““Some thirty miles east of the statue, with much less fanfare, another monument was nearing completion. At Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, construction was almost finished on a new, state-of-the-art laboratory. Built with a hefty donation from Andrew Carnegie, the Station for Experimental Evolution was one of the first American institutions to study genetics. Heralded as the future of biological science, the laboratory would become the headquarters for the eugenics movement. A campaign to classify races by means of a hierarchy, eugenics would provide scientific justification for segregation, mass sterilizations, and the exclusion of an entire immigrant population. It would grow to influence all levels of society, from public policy to children’s books. A sanctioned form of racism, eugenics served as the scientific articulation of white supremacy and the politician’s strongest weapon against immigrants.””
