“In Search of Purity: Eugenics and Racial Uplift among New Negroes; 1915-1935†is a dissertation that examines the reinterpretation of eugenic theories by Black scholars; who helped integrate the science into a social movement for racial uplift. Areas of analyses include: The Talented Tenth; links between ideas about social degeneracy and physical hygiene; eugenics courses and professors at Howard University; hereditarian; and colorism. Guiding principles of African American-led eugenic theory are examined alongside the fading imagery of the Old Negro that consisted of stereotypes scattered throughout plantation fiction; Blackface minstrelsy; vaudeville; and Darwinism. Specifically; terms like germ plasm (negative characteristics transmitted through genes through continual selection; unchanged; from one generation to the next); and racial hygiene (a public health platform designed to eliminate; among other ailments; venereal disease and promote healthy reproduction within a race) are analyzed in their relation to popular discourses about Black cleanliness that included “moral fitness†and intellectual ineptness. Ideologies that intrinsically tied Blackness to social degeneracy and criminality; as well as terms like full-blood and mulatto; are also examined. Links between standards of beauty; desirability; and marriage-worthiness in relation to those ideas are also critiqued. Of particular interest is the impact of racial hygiene discourses on African-American advertising through the promotion of products to lighten skin and straighten hair in order to eliminate noticeable signs of racial inferiority.
#2990840 in Books 2016-08-03Format: Large PrintOriginal language:English 11.00 x .24 x 8.50l; .58 #File Name: 1530761832106 pages
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