Euthenics

Not to be confused with Eugenics.
Ellen Swallow Richards
Julia Clifford Lathrop
Ellen Swallow Richards (left), the first female student and instructor at MIT, was one of the first to use the term, while Julia Clifford Lathrop (right) continued to promote it in the form of an interdisciplinary academic program later to be mostly absorbed into the field of home economics.

"Eugenics deals with race improvement through heredity.
Euthenics deals with race improvement through environment.
Eugenics is hygiene for the future generations.
Euthenics is hygiene for the present generation.
Eugenics must await careful investigation.
Euthenics has immediate opportunity.
Euthenics precedes eugenics, developing better men now, and thus inevitably creating a better race of men in the future. Euthenics is the term proposed for the preliminary science on which Eugenics must be based."

Ellen Swallow Richards (1910)[1]

Euthenics (/juːˈθɛnɪks/) is the study of improvement of human functioning and well-being by improvement of living conditions.[2] "Improvement" is conducted by altering external factors such as education and the controllable environments, including environmentalism, education regarding employment, home economics, sanitation, and housing, as well as the prevention and removal of contagious disease and parasites.[citation needed]

In a New York Times article of May 23, 1926, Rose Field notes of the description, "the simplest [is] efficient living".[3] It is also described as "a right to environment",[4] commonly as dual to a "right of birth" that correspondingly falls under the purview of eugenics.[5]

Euthenics is not normally interpreted to have anything to do with changing the composition of the human gene pool by definition, although everything that affects society has some effect on who reproduces and who does not.[6]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference EllenSwallowRichards was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Euthenics". thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
  3. ^ Feld, Rose C. (1926-05-23). "VASSAR GIRLS TO STUDY HOME-MAKING AS CAREER; New Course in Euthenics, the Science of Human Betterment, Will Adjust Women to the Needs of Today and Act As a Check on Spread of Divorce" (pdf). The New York Times. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  4. ^ Krisses, Joseph A. (1926-10-24). "Eugenics and euthenics" (pdf). The New York Times. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  5. ^ "Bright Children Who Fail". Amusements. The New York Times. 16 October 1926. p. 16. eISSN 1553-8095. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  6. ^ "Definitions for Euthenics". definitions.net. Retrieved 23 August 2013.