DIGITAL IMAGE ARCHIVE ON THE AMERICAN EUGENICS MOVEMENT

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In this proposal we seek three-year support for continued development of a Digital Archive on the American Eugenics Movement. The Archive is intended as an educational tool to allow individuals to learn about society's past involvement in genetics by exploring primary materials, many of which originated at Cold Spring Harbor's Eugenics Record Office, that have been inaccessible to the layperson. During the initial term of the grant. 1,230 images were collected from three major archives and incorporated into a WWW database; image collection trips to several additional American and European archives are proposed to increase the number of images to 2,500. Our aim, without leading the viewer to any "correct" interpretation of the materials, is to present images with adequate narrative background. To achieve this, eleven "themes" have been drafted to give the images historical, social, scientific, and ethical context. Brief (1000 words) theme essays serve as an authoritative introduction to the key events, persons, and social conditions that contributed to the development of eugenics. Continued support will enable development of a site guide, of special use to teachers, that will help users draw parallels between eugenics and modern topics in genetics. All images currently appear as photographs, including manuscripts, handwritten correspondence, and printed documents; we propose to transcribe all "text" images to allow full text searches. The Editorial Advisory Panel (EAP) established has been key in the development and scripting of the theme essays and in the formulation of an online publication policy. Input from a "working group of the EAP will have additional responsibilities in a second term, including: provide leads to other archives of eugenics materials; write essays, commentaries, and biographies for the online publication, as well as for a CD-ROM and "coffee table" book publication of the Archive; serve as "lecturers" in moderated online chat presentations and Ask the Expert bulletin board features; and speak at Eugenics and the New Biology: Perspectives and Parallels, a small, professional meeting to be held at CSHL's Banbury Center. In addition to extending the EAP's participation, we will initiate a fellowship in the history of eugenics to provide research assistance for the Archive.