Trait Files documents

05 family history of eb kings park 7 thumb
15 c history 1 thumb
05 moderate giant thumb
00 poland thumb
07 graphed data 4 thumb
04 congressional record 1919 3 thumb
00 feebleminded thumb
03 ma kings park 3 thumb
08 percentage of foreign born maps 11 thumb
01 morals efficiency report 2 thumb
06 feeble mindness thumb
03 family tree folder 02 thumb
10 i.s 1 thumb
04 measurements 04 thumb
25 german letter 01 2 thumb
05 case of m.l 15 thumb
05 family history of pb kings park 10 thumb
03 why they come pearson's 6 thumb
06 single trait sheets 4 thumb
03 binet test 2 thumb

The Eugenics Record Office was first and foremost a “repository and clearing house” for eugenics data. Through the “systematic” study of human heredity, the Office amassed an incredible quantity of files, forms, and assorted clipping related to a wide range of human traits. The bulk of this material comprised the “Trait Files,” a massive and rigidly organized index of human traits that sought to sort and rank human beings according to thousands of different attributes, from profession (“Teachers,” “Missionaries”) to mental ability (“Idiocy,” “Feeblemindedness”) to race (“Negro-Chinaman,” “Mulattoes”) and personality (“Sense of Humor, “Leadership”). But this data didn’t just sit around in the ERO’s archives. It was actively used to provide “scientific” justifications for a wide range of policies, from immigration restriction to sterilization and anti-miscegenation, that were shaped by leaders of the Eugenics Record Office.