The black stork
by Martin S. Pernick · first published 1996
3mentions
1recommended by
2HN commenters
2017–2024first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
In the late 1910s Dr. Harry J. Haiselden, a prominent Chicago surgeon, electrified the nation by allowing the deaths of at least six infants he diagnosed as "defectives." Seeking to publicize his efforts to eliminate the "unfit," he displayed the dying infants to journalists, wrote about them for the Hearst newspapers, and starred in a feature film about his crusade. Prominent Americans from Clarence Darrow to Helen Keller rallied to his support. The Black Stork tells this startling story, based on newly-rediscovered sources and long-lost motion pictures, in order to illuminate many broader c
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
> I don't think eugenics by means of killing people was ever widely considered moral or even a gray area. Oof, how I wish that were true. You may be interested in Pernick, Martin (1999): The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915. Several nations (the US included) were well on their way to "Great Society" ideas of shaping the next…
on “IBM and the Holocaust” ↗Context: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Stork-Eugenics-Defective-Americ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Haiselden "Harry John Haiselden (March 16, 1870 – June 18, 1919) was the Chief Surgeon at the German-American Hospital in Chicago in…
on “Babies On Display: When a Hospital Couldn't Save Them, a Sideshow Did (2015)” ↗…it was acceptable, indeed it was progressive, to be violently hostile to difference or defectiveness: see for example War Against the Weak https://waragainsttheweak.com/ and, maybe most especially, The Black Stork https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-black-stork-9780... . And of course it's no coincidence that the pioneers of statistics tended to be particular fans of eugenics themselves. (I am not an expert…
on “How the US Air Force Ditched the Average and Saved Lives” ↗