Here are a few other things that might put things in a larger Virginia
perspective: 

Gregory Michael Dorr, "Assuring America's Place in the Sun: Ivey Foreman
Lewis and the Teaching of Eugenics at the University of Virginia,
1915-1953" Journal of Southern History,  vol. LXVI, no. 2 (May 2000).

Dorr's dissertation: "Segregation's Science: the American Eugenics
Movement and Virginia, 1900-1980," University of Virginia, 2000.  

Richmond composer and pianist John Powell was a major player in the
movement and a large collection of his papers are at UVA.  He was
involved with the Anglo-Saxon Club of America.  The following book has
good information on how Powell's racial beliefs were manifest in his
co-management of the White Top Folk Festival: 

Whisnant, David E.  All that is native & fine: the Politics of Culture
in an American Region.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1983.

Powell was trying to recover a presumed "pure Anglo-Saxon" culture of
the mountains through music.  This was a widespread idea among song
collectors of the time, but Powell took it to the extreme.

I wonder what folks on the list think about books like Webb's "Born
Fighting" that look at the Scots-Irish and Celtic traditions in America.
I don't want to provoke a Donnybrook, but it seems to me that many such
works fall back on idealized notions of Southern Appalachian people as a
race that are a bit too familiar to the historian.  (I'm particularly
sensitive to the notion of the "Celtic-Southerner," mainly because I
have a bunch of ancestors who were Scots-Irish--in New Hampshire!)  

Gregg Kimball

Gregg D. Kimball, Director
Publications and Educational Services
804/692-3722
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-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of James Hershman
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 7:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: BACK TO PLECKER

Estabrook's "study" on a community in Amherst County is certainly a
clear example of the application of white supremacist and eugenic ideas
to anthropological study. I think, even at the time it was published, it
drew some early criticism from other scholars in the field who were
coming to question those assumptions. Dr. Plecker was certainly not
alone in his views--he was just the most prominent official agent
carrying them out. White supremacy and eugenics were part of Virginia
Law and social policy. See a new work, which has a large chapter on
Virginia, on the subject: Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics
and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race.

Jim Hershman
[log in to unmask] wrote:

>The book was at the Swem Library at the Collge of W & M in 
>Williamsburg, 10 years ago when I read it all in one afternoon.  Much 
>more revealing of the people that wrote it then the folks they appeared
to be discussing.  It does point
>to my earlier posting that Plecker was not alone.   I have no idea
whether or
>not it is available on interlibrary loan.
>
>Selma Stewart
>
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