Situating eugenics: Robert DeCourcy Ward and the Immigration Restriction League of Boston

•Provides a brief biography of Robert DeCourcy Ward.•Demonstrates the connections between Ward's geographical work and his interpretation of eugenics and immigration restriction.•Argues that Ward's views on eugenics were conditioned by the politics and intellectual culture of New England.

Recently historians of eugenics have turned their attention toward the locations where eugenics was disseminated and practiced. Continuing in this tradition, this article investigates the role of the Harvard geographer and climatologist Robert DeCourcy Ward as a leading member of the Immigration Restriction League of Boston between 1893 and 1921. I argue that the cultural history of the New England region and the evolving political and social landscape shaped eugenic thinking and thus 'restrictionist' discourse. In that sense, eugenic proclamations can be studied geographically as they often reflect the political and social conventions of their place and time.