Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More
A gathering of people seated or standing, posing for a black and white photograph.
First Annual Field Workers' Conference, Eugenics Record Office, 1912.

The Eugenics Record Office opens in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

Date: 1910

EUG
RSCH
RAC
First Annual Field Workers' Conference, Eugenics Record Office, 1912.

The financial support for the endeavor comes from Mrs. E.H. Harriman, a wealthy philanthropist; John Harvey Kellogg, the breakfast cereal magnate; and the American Breeders' Association. An 80-acre farm is purchased near the Station for Experimental Evolution (SEE) laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, and an office building is built to house the Eugenics Record Office (ERO).

Later, in 1921, SEE and ERO will be combined into the Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Genetics, with Charles Davenport acting as the director. During this time, they will collect, sort, and analyze the hereditary and genealogical records of thousands of communities. They will impose their beliefs on the hereditary nature of "imbecility, idiocy and lunacy;" the "superiority" of the white race; and the "inferiority" of disabled people, Black and Indigenous people, and People of Color.