Eugenics, ‘Aristogenics’, Photography: Picturing Privilege

This is the first study to explore the connections between late-19th-century university/college composite class portraits and the field of eugenics - which first took hold in the United States at Harvard University. Eugenics, Aristogenics, Photography takes a closer look at how composite portraiture documented an idealized reality of the New England social-caste experience and explains how, when positioned in relation to the individual stories and portraits of members of the class, the portraits reveal points of non-conformity and rebellion with their own rhetoric.