During the
height of the eugenics craze, many state fairs organized
competitions in which human families were judged and
sometimes displayed in the same manner as prize livestock.
The photo shows the winners in the 'Medium' family
size category (2 ~ 4 children), Kansas State Fair 'Fitter Family'
Contest, 1925. Their award reads
"Yea, I have a goodly
heritage." Winners were invariably white and of
northern European ancestry.
In pre-war Nazi Germany and the Soviet
Union, mothers were encouraged to have large numbers of
children, and those with the largest families were given
state awards and special privileges. In Germany especially,
this policy supposedly served a state purpose to increase
the quantity of potential military manpower.
Images from the Eugenics Archive;
text material © 2022 by Steven
M. Carr
