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Eugenics, Sex and Family Life Education, and Juvenile Delinquency in Los Angeles County, California
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2024
Abstract
This glimpse into sex education in the Los Angeles region illustrates the eugenic ideas about racially “fit” reproduction that emerged in family life curricula during the Second World War. Ideas about eugenic reproduction in public schools responded to broader cultural fears about increasing divorce rates, criminality, immigration, and birthright citizenship. Eugenics in sex and family life education, importantly, portrayed a woman’s choice of mate as a civic responsibility, a move that paved the way for future conflicts about teaching gender and sexuality in public school sex education. Amid a half-century-long conflict over abstinence-only versus comprehensive sex education in public schools, topics like genetics and heredity have come to be widely accepted by both sides—recognized as a presumably value-neutral staple of sex education in US public schools. Yet recent innovations in genetic and reproductive technologies, as well as the conflict over trans and queer youth in the United States, challenge the assumption that teaching genetics and heredity in public schools really is “value neutral.”
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References
1 Emphasis in the original. “Notes for Mrs. Eleanor B. Allen, to be used as a part of a Panel discussion November 14, 1946, John Burroughs Jr. High School,” folder 1, box 894, Los Angeles Unified School District Records, University of California, Los Angeles Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA (hereafter UCLA-LAUSD Records).
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19 Lord, Condom Nation, 71–114, esp. 90–96.
20 Freeman, Sex Goes to School, 16; and Moran, Teaching Sex, 140–41.
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22 Alexandra Lord is the only scholar of sex education who directly addresses the eugenics movement and family life-sex education in the 1940s, although her focus is on the federal government’s military efforts in sex education, not on US public schools. To Lord, the Holocaust marks a moment when eugenicists shifted from negative eugenics (sterilization and controlling the fertility of less desirable people) toward positive eugenics (encouraging the more desirable to reproduce). Lord does not discuss how this shift in emphasis shaped family life-sex education in public schools. See Lord, Condom Nation, 98. For historians who argued that in the US eugenics was in decline in the 1930s because of the Holocaust and new anthropological critiques of racial inheritance, see Haller, Mark, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963), Google Scholar; Degler, Carl, In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), Google Scholar; Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right, 272; Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 16 and 129-48; and Black, Edwin, War against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (Washington, DC: Dialog Press, 2012), .Google Scholar
23 Historian Rebecca L. Davis describes how Paul Popenoe strategically distanced himself and the AIFR from the eugenics movement during the postwar period, avoiding the word eugenics in favor of heredity after the California Supreme Court’s 1948 Perez v. Sharp decision to overturn a ban on interracial marriage. See Davis, More Perfect Unions, 123-24; and Gillette, Aaron, Eugenics and the Nature-Nurture Debate in the Twentieth Century (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24 Haager, “Chapter 4: Family Relations and Sex Education in California, 1930-1940,” 167–225.
25 See Schoen, Choice and Coercion; Kluchin, Fit to Be Tied, 10, 20; Stern, Eugenic Nation, 173–205; and Stern, Telling Genes, 3-4. Some scholars have adopted an alternate terminology (for instance, Kluchin uses the terms eugenics and neo-eugenics), but I have chosen not to with regard to eugenics in the post-WWII period because my sources did not use such terminology—they either simply used the term eugenics or described reproduction using eugenic assumptions about heritability. My sources were very imprecise about which application of eugenic theory they were advocating for; they sometimes conflated positive and negative eugenics, so it made little sense to use an alternative designation, especially when they would not have recognized one. Adding a new term would have been adding imprecision to what was already an ideologically imprecise situation.
26 To be clear, medical professionals do not view genetics as value neutral and devoid of complications with respect to biomedical ethics. For a discussion of these political debates between conservatives and liberals, see Irvine, Janice, Talk about Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)Google Scholar; and Talk about Sex: How Sex Ed Battles Helped Ignite the Right (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2023)Google Scholar.
27 In recent years, numerous conservative states have initiated “Parental Rights in Education” laws (aka “Don’t Say Gay” laws) to prohibit discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in public school classrooms. For a brief history of how these fit into the larger context of sex education and LGBTQ history, see Omar G. Encarnación, “Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Is Part of the State’s Long, Shameful History,” Time, May 12, 2022, https://time.com/6176224/florida-dont-say-gay-history-lgbtq-rights. Most recently, Florida expanded its “Don’t Say Gay” law to all school grades, and several states are currently discussing similar bills, including Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Kentucky. For some of the coverage on these, see Anthony Izaguirre and Brendan Farrington, “Florida Expands ‘Don’t Say Gay’; House Oks Anti-LGBTQ Bills,” Associated Press, April 19, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/desantis-florida-dont-say-gay-ban-684ed25a303f83208a89c556543183cb; Neal Broverman, “Don’t Say Gay Bill Signed in Iowa; GOP Gov. Ok’s Ratting on Trans Students,” Advocate, May 26, 2023, https://www.advocate.com/dont-say-gay/don-t-say-gay-law-signed-in-iowa; Dan Godwin and Alex Boyer, “Texas Senate Advances Strict ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill,” Fox4 News, May 23, 2023, https://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-senate-expected-to-pass-strict-dont-say-gay-bill; and John Riley, “Kentucky ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law Disputed over a Single Word,” Metro Weekly, June 12, 2023, https://www.metroweekly.com/2023/06/kentucky-dont-say-gay-law-disputed-over-a-single-word/. For a discussion of how parents now have more ethically complicated reproductive choices than ever, see Isaacson, Walter, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2021), Google Scholar; Smriti Mallapaty, “China Focuses on Ethics to Deter Another ‘CRISPR Babies’ Scandal,” Nature, April 27, 2022, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01051-0; and Katie Hunt, “How Human Gene Editing Is Moving On after the CRISPR Baby Scandal, CNN, March 9, 2023.
28 In 1940, the National Education Association (NEA) and National Congress of Parents and Teachers (national PTA) campaigned heavily for citizenship education, encouraging schools across the United States to teach about the merits of democracy and civic responsibilities. See G. L Maxwell, “Citizens in the Making,” National Parent-Teacher (June-July 1940): 27-30, in Box 118, Folder 3, Paul Popenoe Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming (hereafter AHC-Popenoe Papers); and Virginia, Klehzs, National Congress of Parents and Teachers President, Chicago, Illinois, “The Child in His Community,” in Box 118, Folder 3, AHC-Popenoe Papers.
29 Mrs. Edward T. Walker, President Tenth District California Congress of Parents and Teachers, to Los Angeles BOE, September 23, 1942, Box 1163, Folder 4, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
30 Mrs. Edward T. Walker, President Tenth District California Congress of Parents and Teachers, to Los Angeles BOE, September 23, 1942, Box 1163, Folder 4, UCLA-LAUSD Records; and C. L. Craig, Assistant Secretary, to Esther H. Walker, September 29, 1942, Box 1163, Folder 4, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
31 Ralph Eckhert curriculum enclosed in Mrs. Edward T. Walker, President Tenth District California Congress of Parents and Teachers, to Los Angeles BOE, September 23, 1942, Box 1163, Folder 4, UCLA-LAUSD Records; and C. L. Craig, Assistant Secretary, to Esther H. Walker, September 29, 1942, Box 1163, Folder 4, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
32 C. L. Craig, Assistant Secretary, to Esther H. Walker, September 29, 1942, Box 1163, Folder 4, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
33 “Notes for Mrs. Eleanor B. Allen,” folder 1, box 894, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
34 Kafka, Judith, The History of “Zero Tolerance” in American Public Schooling (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 7-8.Google Scholar
35 Allen’s meeting took place a few short months after the truancy detail had been disbanded because of budget cuts.
36 Gayle Gibbs, “Truants Given Lesson on Folly of ‘Hooky Spree,’” (Los Angeles) Daily News, March 21, 1946, 3.
37 Gibbs, “Truants Given Lesson on Folly of ‘Hooky Spree,’” 3.
38 Zipf, Karen L., Bad Girls at Samarcand: Sexuality and Sterilization in a Southern Juvenile Reformatory (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016), .Google Scholar
39 Historians have written extensively about female juvenile delinquency during the decades preceding the WWII era, noting how girls were more likely to be interrogated for sexual histories, behaviors, and given unwanted gynecological examinations. See Schlossman, Steven and Wallach, Stephanie, “The Crime of Precocious Sexuality: Female Juvenile Delinquency in the Progressive Era,” Harvard Educational Review 48, no. 1 (Feb. 1978), 65-94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Odem, Mary E. and Schlossman, Steven, “Guardians of Virtue: The Juvenile Court and Female Delinquency in Early-Twentieth Century Los Angeles,” Crime and Delinquency 37, no. 2 (April 1991), 186-203CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Odem, Mary E., Delinquent Daughters: Protecting Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1890-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Alexander, Ruth M., “The Girl Problem”: Female Sexual Delinquency in New York, 1900-1930 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Freedman, Estelle B., Maternal Justice: Miriam Van Waters and the Female Reform Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Meis Knupfer, Anne, Reform and Resistance: Gender, Delinquency and America’s First Juvenile Court (New York: Rutledge, 2001)Google Scholar; and Trost, Jennifer, Gateway to Justice: The Juvenile Court and Progressive Child in a Southern City (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Little has been written about the mid-twentieth century, with the exception of some historical and social psychological research on “problem girls.” See Schlossman, Steven and Cairns, Robert B., “Problem Girls: Observations on Past and Present,” in Children in Time and Place: Developmental and Historical Insights, ed. Elder, Glen H. Jr., Modell, John, and Park, Ross D. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), Google Scholar; Devlin, Rachel, Relative Intimacy: Fathers, Daughters, and Postwar American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Amanda Hope Littauer, “Unsanctioned Encounters: Women, Girls, and Non-marital Sexuality in the United States, 1941-1963” (PhD diss., University of California Berkeley, 2006); and Carrie Settle Hagan, “Girls, Sex, and Juvenile Justice in Post-World War II Los Angeles” (PhD diss., Carnegie Mellon University, 2012).
40 “Notes for Mrs. Eleanor B. Allen,” folder 1, box 894, UCLA-LAUSD Records. The crossed-out word white is in the original.
41 Gibbs, “Truants Given Lesson on Folly of ‘Hooky Spree,’” 3.
42 Los Angeles City School District, Department of Compulsory Education and Child Welfare, “Annual Report of the Director, Year Ending June 30, 1917,” 65-69, box 17, UCLA-LAUSD.
43 Report from Los Angeles Board of Education, “Truancy Detail,” n.d. (enclosed with notes from 1946 campaign to reinstate truancy detail), folder 1, box 894, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
44 Report from Los Angeles Board of Education, “Truancy Detail,” n.d.
45 Report from Los Angeles Board of Education, “Truancy Detail.”
46 Mrs. Arthur Crum, Secretary of the Tenth District California Congress of Parents and Teachers, to Mr. C. L. Craig, Secretary of the Los Angeles BOE, March 5, 1945, folder 1, Box 894, UCLA-LAUSD Records; Vierling Kirsey, Superintendent of the Los Angeles City Board of Education, “Communication to the Budget and Finance Committee, Subject: Truancy Detail,” Feb. 22, 1945, folder 1, box 894, UCLA-LAUSD Records; C. L. Craig, Assistant Secretary, to Mrs. Edward W. Raith, President, Tenth District California Congress of Parents and Teachers,” Feb. 16, 1945, folder 1, box 894, UCLA-LAUSD Records; Vierling Kirsey, Superintendent of the Los Angeles City Board of Education, “A Report and Recommendation Relating to the Truancy Detail,” n.d. [likely 1946 or 1947], folder 1, box 894, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
47 Assemblymen Gardiner Johnson of Berkeley and Philip Davis of West Los Angeles proposed the bill. See “Holding Parents Responsible,” Pasadena Star-News, Jan. 31, 1945, 4.
48 Image from “Endorsements,” Long Beach Independent, May 15, 1944, 8. For campaign details, see Political Advertisement, “Not a Rubber Stamp!,” Long Beach Independent, Aug. 14, 1942, 18.
49 Preliminary Report, Assembly Interim Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, House Resolution No. 268 (Sacramento: California State Print Office, 1944).
50 Newspapers on March 6 reported there were thirty-seven provisions, but after March 7 they referred to the bill as having forty-one provisions. It is unclear why the number of provisions changed overnight, or which were added at the last minute (the newspapers and legislative records are not incisive), but sex education was in the bill from the start and there were likely some ongoing negotiations among committee members.
51 It even specified that laws should be passed to require bicycles to be locked when parked. “Middough Recommends,” Sacramento Bee, Jan. 18, 1945, 4; “Legislation to Combat Delinquency Recommended,” Petaluma Argus-Courier (Petaluma, CA), March 6, 1945, 1; “Sex Education in Schools Is Urged,” Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, CA), March 6, 1945, 2; “State War on Child Delinquency Urged, Long Beach Independent, March 7, 1945, 13; “Sex Teaching Proposed in High Schools: Assembly Committee Urges Drive on Juvenile Delinquency,” Citizen-News (Hollywood, CA), March 6, 1945, 1; “Sex Teaching in Schools Is Urged by Assembly Group,” San Pedro News-Pilot, March 6, 1945, 3; “Scientific Study of Sex Urged for Adolescents,” Sacramento Bee, March 6, 1945, 4; “Fight Juvenile Delinquency: Sex Instruction in High Schools Advocated As One Point in New Education Campaign,” Pomona Progress Bulletin, March 6, 1945, 1; “Juvenile Bills Win Support of Authorities,” San Francisco Examiner, March 9, 1945, 5; “Legislators to Attempt Curbs for Delinquency,” San Bernardino County Sun, March 9, 1945.
52 “Sex Education in Schools Is Urged,” 2.
53 “Special Session Urged to Provide Money to Help Child Care Centers: Assembly Group Asks Action in Delinquency War,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 31, 1945, 13-14.
54 “Notes from Informal Committee of the Whole,” March 8, 1945, folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
55 “Sex Education in Schools: Plan Fought by Mother,” Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1945, 11; clipping also in folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records; “L.A. Woman Hits Sex Education,” Pomona Progress Bulletin, March 9, 1945, 14.
56 “Sex Education in Schools: Plan Fought by Mother,” 11.
57 I found no evidence in the superintendent’s papers that he responded to Jones’s complaint or that other parents supported her antiquated claim. Quite the opposite, in fact: records suggest that a significant number of parents attended lectures for teachers on sex education given by Mrs. Frances Strain and demanded that more be offered. See “Sex Education in Schools: Plan Fought by Mother,” 11; “Ere We Adjourn,” Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1945, 26; “Tenth District Sponsoring Repeat Lectures,” Southwest Wave (Los Angeles, CA), April 19, 1945, 13; and “Dr. Strain Plans Lecture at School,” Metropolitan Pasadena Star-News, March 12, 1945, 5. Historians of sex education have largely agreed that family life-sex education was enthusiastically embraced by those that traditionally opposed sex education, such as parents and religious organizations. See Freeman, Sex Goes to School, 10; Moran, Teaching Sex, 122-24; Slominski, Teaching Moral Sex, 123-68; and Lord, Condom Nation, 95-96.
58 “Ere We Adjourn,” March 25, 1945, 26.
59 See “P.-T.A. Offers 3 Lectures on Sex Education,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 16, 1941, 8; and “Your Child: His Family, Friends,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 1, 1943, 13.
60 Image from “Public School P-T to Sponsor Lecture April 8,” Morning Call (Allentown, PA), March 26, 1940, 16. Frances Bruce Strain’s widely read sex education books included New Patterns in Sex Teaching (1934), Being Born (1936), and Love at the Threshold (1939). See Strain, New Patterns in Sex Teaching: The Normal Interests of Children and the Guidance from Infancy to Adolescence (Boston, MA: D. Appleton and Century Publishers, 1934); Being Born: A Book of Facts for Boys and Girls (Boston, MA: D. Appleton and Century Publishers, 1936); and Love at the Threshold: A Book on Social Dating, Romance, and Marriage (Boston, MA: D. Appleton and Century Publishers, 1939). See also Paul Popenoe, “Youth’s Social Education Stressed,” Pasadena Post, Feb. 7, 1943, 11; and Frances Bruce Strain and Chester Lee Eggert, Framework for Family Life Education: A Survey of Present-Day Activities in Sex Education (Washington, DC: American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, A Department of the National Education Association, 1956).
61 Strain had taught sex education coursework for the Chicago PTA; Cleveland and Cincinnati Social Hygiene Societies, and run summer sessions on family relations for the University of Vermont. (Shortly after her stint in Los Angeles, she would run a summer session at the University of California at Berkeley.)
62 Strain, Being Born; Love at the Threshold; Teen Days: A Book for Boys and Girls (Boston, MA: D. Appleton and Century Publishers, 1946); and Sex Guidance in Family Life Education (Boston, MA: D. Appleton and Century Publishers, 1946).
63 Strain, Teen Days, 53.
64 In 1946, Strain returned to Pasadena, Wilmington, West Los Angeles, Redondo Beach, Torrance, and other surrounding areas to give lectures for the PTA, the Young Women’s Christian Association, and other study groups for parents and teachers. See “Association Meetings,” Metropolitan Pasadena Star-News, Feb. 3, 1945, 8; “Sex Lectures at RUHS P.-T.A. Meet,” Redondo Reflux (Redondo, CA), Jan. 4, 1946, 1; “Nightingale,” Lincoln Heights Bulletin-News (Los Angeles, CA), Jan. 18, 1945, 8; “Plan Vacations for Rosemary Cottage Girls,” Pasadena Independent, June 12, 1946, 9; “Association Meetings,” Metropolitan Star-News (Pasadena, CA), Jan. 27, 1946, 8; “P-TA Members Attend Series,” Southwest Wave (Los Angeles, CA), Feb. 8, 1945, 3; “Psychologist on Delinquency,” Metropolitan Pasadena Star-News, Dec. 8, 1946, 6; and “Gateway Council,” Wilmington Daily Press Journal (Wilmington, CA), Jan. 12, 1946, 3. From 1947 to 1949, Popenoe and Strain lectured at summer sessions on family relations at the University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at Berkeley, and San Francisco State College. See “Sexual Promiscuity to Be Topic of Thursday Lecture,” Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA), March 27, 1949, 8.
65 Bess M. Wilson, “Child Welfare Peril Seen in Divorce Rate: American Institute of Family Relations Head Points Trends in Marital Discord,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1945, 41.
66 Haager, “Teacher Training for Sex Education during and after WWI,” 107-66. University of Utah, Department of Home Economics, “Outline and Topical References for Home Economics 180: Marriage and Family Relationships,” folder 7, box 118, Paul Popenoe Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie (hereafter AHC-Popenoe Papers); Lois Keint, Chaffey High School Home Economics Department, “Social Arts Course of Study 11th and 12th Grades,” revised 1943, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers; Evelyn Mills Duvall, “Marriage Education for Today: A Demonstration Course on Education for Marriage Designed for Adult Leaders by The Association for Family Living, Chicago, Illinois,” March 15-April 26, 1944, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers; “Programme of Studies for the High School: Bulletin A Prescribed Courses for the Year Ending July 15, 1945,” Department of Education, Alberta, Canada, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers; Lillian K. Graeber, Coordinator of Guidance at Thomas Jefferson High School, Los Angeles, CA, to Mrs. C. B. Fry, Institute of Family Relations, Los Angeles, CA, May 8, 1945, folder 1, box 119, Folder 1, AHC-Popenoe Papers; Paul Popenoe, Director AIFR, to Mrs. Richardson, Chairman of the Basic Course Department at Thomas Jefferson High School, Los Angeles, CA, May 14, 1945, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers; Ralph N. D. Atkinson, Denver, Colorado, to Dr. Paul Popenoe, Los Angeles, CA, May 21, 1945, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers; P. C. Bechtel, Department of Health and Physical Education at West Liberty Public Schools, West Liberty, OH, to Dr. Paul Popenoe, AIFR, July 5, 1945, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers; Senior High School, Tulsa Public Schools, “Relationships within the Home,” July 1945, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers; and Paul Popenoe, AIFR, to Adeline Richardson, Thomas Jefferson High School, Los Angeles, CA, Aug. 29, 1945, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers.
67 Popenoe to Richardson, May 14, 1945; and Popenoe to Richardson, Aug. 29, 1945. I found very little on Adeline C. Richardson’s background other than some scattered newspaper articles listing her name in conjunction with the PTA, school counseling positions at Thomas Jefferson High School, and Pi Lambda Theta, an honor society for educators. Popenoe made no indication of her racial, educational, or marital background in his letters, and I found nothing definitive to indicate how she found her way into teaching sex education in her correspondence or in the local newspapers where her name was mentioned. See “P.T.-A. Has New Officer,” California Eagle (Los Angeles, CA), July 29, 1943, 4; “Sam Brown Is Jeff Coordinator,” California Eagle (Los Angeles, CA), Sept. 11, 1941, 6; Leslie E. Claypool, “If Warren Is Smart He’ll Ditch PDT—Claypool,” Daily News (Los Angeles, CA), Oct. 20, 1948, 12; “Jefferson High School PTA Life Membership Tea Huge Success,” California Eagle (Los Angeles, CA), June 7, 1945, 20; “Jefferson P-TA Sponsors Life Membership Benefit,” Southwest Wave (Los Angeles, CA), June 17, 1945, 19; and “Jefferson High P-TA Head Tells Year’s Chairmen,” California Eagle (Los Angeles, CA), Aug. 13, 1942, 7.
68 Mrs. Adeline Richardson, Thomas Jefferson High School, Los Angeles, CA, “Units in Family Relations Course,” 1945, folder 1, box 119, AHC-Popenoe Papers.
69 Richardson, “Units in Family Relations Course,” Test I.
70 Moran, Teaching Sex, 61-63.
71 Given Herriott’s response, and LAUSD correspondence in 1936 about hiring “negro teachers” at Lafayette Junior High School, it is likely that Debs’s constituents were Mexican American and/or African American. See “Minutes Communication, H. E. Griffin, Secretary of the Los Angeles Board of Education, Sept. 10, 1936, folder 7, box 1596, UCLA-LAUSD Records. Quote from M. E. Herriott, Principal, to Councilman Ernest M. Debs, March 31, 1948, folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
72 For more on Mexican American girls’ experiences in juvenile reformatories, see, for example, Chávez-García, States of Delinquency, 112-50; and Kafka, The History of “Zero Tolerance” in American Public Schooling, 17-53.
73 Parents also petitioned the BOE to purchase Human Growth for sex education. See “Westport Heights Parent-Teacher Association to Los Angeles Board of Education,” Nov. 15, 1949, folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records; “Communication to the Law and Rules Committee from the Business Division, No. 1,” March 6, 1950, folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records; “Curriculum Division Bulletin No. EC-9,” Sept. 20, 1950, folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records; and “Mrs. J. Paul Elliot, President of the 10th District California Congress of Parents and Teachers, to Dr. Alexander J. Stoddard, Superintendent of the Los Angeles City Schools,” Jan. 24, 1952, folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
74 “Sex in the Schoolroom,” Time, March 22, 1948, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,804509,00.html. Image from retrospective on the Time article. See Eliza Berman, “See How Children Reacted to One of the First Sex-Ed Films Ever Shown,” Life Magazine, June 9, 2015, https://time.com/3828576/sex-education-1940s/feed.
75 Martin Ruderman, Acting Director of the Federation of Jewish Welfare Organizations, to Mr. Maynard Toll, President of the Los Angeles BOE, March 22, 1948, folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records.
76 Sex education films had also been available since 1914 and used in teacher training since 1920. Damaged Goods was the first sex education film to enter the scene in 1913; it was a silent film about venereal disease that very few saw. Government-produced films emerged during WWI and WWII such as “Are You Fit to Marry? The film Human Growth was different from earlier films for school use because it was mass-marketed and endorsed by psychologists. See Eberwein, Robert, Sex Ed: Film, Video, and the Framework of Desire (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999), Google Scholar; and Haager, “Chapter 4: Family Relations and Sex Education in California, 1930-1940,” 167–225.
77 The Tenth District PTA and the Venereal Disease Council of the City and County of Los Angeles successfully petitioned the Los Angeles BOE to purchase the film Human Growth. Dr. Stoddard, Superintendent of Schools, to Mr. Daniel G. Howell, Executive Secretary of the Venereal Disease Council of the City and County of Los Angeles, Inc., Oct. 17, 1949, folder 4, box 1163, UCLA-LAUSD Records; “Westport Heights Parent-Teacher Association to Los Angeles Board of Education,” Nov. 15, 1949; “Communication to the Law and Rules Committee from the Business Division, No. 1,” March 6, 1950; “Curriculum Division Bulletin No. EC-9,” Sept. 20, 1950; Elliot to Stoddard, Jan. 24, 1952.
78 “Schools Must Meet Challenge in Family Life Education—Eckert,” Ventura County Star (Ventura, CA), March 19, 1948, 6-7.
79 Listings of Eckert’s lectures were in local PTA announcements across more than a dozen local newspapers. For a representative sampling, see “P-TA Health Director Arranges Parent Education Project,” Times (San Mateo, CA), Oct. 26, 1948, 10; “18th District CCPT to Hear Dr. Ralph Eckert,” Napa Journal, Nov. 12, 1948, 2; “Child Specialist Will Open Yuba Lectures,” Sacramento Bee, Dec. 28, 1948, 10; and “Dr. Eckert to Lecture,” Whittier News (Whittier, CA), March 3, 1948, 4. Lectures and showings of Human Growth were also abundant, and announcements were made in more than a dozen local newspapers. For a sampling of announcements, see “Educator Addresses P.-T.A. on Organization of UN,” Contra Costa Gazette (Martinez, CA), “Southwest Council Meets at Center Avenue School,” Southwest Wave (Los Angeles, CA), May 6, 1948, 8; “PTA Study Groups Announce Programs,” Placer Herald (Rocklin, CA), Dec. 19, 1948, 8; and “Medical Aid Speaks at Session,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 27, 1948, 34.
80 “Schools Must Meet Challenge in Family Life Education—Eckert,” 6.
81 “Schools Must Meet Challenge in Family Life Education—Eckert,” 6-7.
82 On efforts to involuntarily sterilize women, see Ladd-Taylor, Molly, Fixing the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017)Google Scholar; Schoen, Choice and Coercion; and Stern, Eugenic Nation. On eugenic segregation of wayward girls, see Rembis, Michael A., Defining Deviance: Sex, Science, and Delinquent Girls, 1890-1960 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Chávez-García, States of Delinquency; Zipf, Bad Girls at Samarcand; Odem, Delinquent Daughters; and Alexander, The “Girl Problem.”
83 Petrzela, Classroom Wars; Kendall, Nancy, The Sex Education Debates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)Google Scholar; and More, The Transformation of American Sex Education.