TUSCALOOSA, Ala. A visiting University of Alabama history professor, whose research includes the links between the so-called “Tuskegee Experiment” and the once popular scientific theory of eugenics, will discuss that topic during a Wednesday, Feb. 14 talk at 4 p.m. in UA’s ten Hoor Hall, room 125.
Dr. Gregory Dorr, UA’s 2000-2001 Bankhead Fellow in the history department, will give the talk titled, “Explaining Tuskegee: Eugenics, Public Health and Institutional Culture.” The talk is part of UA’s Bankhead Lecture Series, sponsored by the history department, the College of Arts and Sciences, and a grant from the Bankhead Endowment.
Eugenics, the once widely held belief that humans could and should be improved through selective mating, was taught at many universities as a viable theory during the first part of the 1900s. Many eugenicists, Dorr says, believed following their theories would end racial and social strife in the United States.
In the “Tuskegee Experiment,” which took place between 1932 and 1972, more than 600 African-American men were part of a secret government study on syphilis. About 400 of the men had syphilis but were not treated for the sexually transmitted disease. Doctors withheld penicillin giving only placebos instead so they could study the disease’s progress. Physicians trained in eugenics were responsible for creating and implementing the study, Dorr says.
Dorr has written multiple articles on eugenics which have been published in various academic journals. In 1999, the American Philosophical Society awarded Dorr an Andrew W. Mellon Library Resident Research Fellowship and the Spencer Foundation of Chicago awarded him a $20,000 dissertation fellowship toward his research.
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