Of Contemporary History, 34, 3, p. 323, Historical Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost, viewed 5 May 2014.

• Wheaton, T 2013, Part Two: Canadian Eugenics. Available from: . [23 June 2014].