How Hookworm Recast Southern Whites in the Eugenic Age

On December 5, 1902, The Sun published an article titled “The Laziness Germ Found? Disease of the ‘Cracker’ and of Some Nations Identified.” The article included comments from Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles, the primary scientist involved in this discovery, briefing the nation on the prevalence of an invasive parasite: the hookworm. Retelling Stiles’s presentation on hookworms at the Sanitary Conference of American Republics, the article highlighted important statements which clearly influenced the title of the article. According to Stiles, hookworm’s prevalence “had resulted in the pitiable condition of the poor whites in many of the Southern States,” and the presence of the disease across generations “resulted in their inferior physical development and mental powers and is the cause of the proverbial laziness of the ‘cracker.’”[1]

Due to this connection between hookworm disease and a lack of productivity, labor remains a central theme to any study of the illness—as decreasing rural indolence appeared to be integral to the scheme of hookworm management. However, this aims to increase productive labor produced other major changes in the Southern landscape—particularly redefining the population’s racial boundaries. Amidst the popularization of eugenic thought, hookworm management in the American South did the impossible, as curing Southerners of the disease also ‘cured’ them of the characteristics which defined their inferior racial status. This presentation will examine the racializing impacts of hookworm treatment and expose how conversations about this racialization stood in direct opposition to the concurrent rise in eugenic thought which supposed that races could only degrade—not improve.

[1] “Germ of Laziness Found? Disease of the ‘Cracker’ and of Some Nations Identified,” The Sun, December 5, 1902, 1.