Race Betterment Foundation

The Race Betterment Foundation was a eugenics and racial hygiene organization founded in 1914 at Battle Creek, Michigan by John Harvey Kellogg due to his concerns about what he perceived as "race degeneracy". The foundation supported conferences (including three National Conferences on Race Betterment), publications (Good Health), and the formation of a eugenics registry in cooperation with the ERO (Eugenics Record Office). The foundation also sponsored the Fitter Families Campaign from 1928 to the late 1930s and funded Battle Creek College. The foundation controlled the Battle Creek Food Company, which in turn served as the major source for Kellogg's eugenics programs, conferences, and Battle Creek College. In his will, Kellogg left his entire estate to the foundation. In 1947, the foundation had over $687,000 in assets but by 1967 the foundation's accounts were a mere $492.87, prompting the State of Michigan to close the Foundation and indict the trustees for squandering the funds.

Founders John Harvey Kellogg founded the organization with Irving Fisher and Charles Davenport.

John Harvey Kellogg

John Harvey Kellogg (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) was a physician, eugenicist, promoter of physical fitness and vegetarianism. He profoundly influenced numerous movements, including ones for pure food and drugs, public health, personal hygiene, physical culture and exercise, temperance, purity, and eugenics. He was the head physician and director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium.

Irving Fisher

Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29, 1947) was an economics professor and a pivotal reformer during the Progressive Era's Clean Living movement. He greatly influenced campaigns embracing eugenics, supporting sterilization and the segregation of "defectives" in institutions and positive eugenic programs including the fitter families campaign. He was also a key leader in eugenics movements. He established the American Eugenics Society with Madison Grant, Harry H. Laughlin, and several others in 1926, and was the society's first president (1922–1926) when it was still a committee at the Second International Eugenics Congress (1921). He was also vice president of the Third International Congress, a member of executive committee of the National Conferences for Race Betterment, president of the Eugenics Research Association (1920), and a member of the Eugenics Registry's governing committee.

Charles Davenport

Charles Davenport (June 1, 1866 – February 18, 1944) was a well-known biologist and eugenicist, who introduced biometrics into American science and applied it in eugenics. He was the pivotal figure of the American eugenics movement, who made eugenics an underlying principle in many reform crusades of his day through his writing and great influence. Due to his eugenics concerns, he opposed Margaret Sanger and her birth control movement, while supporting immigration restriction and eugenical legislation.

National Conferences on Race Betterment The Race Betterment Foundation achieved its peak in power during the three National Conferences on Race Betterment (1914, 1915, 1928). The conferences, focusing on hygiene and eugenics, were held under the support of John Harvey Kellogg and Race Betterment Foundation.

First National Conference on Race Betterment The First National Conference on Race Betterment was held at the Battle Creek Sanitarium (John Harvey Kellogg is its owner), on June 1–6, 1914. Over 400 delegates attended the conference. The topic of the conference was to improve the health and quality of the human race taking hereditarian and environmental effects into concern. A eugenics registry was suggested by Kellogg to promote individuals to concern their marriage in terms of heredity. Other subject themes included the elimination of tobacco, alcohol, and prostitution through stricter laws. The conference received much public interest, and thus gave the foundation the chance to be present on the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco on August 4–8, 1915.

Second National Conference on Race Betterment The second conference was held in San Francisco during the days of the Panama Pacific Exposition (August 4–8, 1915). This conference had fewer delegates and professional papers compared to the previous one. A eugenics registry was again encouraged by Kellogg.

Panama–Pacific Exposition

The theme of the 1915 exposition included "acceleration of all that the New world had accomplished" since Columbus' discovery of America, the opening of Panama Canal, the reconstruction of San Francisco from the 1906 earthquake, and "multiculturalist ambitions", etc. "Novelty" was a most import element can be found everywhere. The "scientific" doctrine of race betterment through the practice of eugenics was part of the exposition. The Race Betterment Congress was held by the exposition, and leading eugenicists made speeches on the best methods for achieving higher racial purity (Kellogg's support of eugenic registry as an example). In addition to their meeting in the beginning of August, the Race Betterment Foundation also had a spot in the Palace of Education. They advertised eugenics and reminded passers-by of the race's glorious past and possible future. Their contribution, according to Frank Morton Todd, the official historian of the Exposition, showed "the necessity for its work". Besides the section of eugenics, the exposition had a mile long stretch of Joy Zone that re-created villages of natives in a depiction of life in far-away lands. The description was stereotypical and racial, which was intended to express the necessity of eugenics movements.

Third National Conference on Race Betterment The initially planned third conference was interrupted by World War I. As a result, the third conference was not held until January 1928 at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Unlike the previous two, the third conference was academic oriented and consisted of scholar presentations under the planning and presiding of Clarence C. Little, president of the University of Michigan. The subject matter was divided into twelve sections, including heredity and eugenics, crime and sterilization, immigration and man, etc. It was viewed as "really a volume of applied anthropology" and the topics were related "directly or indirectly to man's welfare" in a contemporary review of the conference published in 1929 in American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The fitter family contest was one of the consequences of this conference.

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