Madison Grant in the early 1920s.

Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) was an American lawyer, known primarily for his work as a eugenicist and conservationist. As a eugenicist, Grant was responsible for one of the most famous works of scientific racism, a 1916 book which was later used by officials in Nazi Germany to justify their racial policies of compulsory sterilization and compulsory euthanasia, and played an active role in crafting strong immigration restriction and anti-miscegenation polices in the United States. As a conservationist, Grant was credited with the saving of many different species of animals, founding many different environmental and philanthropic organizations, and developing much of the discipline of wildlife management. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... November 19 is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1865 is a common year starting on Sunday. ... May 30 is the 150th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (151st in leap years). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... A lawyer is a person licensed by the state to advise clients in legal matters and represent them in courts of law and in other forms of dispute resolution. ... Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ... Conservationists are those people who tend to more highly rank the wise use of the Earths resources and ecosystems. ... Scientific racism is research that seems to promote racist ideology and forgoes the ideals of scientific objectivity. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Compulsory sterilization programs sprouted up in many countries at the beginning of the 20th century, usually as part of a program of negative eugenics -- to prevent undesirable members of the population reproducing. ... This poster reads: This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community of the people 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. ... The United States Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of person from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890. ... Miscegenation is an archaic term invented in 1863 to describe people of different human races (usually one European and one African) producing offspring; the use of this term is invariably restricted to those who believe that the category race is meaningful when applied to human beings. ...

Early life

Grant was born in New York City, New York, to Gabriel Grant, a well-known physician and American Civil War surgeon, and Caroline Manice. Grant was a lifelong resident of New York City. As a child he attended private schools and traveled Europe and the Middle East with his father. He attended Yale University, graduating early and with honors in 1887. He received a law degree from Columbia Law School, and practiced law after graduation; however, his interests were primarily those of a naturalist. He never married and he had no children. He first achieved a political reputation when he and his brother, De Forest Grant, took part in the electoral campaign of New York mayor William Strong in 1894. The Empire State Building (right) and the Chrysler Building (left) are easily recognized symbols of New York City to the world. ... Official language(s) English Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 27th 141,205 km² 455 km 530 km 13. ... The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought in North America within the United States of America, between twenty-four mostly northern states of the Union and the Confederate States of America, a coalition of eleven southern states that declared their independence and claimed the right of secession from the... Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. ... Columbia Law School, located in New York City, is one of the professional schools of Columbia University and one of the leading law schools in the United States. ... William Strong was the name of the following men: William Strong (1763-1840), a congressman from Vermont. ...

Nordic theory

Grant is most famously the author of the popular book The Passing of the Great Race in 1916, an elaborate work of racial hygiene detailing the "racial history" of the world. This early racialist work expositing Nordic theory was the first non-German book ordered to be reprinted by the Nazis when they took power in Germany, and Adolf Hitler wrote to Grant, "The book is my Bible". The book itself elaborated Grant's interpretation of contemporary anthropology and history, which he saw as revolving chiefly around the idea of "race", specifically the idea of the Nordic race — the subtitle of the book was The racial basis of European history. Grant also was an avid eugenicist, advocating the extermination of "undesirable" traits and "worthless race types" from the human gene pool: Racial hygiene (often labeled a form of scientific racism) is the selection, by a government, of the most physical, intellectual and moral persons to raise the next generation (selective breeding) and a close alignment of public health with eugenics. ... Hitlers Nazi Germany: the epitome of 20th-century racialism Racialism is a term used to describe racial policy, in what is generally perceived to be a negative sense, as promoting stratification and inequality between racial categories (in themselves, often disputed). ... Madison Grants map, from 1916, charting the distribution of the European races, with Nordic genetic influence shown in bright red. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... â–¶ (help· info) (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Führer (Leader) of Germany from 1934 to his death by suicide. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Validity of human races. ... Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ...

A rigid system of selection through the elimination of those who are weak or unfit — in other words social failures — would solve the whole question in one hundred years, as well as enable us to get rid of the undesirables who crowd our jails, hospitals, and insane asylums. The individual himself can be nourished, educated and protected by the community during his lifetime, but the state through sterilization must see to it that his line stops with him, or else future generations will be cursed with an ever increasing load of misguided sentimentalism. This is a practical, merciful, and inevitable solution of the whole problem, and can be applied to an ever widening circle of social discards, beginning always with the criminal, the diseased, and the insane, and extending gradually to types which may be called weaklings rather than defectives, and perhaps ultimately to worthless race types.

Other messages in his work include recommendations to install a dictatorship and to segregate unfavorable races in ghettos, and that freedom is actually slavery and "inferior" races were actually longing to be dominated and instructed by "superior" ones. The book was immensely popular and went through multiple printings in the United States, and was translated into a number of other languages, notably German in 1925. By 1937 the book had sold 16,000 copies in the United States alone.

Madison Grant's map of the "Present Distribution of the European Races", from 1916, showing his version of Nordic theory.

Nordic theory, in Grant's formulation, was a similar to many 19th-century racial philosophies in that it divided the human species into primarily three distinct races: Caucasoids (based in Europe), Negroids (based in Africa), and Mongoloids (based in Asia). Nordic theory, however, further subdivided Caucasoids into three groups: Nordics (who inhabited Scandinavia, northern Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Flanders, parts of northern France, and northern Poland), Alpines (whose territory stretched from central France through Switzerland, northern Italy, Austria, southern Germany, southern Poland, central Russia, and into Central Asia), and Mediterraneans (who inhabited southern France, the Iberian peninsula, southern Italy, Greece, and parts of Wales). The harsh conditions at the top of the world caused humans there to evolve better brains and better morals than the rest of the human species, so Grant's formulation went (they also exclusively developed blonde hair, red hair, and blue eyes). Nordics were, in his mind, responsible for all of the truly important achievements of civilization. Image File history File links Madison Grants map of the Present Distribution of the European Races from 1916. ... Image File history File links Madison Grants map of the Present Distribution of the European Races from 1916. ... Madison Grants map, from 1916, charting the distribution of the European races, with Nordic genetic influence shown in bright red. ... Madison Grants map, from 1916, charting the distribution of the European races, with Nordic genetic influence shown in bright red. ...

According to Grant, Nordics were in a dire state in the modern world, where they were close to committing "race suicide" by being out-bred by more inferior stock. Nordic theory was strongly embraced by the racial hygiene movement in Germany in the early 1920s and 1930s; however, they typically used the term "Aryan" instead of "Nordic", though the principal Nazi ideologist, Alfred Rosenberg, preferred "Aryo-Nordic" or "Nordic-Atlantean". Racial hygiene (often labeled a form of scientific racism) is the selection, by a government, of the most physical, intellectual and moral persons to raise the next generation (selective breeding) and a close alignment of public health with eugenics. ... Aryan is an English word derived from the Indo-Aryan Vedic Sanskrit and Iranian Avestan terms ari-, arya-, ārya-, and/or the extended form aryāna-. The Old Persian ariya- is a cognate as well. ... Alfred Rosenberg in 1933 Alfred Rosenberg (January 12, 1893–October 16, 1946) was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi party, who later held several important posts in the Nazi government. ...

He additionally was involved in many debates over the discipline of anthropology against the anthropologist Franz Boas, whom he reputably would not shake hands with on account of the latter's being Jewish, while they both served (along with others) on the National Research Council Committee on Anthropology after the First World War. Grant represented the "hereditarian" branch of physical anthropology at the time, despite his relatively amateur status, and was staunchly opposed to and by Boas himself (and the latter's students), who advocated cultural anthropology. Anthropology (from the Greek word άνθρωπος, humane) consists of the study of humankind (see genus Homo). ... Franz Boas Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 22, 1942) was one of the pioneers of modern anthropology and is often called the Father of American Anthropology. Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did post-doctoral work in geography. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... -1... Clockwise from top: Trenches in frontline, a British Mark I Tank crossing a trench, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the battle of the Dardanelles, a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks and a Sopwith Camel biplane. ... Physical anthropology, sometimes called biological anthropology, studies the mechanisms of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and variation, primatology, primate morphology, and the fossil record of human evolution. ... Cultural anthropology, also called social anthropology or socio-cultural anthropology, forms one of four commonly-recognized fields of anthropology, the holistic study of humanity. ...

Grant advocated restricted immigration to the United States through limiting immigration from East Asia and Southern Europe; he also advocated efforts to purify the American population though selective breeding. He served as the vice president of the Immigration Restriction League from 1922 to his death. Acting as an expert on world racial data, Grant also provided doctored statistics for the Immigration Act of 1924 to set the quotas on immigrants from less-desirable countries. Even after passing the statute, Grant continued to be irked that even a smattering of non-Nordics were allowed to immigrate to the country each year. He also assisted in the passing and prosecution of several anti-miscegenation laws, notably the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 in the state of Virginia, where he sought to codify his particular version of the "one-drop rule" into law. The United States Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of person from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890. ... Miscegenation is an archaic term invented in 1863 to describe people of different human races (usually one European and one African) producing offspring; the use of this term is invariably restricted to those who believe that the category race is meaningful when applied to human beings. ... The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 of Virginia, United States, was a law that required the racial makeup of persons to be recorded at birth, and prevented marriage between white persons and non-white persons. ... State nickname: Old Dominion Official languages English Capital Richmond Largest city Virginia Beach Governor Mark R. Warner (D) Tim Kaine (D-Governor Elect) Senators John Warner (R) George Allen (R) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 35th 110,862 km² 7. ... The one-drop theory (or one-drop rule) is the colloquial term for the standard, found throughout the USA, that holds that a person with even one drop of non-white ancestry should be classified as colored, especially for the purposes of laws forbidding inter-racial marriage. ...

Conservation efforts

Grant was a close friend of many U.S. presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, and also was an avid conservationist. He is credited with saving many natural species from extinction, and cofounded the Save-the-Redwoods League with John C. Merriam and Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1918. He is also credited with helping develop the first deer hunting laws in New York state, legislation which spread to other states as well over time. He was also the creator of wildlife management, helped to found the Bronx Zoo, build the Bronx River Parkway, save the American bison as an organizer of the American Bison Society, and helped to create Glacier National Park and Denali National Park. As head of the New York Zoological Society from 1925 until his death, he lobbied to put an African from the Congo on display alongside apes at the Bronx Zoo (Ota Benga). Theodore Roosevelt (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th (1901–09) President of the United States. ... Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) the 31st President of the United States (1929-1933). ... Conservationists are those people who tend to more highly rank the wise use of the Earths resources and ecosystems. ... John Campbell Merriam (October 20, 1869 - October 30, 1945) was an American paleontologist. ... Henry Fairfield Osborn (August 8, 1857 — November 6, 1935) was an American paleontologist and geologist. ... Official language(s) English Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 27th 141,205 km² 455 km 530 km 13. ... Wildlife management is a process for keeping certain wildlife populations in check. ... This article is about the zoo, for the tv series see The Bronx Zoo (TV). ... The Bronx River Parkway was one of the earliest limited access automobile highways. ... Binomial name Bison bison Linnaeus, 1758 Subspecies B. b. ... There are two places in the Rocky Mountains of North America named Glacier National Park: Glacier National Park (U.S.) in Montana Glacier National Park (Canada) in British Columbia. ... Denali National Park Denali National Park and Preserve is located in Interior Alaska and contains Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America. ... This article is about the zoo, for the tv series see The Bronx Zoo (TV). ... This article is about the zoo, for the tv series see The Bronx Zoo (TV). ... Ota Benga in 1904, showing his sharpened teeth. ...

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, he served on the boards of many eugenic and philanthropic societies, including the board of trustees at the American Museum of Natural History, a director of the American Eugenics Society, vice president of the Immigration Restriction League, a founding member of the Galton Society, and one of the eight members of the International Committee of Eugenics. He was awarded the gold medal of the Society of Arts and Sciences in 1929. In 1931, the world's largest tree (in Dyerville, California) was dedicated to Grant, Merriam, and Osborn by the California State Board of Parks in recognition for their environmental efforts. A species of caribou was named after Grant as well (Rangifer tarandus granti, also known as Grant's Caribou). He was a member of the Boone and Crockett Club (a big game hunting organization) since 1893, where he was friends with Theodore Roosevelt. The word eugenics (from the Greek εὐγενής, for well-born) was coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, to refer to the study and use of selective breeding (of animals or humans) to improve a species over generations, specifically in regards to hereditary features. ... Philanthropy involves the donation or granting of money to various worthy charitable causes. ... The American Museum of Natural History is a landmark of Manhattans Upper West Side in New York, USA, at 79th Street and Central Park West. ... The American Eugenics Society (AES) was a society established in 1922 to promote eugenics. ... The Immigration Restriction League was founded in 1894 by a group of Bostonians, (people from Boston, Massachusetts) who sought to make literacy a requirement for admission into the United States. ... Binomial name Rangifer tarandus The reindeer, known as caribou in North America, is an Arctic-dwelling deer (Rangifer tarandus). ... The Boone and Crockett Club is a conservationist organization, founded in the United States in 1877 by Theodore Roosevelt. ... Rally Committee running Cal flags across the field at the 2002 Big Game. ... The neutrality of this article is disputed. ...

Historian Jonathan Spiro has argued that Grant's interests in conservationism and eugenics were not unrelated: both are hallmarks of the early 20th-century Progressive movement, and both assume the need for various types of stewardship over their charges. Grant viewed the Nordic race lovingly as he did any of his endangered species, and considered the modern industrial society as infringing just as much on its existence as it did on the redwoods. Like many eugenicists, Grant saw modern civilization as a violation of "survival of the fittest", whether it manifested itself in the over-logging of the forests, or the survival of the poor via welfare or charity. In the United States of America, the Progressive Era was a period of reform that began in Americas urban regions from, approximately the 1890s and lasted through the 1920s, although some experts say it lasted from 1900 to 1920. ...

Legacy

Grant became a part of popular culture in 1920's America, especially in New York. Grant's conservationism and fascination with zoological natural history made him very influential among the New York elite who agreed with his cause, most notably Theodore Roosevelt. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald featured a reference to Grant in The Great Gatsby. Tom Buchanan was reading a book called The Rise of the Colored Empires by "this man Goddard", a combination of Passing of the Great Race (Grant) and his colleague Lothrop Stoddard's The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy (Stoddard; Grant wrote the introduction to Stoddard's book). "Everybody ought to read it", the character explained, "The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved." F.Scott Fitzgerald, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an Irish-American Jazz Age novelist and short story writer. ... The cover of the Scribner Paperback Fiction Edition, 1995. ... Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883–May 1, 1950; usually known only by his middle and last names) was an American political theorist, eugenicist, and anti-immigration advocate who wrote a number of prominent books of early 20th-century scientific racism. ...

Grant left no offspring when he died in 1937 of nephritis. Several hundred people attended Grant's funeral, and he was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, New York. He left a bequest of $25,000 to the New York Zoological Society to create "The Grant Endowment Fund for the Protection of Wild Life", left $5,000 to the American Museum of Natural History, and left another $5,000 to the Boone and Crockett Club. Nephritis is inflammation of the kidney. ... Tarrytown is a village located in Westchester County, New York. ...

At the postwar Nuremberg Trials, Grant's Passing of the Great Race was introduced into evidence by the defense of Karl Brandt, Hitler's personal physician and head of the Nazi euthanasia program, in order to justify the population policies of the Third Reich or at least indicate that they were not ideologically unique to Nazi Germany (it seems to have had little effect, as Brandt was sentenced to death). The Nuremberg Trials is the name for two sets of trials of Nazis involved in World War II and the Holocaust. ... Brandt at the Doctors Trial Karl Brandt (January 8, 1904 – June 2, 1948) was the personal physician to Adolf Hitler and headed the administration of the Nazi euthanasia programme from 1939. ... This poster reads: This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community of the people 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. ... The racial policy of Nazi Germany was the set of rascist policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany primarily against Jews. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...

Grant's works of scientific racism are often cited by scholars to demonstrate that many of the genocidal and eugenic ideas associated with the Third Reich did not arise specifically in Germany, and in fact that many of them had origins in the United States. As such, because of Grant's well-connectedness and influential friends, he is often used to contradict the idea that the U.S. did not have its own history of racism, eugenics, and the popularity of quasi-Fascist ideals. Because of the strong associations his eugenics work had with the policies of Nazi Germany, his work as a conservationist has been somewhat ignored and obscured, as many organizations with which he was once associated do not generally want to overstress their connections with him. Scientific racism is research that seems to promote racist ideology and forgoes the ideals of scientific objectivity. ...

References

• Elazar Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
• Kathy J. Cooke. Grant, Madison. American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
• Matthew Press Guterl, The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).
• Jonathan P. Spiro, "Patrician racist: The evolution of Madison Grant", Ph.D. diss., Dept. of History, University of California, Berkeley (2000).

External links

• The Passing of the Great Race, by Madison Grant
• Excerpts from Passing of the Great Race used at the Nuremberg Trials