– by Wood Institute travel grantee Madeline Hodgman*
I came to the Historical Medical Library at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in July 2016 to research the American Social Hygiene Association for my senior honors thesis at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. My thesis explores the development of sex education in American society throughout the 20th century, comparing and contrasting both comprehensive and abstinence-only curricula. I learned through my work at the Library that “social hygiene” rhetoric not only referred to the public health epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, but was also used as coded language to mask a eugenics agenda. This presented an interesting contradiction to my research — not only was the social hygiene movement one of the first comprehensive sex education campaigns for public health, but it was also actively encouraging abstinence in terms of eugenic “fitness” for procreation.