"Progressive? Mothers: Feminist Eugenics And Leta S. Hollingworth

Leta S. Hollingworth was an early 20th century U.S. Psychologist, active during what is commonly referred to as the Progressive Era. While initial scholarship on Leta Hollingworth during the 1960s and ‘70s had celebratory aims geared towards her role as a feminist Psychologist, more recent scholarship has attempted to unpack her engagement with the eugenics movement. Using archival materials and drawing inspiration from scholars that challenge the limits of the archive, the present thesis explores Hollingworth’s scholarship and activism, fleshing out her own feminist and eugenic ideologies. I then forward the argument that Hollingworth did not hold feminist and eugenic ideologies together with tension, but reconciled them through the logic of another movement, feminist eugenics. This thesis ends with a discussion of how studying the life and scholarship of an early 20th-century feminist eugenicist serves as a cautionary tale for contemporary bioethical debate.