HISTORY TOPICS

Minnesota Eugenics Society & Founder Charles Fremont Dight

Eugenics was a movement to improve the human species by controlling hereditary factors in mating. The eugenics movement began in the late 1800s in Britain. Francis Galton, an English scientist, coined the term in 1883 and founded the Eugenics Society of Great Britain in 1908. Galton’s philosophy was that humanity could be improved by encouraging the ablest and healthiest people to have more children. Galton’s vision of eugenics is usually termed “positive eugenics.” The eugenics movements in the United States, Germany, and Scandinavia favored “negative eugenics,” which advocated preventing the least able from breeding. The American Eugenics Society was organized in 1926.

In the early 1920s, Charles Fremont Dight, a physician in Minneapolis, launched a crusade to bring the eugenics movement to Minnesota. He combined the moral philosophy of eugenics with socialism and espoused the idea that the state should administer reproduction of mentally handicapped individuals. His main lines of approach included eugenics education, changes in marriage laws, and the segregation and sterilization of what he called “defective” individuals.

Dight organized the Minnesota Eugenics Society in 1923 and began campaigning for a sterilization law. In 1925 the Minnesota legislature passed a law allowing the sterilization of the “feeble–minded” and insane who were resident in the state's institutions. For the next several legislative sessions Dight fought unsuccessfully for expansion of the law to include sterilization of the “unfit” who lived outside of institutions.

Dight continued his legislative efforts as late as 1935. He spoke and wrote on the subject of eugenics, including over 300 letters to Minneapolis daily newspapers, a 1935 pamphlet on the History and Early Stages of the Organized Eugenics Movement for Human Betterment in Minnesota, and a 1936 book entitled Call for a New Social Order. In 1933 he sent a letter to Adolph Hitler and included with it one of his letters to the editor in which he commended Hitler's work in Germany.

The Minnesota Eugenics Society became moribund by the early 1930s. Dight died on June 20, 1938, in Minneapolis. He left his estate to the University of Minnesota to found what became the Dight Institute for the promotion of Human Genetics.

GET STARTED WITH SECONDARY SOURCES:

• “Biographical Sketch of Charles Fremont Dight, MD,” by Evadene Burris Swanson.
  Includes a chronology of Dight’s life and a bibliography of his published writings.
  In The Dight Institute of the University of Minnesota Bulletin, no. 1 (1943): pp. 8-22.
  MHS call number: QH 431 .M5A22 no. 1
• Breeding to Brains: Eugenics, Physicians, and Politics in Minnesota in the 1920s, by Neal Ross Holtan.
  M.A. thesis (University of Minnesota), 2000.
  MHS call number: HQ755.5 .M5H64 2000
• Call for a New Social Order: Some Activities of Charles Fremont Dight, by Charles Fremont Dight.
  Minneapolis: [s.n], 1936.
  MHS call number: H35 .D5
• “The Dight Papers: Some Sources for Northwest History,” by Evadene Burris Swanson.
  In Minnesota History, vol. 25, no. 1 (Mar. 1944): pp. 62-64.
  MHS call number: Reading Room F601.5 .M66 v.25:1
• “The Doctor-Alderman Who Lived in a Tree,” by Joseph W. Zalusky.
  In Hennepin County History, vol. 23, no. 3 (winter 1964): pp. 18-20.
  MHS call number: Reading Room F612 .H52 H4 v.23:3
• “The Eugenics Crusade of Charles Fremont Dight,” by Gary Phelps.
  In Minnesota History, vol. 49, no. 3 (fall 1984): pp. 99-108.
  MHS call number: Reading Room F601.5 .M66 v.49:3
• History of the Early Stages of the Organized Eugenics Movement for Human Betterment in Minnesota, by Charles F. Dight.
  Minneapolis: Minnesota Eugenics Society, 1935.
  MHS call number: HQ750 .A2 D57
• “The Incredible Dr. Dight: His Crusade to Abolish Wickedness,” by John Medelman.
  In Select Twin Citian, vol. 4, no. 11 (July 1962): pp. 10-13.
  MHS call number: F613 .T1S4
• “The Story of Charles F. Dight,” by Evadene Adele Burris Swanson.
  An unpublished typescript, written in the 1940s.
  MHS call number: R154.D5 S9

PRIMARY RESOURCES:

• Charles Fremont Dight Papers.
  This archival collection includes correspondence, photographs, lecture notes, essays, manuscripts of articles, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, radio scripts, editorials, pamphlets, flyers, bills, minutes, and printed matter related to the life and career of a Minneapolis medical professor, socialist politician, and leader of the eugenics movement in Minnesota. Of particular interest for this topic are his writings on eugenics and materials about his leadership in the Minnesota movement to pass legislation regarding eugenic sterilization. Click here to view Dight’s 1933 letter to Hitler.
  MHS call number: P1628; see the green Manuscripts Notebooks for a detailed list of the boxes (there are 8 boxes, but not all relate to this topic), or use an electronic version of the inventory.
• Faribault State School and Hospital
  
  • Case Conference Minutes.
    Records in this archival collection (1939–1960) include discussion cases, which were considered relative to placement, sterilization, and transfer within the institution, and prospects for adjustment to community life if discharged. Most discussion is of named inmates, rather than general policies or procedures.
    MHS call number: See the black State Archives Notebooks—filed under Faribault State School and Hospital—for the locator number (there are only 5 folders of material).
  • Record of Sterilization Cases (1916–1937).
    Restriction: These records contain personal data; you may apply to use this record in accordance with the State Archives access statement. Ask a librarian for help.
    MHS call number: See the black State Archives Notebooks—filed under Faribault State School and Hospital—for the locator number (there is 1 volume).
• Minnesota Department of Public Welfare
  
  • Policy and Research Office Miscellaneous Research Reports and Studies.
    This archival collection (1968–1979) includes material on eugenic sterilization.
    MHS call number: See the black State Archives Notebooks—filed under Public Welfare Department, Policy and Research Office—for the locator number (there is only a ½ box of material).
  • Psychological Services Bureau Records.
    This archival collection (1921–1965) consists of administrative subject files, which deal mainly with patient information and services, and background and informational data. The subject files include information on sterilization, IQ testing in schools; and various treatments used for the “feeble–minded.” There are also reports, articles, and speeches done by Bureau staff, particularly Director Frederick Kuhlmann. The specimen set of Kuhlmann’s test of mental development (ca. 1958) includes the 1939 manual “Tests of Mental Development: A Complete Scale for Individual Examinations” and its supplementary score sheet and some of the testing materials.
    Restriction: These records contain personal data; you may apply to use this record in accordance with the State Archives access statement. Ask a librarian for help.
    MHS call number: See the black State Archives Notebooks—filed under Public Welfare Department, Psychological Services Bureau—for a detailed list of boxes and locator numbers (there are 2½ boxes, but not all relate to this topic).
• Newspapers that may be useful for this topic:
  • Bulletin: Published for the Dight Institute, 1943–1966 (QH431.M5A22).
  • Minneapolis Star
  • Minneapolis Tribune
  • St. Paul Dispatch
  • St. Paul Pioneer Press
• Check the library catalog for other materials.