ABSTRACT
The opening day of the 1932 Iowa State Fair dawned bright and crisp. The Iowa State Fair was the perfect place to gently push the public to concern itself with issues of heredity. The exhibition halls were packed with displays on soil treatments and award-winning watermelons, but the real draw lay beyond—the Better Babies Building. The Better Babies Contest encouraged families to judiciously pair only the “fittest” parents and reproduce only the most capable babies. Since the first competitions in the 1910s, the Better Baby Contests had spread the gospel of infant development and made a spectacle of eugenic standards. Much of George’s mission at the Better Babies Contest had been to convey some simple understanding of heredity and encourage people to reproduce responsibly.
