Madison Grant

In 2020, the Wildlife Conservation Society explicitly condemned the pseudoscientific racism of its founder Madison Grant. In June 2021, California State Parks removed a 1948 monument honouring him at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, as part of reassessing the legacy of several eugenicist conservationists.

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Documented

In The Conquest of a Continent, Grant extended his Nordicist theories by interpreting American history through hierarchical racial categories and advocating the preservation of a supposedly Nordic identity. The book consolidated his anti-immigration and anti-miscegenation positions.

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Directly implicated

Historical research and public institutions document Hitler's and certain Nazi eugenicists' admiration for The Passing of the Great Race. Grant's work was among the American currents of scientific racism from which the Nazis drew references.

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As vice-president of the Immigration Restriction League, Grant campaigned to limit immigration and participated in the movement that resulted in the national origins quota system of 1924. The National Park Service notes that statistics and frameworks derived from his scientific racism were used to defend the legislation.

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Directly implicated

California State Parks identifies Grant's writings and activism among influences on anti-miscegenation legislation, notably Virginia's 1924 Racial Integrity Act, which institutionalised strict racial classification and prohibited many interracial marriages.

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Political responsibility

Grant published The Passing of the Great Race, a major work of American scientific racism portraying Northern Europeans as a biological elite, denouncing racial mixing and proposing eugenic policies, including sterilisation of groups deemed "unfit" and "racial types" considered undesirable.

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Directly implicated

The New York Zoological Society, later WCS, exhibited Ota Benga in the Bronx Zoo's Monkey House. Madison Grant was then the society's secretary and appears among correspondents in the archives of the episode. In 2020, WCS apologised for Ota Benga's treatment and also condemned Grant's pseudoscientific racism.

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Institutional responsibility