Eugenics proponents argued that by keeping the unfit alive to reproduce and multiply, modern medicine and costly welfare programs were interfering with natural selection, the concept Charles Darwin called the survival of the fittest in the animal and plant world, said Chief Curator of History Fritz Hamer.

This exhibit traces the journey of eugenics from its start as a scientific concept in the late 19th century to its deadly use by Nazi Germany as a justification for the sterilization and murder of millions of people