Vermont Eugenics: A Documentary History
This online resource includes over 200 full text documents and images that provide an inside view of the eugenics movement in Vermont and show how eugenics initiatives dovetailed with the goals and interests of Vermont's progressive social reformers in the first half of the twentieth century. It includes descriptive summaries of the projects and persons involved, with references to additional sources.
Links to relevant documents are grouped in each of the sections, which include: Overview; Roots 1890-1925; Origin 1925; Participants and Partners; Inside the Survey; Studies, Publicity and Education on Eugenics; Eugenics in Law and Public Policy; and The Eugenics Survey Office and Library. The site archive lists all of the text documents in chronological order and permits keyword searching.
Eugenics Survey of Vermont and the Vermont Commission on Country Life Records, 1925-1956
Series consists of records from the Eugenics Survey of Vermont (1925-1936. The Eugenics Survey of Vermont led to the formation of the Vermont Commission on Country Life and its survey work. The series also includes records, newspaper clippings, programs, journal articles and other materials related to the Vermont Commission on Country Life. The series documents rural Vermont life and communities, and includes background reference material as well as detailed pedigrees of individuals studied.
Available at Vermont State Archives and Records Administration, Middlesex, Vermont.
Finding Aid
Vermont Commission on Country Life. Comprehensive Study of Rural Vermont Records, 1928.
The file includes some records of a study undertaken by Henry F. Perkins and the Vermont Commission on Country Life in 1928.
Vermont Historical Society Leahy Library, Montpelier, Vermont.
Guy W. Bailey-Henry F. Perkins Correspondence
Correspondence between UVM President Guy W. Bailey and Professor Henry F. Perkins about the Eugenics Survey is spread throughout Bailey’s papers in the University Archives. Please consult an annotated list of the correspondence to identify items of interest.
Henry Perkins Papers
UVM does not have a separate collection of Henry Perkins papers. A 1940 inventory of the Eugenics Survey of Vermont records lists Perkins’ personal papers, but they seem to have been removed after that date. One of Perkins’ daughters told a former UVM archivist that all correspondence of Henry Perkins and his father George was burned.
Henry F. Perkins Faculty File
Includes seven folders with information on his research (eugenics; birds, fish, mosquitoes, thesis); alumni information; biographical information; class of 1898 reunions; and articles, presentations, postcards (Perkins was a photographer).
Consult a Silver Special Collections librarian for access
Annual Report of the Eugenics Survey of Vermont.
1925-1931
Special Collections HQ750 .A1 E94
Perkins, Henry F. Hereditary Factors in Rural Communities.
Reprinted from Eugenics, official organ of the American Eugenics Society, Inc., vol. 3, no. 8, August, 1930.
Special Collections HQ755.5 .V5 P47 1930
Rural Vermont; A Program for the Future, by Two Hundred Vermonters.
1931 report of the Vermont Commission on Country Life's "comprehensive survey of Vermont" that reflects eugenic concerns and presents plans for rural reform and social regeneration.
Special Collections F49 .R93
An Act for Human Betterment by Voluntary Sterilization
Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, 1931
Special Collections KFV .A2 1931, pages 194-196
Report of the Trustee Renaming Advisory Committee with Respect to President Guy W. Bailey and the Bailey-Howe Library
Approved by the University of Vermont Board of Trustees, October 27, 2018
Sullivan, E. Thomas. Statement Regarding UVM and Eugenics
June 21, 2019
Joint resolution sincerely apologizing and expressing sorrow and regret to all individual Vermonters and their families who were harmed as a result of State-sanctioned eugenics policies and practices.
Vermont General Assembly, 2021