Flenner And Flexner Summary

John D. Rockefeller provided generous fellowships to some of most well-known scholars of that era, including Abraham Flexner. As a result, Flexner traveled to Europe to study prostitution and published “Prostitution in Europe,” which criticized legalization and regulation. On that note, historian Nicholas R. Scott noted how Rockefeller attempted to conflate his eugenics agenda into legitimate research. “Flexner’s conclusions (were) extremely important because of their relevance with eugenics theory and their profound effect on Rockefeller Jr.,” Scott wrote. “Indeed the book’s description of the causes of prostitution were the very same elements that eugenicists claimed to have found among the feebleminded.”

Eugenics also fit well within the

government never imposed eugenics measures at a level on par with the Nazis, but, believe it or not, forced sterilization laws were actually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court with Buck v Bell in 1927. By 1931, twenty-seven states had those laws on the books! In fact, these were hardly controversial policies as a survey in Fortune Magazine found that 66% of Americans agreed with compulsory sterilization in 1937. To sum up, about 6,000 people were forcibly sterilized before Buck v Bell. However, approximately another 30,000 people were sterilized or castrated after that case, meanwhile a large percentage of them were prostitutes who weren’t actually “mental defects.” But psychologists like Henry Goddard were the judge, jury, and executioner when determining the criteria for feeblemindedness. Even the most fickle factors were applied as Goddard believed in “the unmistakable look of the feebleminded” and that “just a glance sufficed” at making that

Those messages expanded upon public service announcements that were in rotation before the war. These bulletins were quite convincing and actually had many Americans genuinely afraid to use public bathrooms and water fountains out of fears of contracting venereal diseases. The military coined slogans such as “a German bullet is cleaner than a whore.” Soldiers were also warned that prostitutes “could do more harm than any German fleet of airplanes.” Likewise, military pamphlets even stated that prostitutes were sent from Germany to infect American forces.

These kinds of messages were composed by a new program created just two weeks after the U.S entered WWI, the Commission on Training Camp Activities (CTCA). This program focused on imparting wholesome values for the troops as part of their training and Raymond Fosdick, the future President of the Rockefeller Association, led the CTCA. Before that time there was no uniform policy and each general handled the prostitution issue in his own way. However, with Fosdick at the helm, the Rockefeller Foundation donated $100,000 to the CTCA and they implemented the Rockefeller brand of social