Close
Staff and students in the UCL community are engaging with the institution’s eugenics legacy in positive and creative ways. Discover their stories paired with our striking artwork.
On this page: Story 2 - From the collections | Meet the artists |
Other content: Read Story 1 | Read Story 3 | Read Story 4
Story 2 - From the collections: problematic histories
From UCL’s rare books and archives to the world’s online encyclopaedia, a unique student project explores the legacy of women working in the early 20th century Galton Laboratory.
(Main illustration by Weihong ‘Clover’ Tang. Additional illustrations by Naomi Chung)
Jo Baines has worked with special collections and academic programmes for over ten years. There is little she does not know about using historic records for engagement and education, but an encounter with UCL’s eugenics legacy led to a special student project and a new direction for her career.
Jo joined UCL in February 2022 with a remit to take some of UCL’s special collections to the steel and chrome of UCL East and invigorate the exciting new teaching programmes at the Stratford campus. While lesson planning, Jo first came across UCL’s eugenics legacy and the archive collection of eugenicists, Sir Francis Galton and Karl Pearson. Not long after, she had a chance conversation with UCL’s Eugenics Legacy Education Project (ELEP) academic lead Helen Knowler at a conference, and her interest in the legacy piqued. UCL’s eugenics legacy, and the fact that this racist pseudo-science found a home at UCL is well documented, and in January 2021 the university issued a formal public apology for its history and legacy of eugenics.
How do we talk about eugenics in UCL’s archives in a morally fair and ethical way? (Jo Baines)
One of the new courses at UCL East was the Public History MA and a part of Jo’s role involved leading a group project for students in their second term. In her first year she gave the group an assignment based around Small Press collections and linking an arts publication to Wikipedia. For the second year of the MA course, she had noted just how much eugenics material was in the collections, and was drawn to the question “how do we talk about this in morally fair and ethical ways?” A collections colleague, Leah Johnston, had been looking at 20th century women in UCL collections and had come across an interesting angle relating to the archives of UCL’s Galton Laboratory which had recently been re-catalogued. The publications from UCL’s Galton Laboratory had also been digitized recently, and Jo felt there was an opportunity to expand Leah’s research from the collections across to the physical outputs of the research centre.
Jo doesn’t want to speak for the students, but she feels there was not a huge amount of awareness of the eugenics legacy from the group of six who made up the team. Once she pitched it though, there was a desire to engage with this strand of institutional history. Looking at the women in the Galton laboratory more closely, it is easy to see why this problematic history is worth exploring. Here were educated women gaining independent careers at a time, in the early 20th century, where steps towards gender equality were only in their infancy. These women were employed primarily in administrative roles, but some, such as Ethel Elderton and Julia Bell, became researchers in their own right. Interestingly, and troubling for the project group, the lab women were supportive of women’s rights and the Suffragette Movement, but working in a field that prejudiced millions of people. Jo was keen that the project raise awareness of these women, rather than trying to make any sort of judgement on their role or on their actions and let the facts speak for themselves.
We were keen to raise awareness of these women, but not make judgements (Jo Baines)“
There were two main strands to the project. The first was to work through the digitized publications looking for references to these women in the lab and update existing Wikipedia pages where possible. Jo’s very experienced with Wikipedia, but it is a tricky medium, with the students getting falsely flagged as having fake accounts and other editors sitting behind a screen somewhere in the world challenging the well-researched and carefully balanced work of the group with their own prejudices.
The second strand was creating workshops at Bloomsbury and UCL East, where the students could introduce the project in a conversational way to the UCL public, using collections material to discuss the eugenics legacy, the women, and the Wikipedia angle. Feedback on these events was excellent and the space for the reflection, in Jo’s opinion, made discussing this difficult topic much easier.
The students flourished with the project but were profoundly affected by working with this material. Interestingly, the students noted that sometimes it wasn’t the original source material that was the problem, it's when they went and researched the context that it became difficult. Eugenics is in no way a historic harm and that realisation can be one factor that is unsettling. Jo had anticipated that the topic may be affecting and used tools such as content warnings and regular check-ins to help mitigate, but the students were very supportive of each other and formed a tight group, something Jo was full of admiration for them for.
When Jo is not peering into UCL’s expansive collections or linking material to a wide range of subjects taught at the East campus, she is often reflecting on how higher education institutions will continue to use challenging historical material in teaching, especially as we are now living in such a polarised world. She favours introducing complex histories slowly and with plenty of time for critical reflection. Starting in 2025, she is hoping to undertake further research, supported by ELEP on how we teach with problematic material and collections. Find out more about the Galton Laboratory on Wikipedia.
Meet the artists
Hello! My name is Weihong Tang, also known as Clover. I used to be a communication designer, and I am currently studying for a Master’s degree in Education and Technology at UCL. My interests focus on the application of tools and media production in educational settings. I am passionate about discovering innovative ways to inspire learners and enhance learning experiences.
Hi, I am Naomi Chung, currently a History of Art (Material and
Technology) student, and previously in Natural Sciences. I enjoy
creating artworks for magazines and societies at UCL.
