ABSTRACT
For her first communion in May of 1908, Henry Fairfield Osborn threw his daughter Josephine an elaborate party and invited the entire neighborhood, including 'people of all classes. ' 1 It is interesting that he would have congratulated himself on having done so. Osborn has long been associated with anti-immigrant feelings and eugenics legislation. He certainly held racist and anti-Semitic views. The question is why and to what extent. Beginning in the 1890s, increased immigration, a perceived societal breakdown in morality, and the advent of the modem age changed the American landscape in ways that disturbed him. In his mind the human species was being ruined by the same things - overspecialization, miscegenation and a loss of creativity - which he believed had doomed other species to racial collapse and extinction.
