"Getting old is a victory of eugenics and race"

the diffusion of eugenics in the newspaper Letras da Província (1951-1982)

Abstract

The article investigates the dissemination of eugenics in the newspaper Letras da Província after 1945. Based on documentary research, supported by a specialized bibliography, the aim is to analyze the forms of dissemination, the theses defended, and the intellectuals involved in this process. It is examined that the newspaper from Limeira and, by extension, the Graphics Company Editorial Paulista (EGEPSA), were fundamental for the continuity of the eugenics campaign promoted both by the former directors of the Boletim de Eugenia, namely, Renato Kehl and Toledo Piza Júnior, as well as by unknown authors in historiography. It is demonstrated that, in a context unfavorable to the explicit defense of eugenics compared to the interwar period, the newspaper and the publisher facilitated the propagation of radical theses of “negative” eugenics, such as the disapproval of marriages between whites and blacks and the conceptualization of the “biological inferiority” of “mulattos”. It is concluded that documentary research based on texts published in local newspapers, with reduced circulation, can contribute significantly to studies on the spread of eugenics in the second half of the 20th century.