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.