SPECIAL FEATURE: HISTORY OF EUGENICS
The Slater Museum of Natural History: The Story of a Name BY GRACE EBERHARDT
Introduction My sophomore year of college was the first and last time I was lab partners with another student of Color. I remember we would speak Spanish to each other as we attempted to reach the light pink coloration a titration lab required of us. I felt a sense of belonging and freedom to be myself, something I hadn’t realized I was missing. To a student of Color in the sciences, Thompson Hall can feel lonely as monochromatic crowds of students and professors pulsate in and out of classrooms. And as my concerns about isolation and loneliness took over, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable when I learned that the Slater Museum of Natural History was named after a professor who had taught eugenics from 1919 to 1951, well after the end of the Second World War, when many people assume eugenic thinking disappeared in the wake of the Holocaust. What makes matters worse is that the historic timeline in front of the museum makes no mention of Slater’s eugenic teachings. This history, perhaps unintentionally, has been erased. My heart sank every time I passed the museum, which was most days on my way to class. I had to do something about it. I decided to research the history and ethics of the name with the guidance of Professor Kristin Johnson (in the Science, Technology and Society Department) and Professor Peter Wimberger (the Director of the museum). Professor Dexter Gordon, of the African American Studies Department and the Race and Pedagogy Institute, helped me find my positionality and narrative during this research. I needed to know: Who was Professor Slater? What was taught in his eugenics courses? Were Slater’s eugenics courses taught relatively late compared to other local universities? And, given the history, should the Slater Museum of Natural History be renamed?
Slater: A Pacific Northwest Herpetologist Professor James R. Slater obtained his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University after serving in the U.S. Air Force during World War I and later received his graduate degree from Syracuse University in 1917. Slater then went on to teach biology at the College of Puget Sound (CPS) from 1919–1951. During that time, Slater founded the natural history museum, serving as its director until 1951. Contrary to popular belief,
Slater was not the first professor of science at the College of Puget Sound. A woman named Mabel R. Simpson A.M. taught the first botany and biology courses from 1908 to 1918. Slater did, however, direct the biology department for over three decades (1). Slater was a herpetologist, researching amphibians of the Pacific Northwest. Although his research interests had nothing to do with eugenics, and he probably taught the course because it was a standard component of biology curricula by the 1920s, evidence suggests he supported a range of eugenic ideas. This evidence includes Slater’s teaching of eugenics throughout his entire career at CPS, his membership in the American Eugenics Society, a eugenics pamphlet he kept from 1910, his notes on eugenics in his journal dated 1917–1955, exam questions he wrote for his eugenics class in 1939, and his advisee James Legg’s 1947 thesis in support of eugenic sterilization.
“Mental Hygiene and Eugenics”: A College of Puget Sound Biology Course Slater taught the course entitled “Mental Hygiene and Eugenics,” later titled “Eugenics,” at the College of Puget Sound from 1919 until his retirement, when Professor Gordon D. Alcorn took it over until (presumably) removing it from the bulletin in 1954. Though there are few archival documents that show the course content, I was able to find the course description in the Puget Sound bulletin (Figure 1) and Slater’s 1939 eugenics test questions (Figure 2). The most compelling evidence as to what Slater taught and supported can be drawn from his advisee’s 1947 thesis on eugenic sterilization. CPS student James Legg’s thesis “Eugenic Sterilization” can be found in Puget Sound’s Collins Memorial Library. Legg defended eugenic sterilization after the removal of Washington State sterilization laws, indicating late support for sterilization. In his thesis, Legg wrote a synopsis of state eugenic laws across the country and the different sterilization procedures done on women and men, but he did not tackle the ethical questions regarding sterilization being raised by others at the time. Furthermore, Legg wrote multiple statements in support of negative eugenics (policies aimed at preventing those with “undesirable” traits from procreating) (2). For example, Legg wrote:
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