Trait Files documents

14 s.s 11 thumb
02 family history of cv kings park 1 thumb
10 assorted giantism pictures 11 thumb
04 pedigree series 4 thumb
09 case of m.n 9 thumb
02 familial and hereditary features of amarotic idiocy 3 thumb
06 sr kings park 1 thumb
06 record of the b family 2 thumb
06 family history of ep kings park 7 thumb
03 sun family 1 thumb
08 family backgrounds 5 thumb
01 criminality data set 1 thumb
07 jewish maternity hospital 2 thumb
11 h.m 3 thumb
03 correspondence 1 2 thumb
00 criminality no 6 thumb
06 fanny thumb
06 e.w thumb
07 trait forms 5 thumb
04 j.m 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.