Auction Date:2014 Jan 15 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
TLS, two pages, 8 x 10.5, January 25, 1912. Letter to Edwin Elsbach, advocating marriage practices among young deaf persons that can decrease the risk of handing down their genetic defect to their offspring. In part: "A great deal can be done to minimise the effects of heredity in afflicted families, by giving such information regarding the results of marriages as to lead afflicted persons to choose partners in life who would lessen their tendency to produce afflicted children. There is always a strong tendency in offspring to revert to the normal type of the race; and if marriages are so contracted that the tendency to the inheritance of the defect exists in the family of one of the partners, the tendency to inheritance is diluted, so to speak, by the influence of the other, if he belongs to a family which is free from the defect. This is especially true when the partners in marriage are very far apart in blood. A defective American would have less tendency to reproduce the defect, by marriage with a foreigner of a different race. The further apart in blood the marriage partners are, the greater the tendency in the offspring to revert to the normal type of the race. Defective persons should especially, be careful to avoid marrying blood relations. This class of union tends to increase, the offspring, the family peculiarities, whatever they may be. Where a defective strain exists the defect is more liable to be increased, than in cases where there are no common ancestors. I send by separate mail, a copy of my paper entitled 'Marriage, an Address to the Deaf', in which I try to explain to young deaf persons those conditions of marriage that would be liable to increase any tendency they may have to hand down their defect to their offspring, and those conditions that would lessen the tendency.” Intersecting folds, one through a single letter of signature, and light overall haloing to signature, otherwise fine condition.
The son of a deaf mother, and later husband to a deaf wife, Bell’s interest in communication and sound was deep-rooted. While experimenting on his ‘harmonic telegraph’ at the start of the 1870s, Bell opened his School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech in Boston, attracting a large number of deaf pupils, including his most famous, Helen Keller. While he did a great deal of good in teaching the deaf community, he also believed that deafness was something to be eradicated and became a major figure in the American eugenics movement. At the time of this letter, he was the newly appointed chairman of the board of scientific advisers to the Eugenics Record Office, encouraging people deemed to be ‘a defective variety of the human race’ to avoid reproducing and promoting the compulsory sterilization of such ‘defective’ people. An incredibly interesting letter involving one of the most complex and controversial subjects in Bell’s life.
Auction Location:
5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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