Customer Reviews

Breeding Better Vermonters: The Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State (Revisiting New England)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Including my grandmother's cousin, who was seized, put in a mental institution, and sterilized. The reason? He was Abenaki. Of course, to the government of Vermont he was a mentally ill "river-rat" (a term that is still used in a derogatory fashion today), one of the faux-French who "infested" the area around Swanton Vermont, known to us as Mazipskwik.

All the families I know in the area have stories - about why they learned to use violin or guitar to celebrate (if you drummed, the police were called, and you were likely to end up in jail), about the mysterious lack of children in some families, about who was locked up, who disappeared, and even mysterious "miscarriages" after visiting the doctor. This book documents some of these stories.

It continues today - we are Indian enough to be discriminated against, but not Indian enough to be recognized as such by the governments of Vermont or the United States, to get what few benefits might be gained from being Indian, or for the surviving victims of the Vermont Eugenics Survey to be recompensed in any way for the pain and suffering they've been through.

Ms. Gallagher, thank you for telling Vermonters the truth about their past racism. I just wish someone would write a good book about how Vermonters still express their racism in subtle ways.

I finished, a few weeks ago, reading a book about Future Evolution which was really mostly a book about the history of eugenics. It was a good, general read, but left me with a lot of questions. How was it handled on a smaller scale? How did each State of the United States handle it? Did it have a lot of grass-roots support or was it something that happened on a national level and moved downwards, into the States and cities.
Breeding Better Vermonters was the book that kept coming up in my book search, so I ordered it. And I am happy I did. It focused on the individuals, as well as the State and National movements, how they changed, interacted with each other, and what the results were. The timing, the fact that eugenics became a topic of interest to the people of the USA right when it was also becoming a topic of interest in the Third Reich, really has a lot to do with how it was treated after WWII. This book is important to read and an important part of any library dealing American history, Vermont history, and even world history.

This book is not only factually thorough and honest, it is easy and interesting to read. But what struck me most is that it is not a litany of facts; rather, Gallagher ties each bit of information to the fabric of historical influences, so that everything in the book is set in a context that makes sense. Exceedingly well written.

This is one of the few and best research books available on the eugenics project in Vermont. There were studies going on in Vermont as to why there were so many Vermont men signing up for the draft who had depression, drug or alcohol dependence, and diabetes. Approximately 60 or more poor families were targeted for the study. Many of these families lived near Lake Champlain or other areas of water, and they were called "Pirates or River Rats of Lake Champlain". Native American Indians were also included in this study. Many of the Natives had already left their reservations due to persecution and went to work for neighboring white farmers. Many of them eventually "adopted" themselves into these white families to erase all trace of their past. They would send the lightest skinned child to the store to avoid being noticed. They also stopped talking or handing down their heritage, which has made it a real travesty for anyone trying to do geneology work. You may have heard someone say that Great Grampa was full blooded Native, but everything in your research indicates that your family tree is white.

It is thought that the Vermont Eugenics Project was how Hitler got his idea for the Nazi persecution of the Jews, although I am not sure that he needed any extra ideas.

The only reason that I did not give the book a five star is that I was hoping it would have had more photos.

This book presents a relatively unknown piece of our history through the studied eye of a scientific historian. It doesn't go into sensationalism regarding the unfortunate outcomes of things that the social engineers of the times did, but rather presents them in such a way that some readers may ask "so what?" The seeming normality of the endeavor along with it's ultimate outcome should lead us to ask some serious questions about what we're doing with our genetic knowledge and such things as "women's choice" today. It is an important book by virtue to the maxim that "those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it".

Perfect gift for student who is going to college in Vermont