Madison Grant: The American Eugenicist Who Inspired Hitler to Eradicate the Jews

Madison Grant, a lawyer and wildlife conservationist, released his book “The Passing of the Great Race” in 1916. In it, he proposed the Nordic race from northwest Europe, who were white, were culturally and biologically superior to all other people.

He wrote, “Man has the choice of two methods of race improvement. He can breed from the best or he can eliminate the worst by segregation or sterilization.”

Grant was racist towards all non-whites including Italians, Syrians, Blacks, and Jews. He was anti-immigration, anti-desegregation, and advocated for white people to only marry other white people. He called white Americans with Nordic ancestry the “native Americans,” discrediting anyone else who emigrated to the U.S.

“The man of the old stock is being crowded out of many country districts by these foreigners just as he is to-day being literally driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Polish Jews,” he wrote. “These immigrants adopt the language of the native American, they wear his clothes, they steal his name and they are beginning to take his women, but they seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideals and while he is being elbowed out of his own home the American looks calmly abroad and urges on others the suicidal ethics which are exterminating his own race.”

Grant not only wrote about sterilizing non-whites and breeding more white people – he also advocated for these eugenicist policies in the U.S. government. Decades later, his dangerous ideas would catch on and inspire Hitler to pursue the Final Solution to get rid of the Jews altogether.

Who Was Madison Grant?

Madison Grant was born into a wealthy family in New York in 1865. His ancestors were some of the first immigrants to settle in New England colonies. His father, Gabriel Grant, was a surgeon and health commission who received a Congressional Medal of Honor for his work at the Battle of Fair Oaks during the Civil War.

Grant and his family would spend summers at their country estate in Long Island, where he explored the surrounding wildlife. He fell in love with hunting and was an early member of the newly formed Boone and Crockett Club. After studying at Columbia College (now Columbia University), he became a lawyer and spent much of his time going on big game hunting expeditions.

Madison Grant, second from left, councilor for the Save the Redwoods League, presented the dedication of the Bolling Grove in August 6, 1921, in honor of Colonel Raynal C. Bolling, the first American officer of high rank to fall in the world war.

Alongside Theodore Roosevelt, his friend and a fellow hunter, as well as some other colleagues, Grant worked to conserve parks and wildlife across the nation. As a result of their efforts, they protected the endangered bison in Oklahoma’s Wichita Mountains, which was one of the first national wildlife refuges in the U.S. He also fought to protect Glacier National Park in Montana, Olympic National Parks, and the redwoods in California’s sequoia forests.

Grant rose to fame and prominence through his conservation work. When he published his book “The Passing of the Great Race,” he tried to pass off racism as science. He advocated for eugenics, a scientifically inaccurate theory that human beings can be improved by selective breeding, and that white people are superior. The eugenics movement started in the late 1800s when Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton released his book “Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development” and argued that disease and health as well as social and intellectual characteristics were based on the concept of race.

U.S. eugenics poster advocating for the removal of genetic "defectives" such as the insane, "feeble-minded" and criminals, and supporting the selective breeding of "high-grade" individuals, c. 1926

Grant’s influence grew amongst those who were racist and against immigration around the turn of the 20^th century. He served as president of the Eugenics Research Association, and he was a member of American Defense Society and the Immigration Restriction League, two anti-immigrant lobbying organizations. He also co-founded the Eugenics Committee of the United States of America to promote eugenics policies in the U.S., and he organized the second and third International Eugenics Congresses, which took place at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 1921 and 1932.

It was there that Ernst Rüdin, a eugenicist, became popular; he served as the chairman of the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists in the Nazi party and helped write the 1933 German Sterilization law. This law led to tens of thousands of people being forcibly sterilized in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands undergoing the same torture in Nazi Germany.

By the time Grant passed away in 1937, his book had sold 16,000 copies in the U.S. alone, and it was on the fourth edition of printing. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge were said to have been influenced by the book, and it was often quoted by politicians on the floor of Congress.

During that same time, the theory of eugenics had become popular worldwide, with Hitler leading the eugenics movement in 1930s and 1940s Germany to destroy the Jewish people – along with any other minorities or disabled people that did not fit the “superior” mold.

How Grant’s Book Impacted Nazi Ideology

“The Passing of the Great Race” was the first non-German book that the Nazis reprinted when they took over Germany. Hitler referred to it as “my Bible,” and referenced it in his autobiographical, antisemitic manifesto, “Mein Kampf.”

Along with sterilizing hundreds of thousands of non-white Germans, Hitler euthanized at least 70,000 adults and over 5,000 children in Germany, Austria, and additional occupied territories. Hitler used Grant’s theories to justify his systematic killing of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust and a number of other people, including individuals with disabilities and the Sinti and Roma, who were not white and did not fit into his idea of perfection, the “Aryan” race.

When the Nuremberg Trials were held after the war, the German side used “The Passing of the Great Race” in their defense, saying that Nazi eugenicists were inspired by this book and other U.S. based policies to carry out their evil plans.

Grant’s Disdainful Legacy

While Grant may have been an important figure during his life, he left behind a disgraceful legacy. Even though he worked towards conserving parks, it is his eugenicist, racist teachings that will define him. In fact, in 2021, California State Parks removed a memorial to Madison Grant from Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, and ensured that he would be known for his racism and not for his environmental work.

“California State Parks and our partners recognize the dark truth behind some of the 20th century’s most prominent conservationists, including League founder Madison Grant,” said North Coast Redwoods District’s superintendent Victor Bjelajac. “Grant used his privilege to advocate for and influence the development of discriminatory laws impacting millions of people across the world.”

He continued, “While we value his contribution towards protecting ancient redwoods, we fully reject his racist ideology and are committed to creating a park system for all people, regardless of race, creed, or ethnicity. The Madison Grant Memorial has stood in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park for three quarters of a century. It is long overdue that we remove it.”