Newspaper clip advertising the “Better Baby Contest” at a State Fair http://museumofdisability.org/virtual-museum/society-wing/eugenics-exhibit/
The clip from a newspaper published in 1931 is advertising a “Better Baby Contest” at a State Fair in Michigan. After the large influx of immigrants to the United States, people began to fear that the superior race, Anglo-Saxon’s, were not reproducing enough and their population was slowly decreasing (Burgin 2018). Contests like the one being marketed above at State Fairs were attempting to encourage the most fit and qualified, white people to show off their perfect Anglo-Saxon babies and win a cash prize. In order to participate you must have a baby, which is why these “Better Baby Contests” began to spread through the nation as a way of encouraging Anglo-Saxons to have babies. Contests like these piggy back off of Sanger’s push to limit unfit woman from reproducing through her combination of eugenics and the Birth Control Movement.