Comment la photographie a-t-elle contribué au développement de l’eugénisme ?
How Did Photography Contribute to the Development of Eugenics?
FREN 488 – Quetzal Baum – February 28, 2023
Eugenics is a term coined by Francis Galton in 1883. Eugenics is the study of how to organise reproduction and modify natural selection through selective breeding in order to “improve” the human race. This often involves managing human reproduction to promote certain hereditary characteristics considered better. Eugenics leads to discouraging procreation by those with supposedly undesirable traits.
Galton, Composite Portraits of Criminal Types, 1877
- At the top of the plate, a sentence explains that these men share facial features commonly found among convicted criminals. Below, there are six portraits of six different men. The first three portraits are taken at a slight angle; the three below show the men facing the camera head-on. Each man has his mouth closed, wearing a blank, serious expression, and each has very short hair. The images are labelled I, II, III, IV, V, and VI. The second half of the plate is labelled “combinations of portraits.” The caption underneath indicates that the images of the same men have been combined. Each composite is labelled with the numbers of the portraits used.
- The proposition is that men with these traits are more likely to commit crimes. The image and its captions create the illusion of a correlation and even a causal link between certain facial features and a predisposition to criminality. This practice suggests that one can predict who will be most prone to crime based purely on appearance. The lack of emotional expression on the men’s faces makes the photos look objective.
- Pseudoscience and Stereotypes
Galton’s composite portrait uses the technique of photographic superimposition, in which multiple exposures are made on the same plate. The goal of this method is to produce what he calls “types.” Galton superimposed several glass negatives of individual portraits to create composite images, each made up of multiple superimposed faces. He began by collecting portraits and aligning the eyes of two photographs, stacking and pinning them, marking what he called “register marks.” He then placed these stacked portraits before the lens and took a new photograph, altering the order of the images for a total exposure time of eighty seconds.
Galton, The Making of a Composite Portrait, 1878
- In the upper half of the plate, a photographic plate is positioned beneath the camera at the far left. At the far right, several portraits are stacked and pinned; the image is taken from the side. On the front, a man’s portrait is visible, but the facial features are not shown in detail. The lower half of the plate is an enlarged view of this pinned portrait, over which a grid has been drawn, dividing the face into four square sections.
- This illustration shows Galton’s process for creating composite portraits. He presents it as a legitimate, objective tool. According to Galton, photography could be used to analyse humans, who could then be classified based on facial traits. Analysing physical traits, he believed, would help predict human behaviour.
- Categorisation and Typologisation
In 1883, Galton became known as the “father of eugenics.” These photographs lent visual legitimacy to eugenic goals by implying who should and should not have children. Composite portraiture gave durable visual form to the mental impressions we form of groups of people — in other words, to stereotypes.
Galton, The Jewish Type, 1883
- The plate contains eight portraits labelled a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and h. In images a, b, and c, the subject faces toward the right of the frame. In d, he faces left. In e, f, g, and h, he faces the camera directly. The plate is captioned “The Jewish Type.” The text on the left labels a, b, and c as “the profile portrait,” while the text on the right labels e, f, g, and h as “the full face.” Images a, b, and c are marked as five components; image d is the co-composite of b and c. Likewise, e, f, and g are five components; h is the co-composite of f and g. The portraits show white men with dark hair. The contours of their faces are blurred.
- The blurred edges indicate that multiple images have been superimposed. This technique was used to identify shared physical traits, especially facial characteristics, among members of a given group, and to define a recurring “type” associated with that group. Labelling the images with letters objectifies and dehumanises the subjects.
- Antisemitism and Systematisation
Creating “types” through photographic superimposition led to categorising people and then taking action based on these categories. This was an international project. For instance, these ideas were institutionalised at the Second International Congress of Eugenics, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Originally planned for 1915 but postponed to 1921 because of World War I, the congress aimed to discuss eugenics in a climate of international cooperation. Its logo was a tree, a lasting symbol of the eugenics movement.
Logo of the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921
- In the centre of the image stands a tree with a banner across it that reads “Eugenics” in large letters. To the left of the trunk, the text says “Eugenics is the self-direction,” and continues to the right: “of human evolution.” Below the trunk, another inscription reads: “Like a tree, eugenics draws its materials from many sources and organizes them into an harmonious entity.” The roots are labelled with words such as genetics, anthropology, and statistics, each with its own sub-branches. The tree’s branches bear flowers, and the trunk is detailed with bark-like texture.
- Choosing a tree as the symbol of the congress evokes nature, suggesting that eugenics is something natural. The phrase “eugenics draws from many sources” implies that the practice is supported by numerous bodies of evidence from distinct fields. The roots feeding the trunk labelled “eugenics” are rooted in respected disciplines such as genetics, anthropology, and statistics.
- Visual Representation and Branding
Eugenic practices varied considerably from country to country. Despite these differences, they shared a core belief: that “good” people should reproduce and “bad” people should not. Eugenic thinking presented itself as a way of addressing social problems in scientific terms. The eugenics movement grew steadily and ultimately provided the ideological basis for Nazi racial policies and the Holocaust. The Nazis justified genocide and encouraged the reproduction of certain groups by defining “superior” and “inferior” traits. The goal was to create a “superior” human race composed of people deemed to have superior characteristics.
The Nazis created maternity homes called Lebensborn in Germany. These birth houses were used to increase the number of “Aryan” children born out of wedlock to “racially pure and healthy” parents.
A Lebensborn Birth House, 1943
- On the left side of the frame, we see a building with windows. At the top, a dark flag with two white lightning-bolt-like symbols flies. A second flag bearing a Nazi emblem is partly visible. Trees stand in the background. At the lower left, a nurse in uniform stands next to a pram. Another pram is visible in the foreground, at the centre. The building, nurse’s uniform, and prams are all white. The prams are made of light material with lace. The dark flags contrast sharply with the white fabric.
- The trees create a natural setting. The building’s windows make it look open and inviting. The white, frilly material of the prams evokes purity and the joy of newborn babies. The nurse attending a pram suggests care and recalls maternal affection.
- Systematic Increase of the “Aryan” Population
Photography contributed to the development of eugenics by reducing people to their physical traits. These traits were catalogued and judged to decide who should continue the human race and who should be eliminated.