there's something about the melancholy of the archives. i can't listen to The Commonwealth Club of California public conversations on kqed without thinking about a series of public discussions held in 1926, at the same Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

i found these materials at the @prelinger library (and one of the many reasons why Prelinger Library is such an important place).

Remember - the commonwealth club was founded as a public affairs forum, with notions of public assembly for debate, "the Agora", do good, etc.

in the 1920s, progressives of the time held deep conviction in using "scientific" tools to "better" society. for them, that included eugenics. here's some more of the conversation that happened those evenings.

here's another argument from Professor Newell, a Professor of medicine at Stanford University, who suggests shooting Asiatic populations or teaching them birth control in order to prevent the "European race" from being overrun.

all of which to say, when I talk to students about history, it feels very urgent to press upon them that it wasn't just one lone racist scientist or dude that propagated eugenics. It was so clearly institutionalized and endemic.

i think about this pamphlet, always, when there are those commonwealth club conversations, when I see conversations between tech elite about the future of work/how to "save" "humanity" with tech. there's a fine line between everything. just, think about it.

and no, i don't think we're just on history repeating itself. it can feel eerie to read old documents, but you know, things are always changing, long arc of justice, etc etc :)