 When genetics came on the scientific scene in 1900, many eugenicists embraced the new theory of inheritance, believing that it offered a scientific foundation for their social vision. The eugenicists assumed that human traits like criminality and intelligence played by the same hereditary rules as the traits that Mendel and Morgan made famous, where single genes were associated with single traits. The eugenic task, then, was to decrease the transmission of undesirable genes to the next generation, and increase the transmission of desirable genes. Eugenicists advocated for a variety of social and political interventions to produce more fit and less unfit humans—sterilization of the unfit, immigration restriction acts that prohibited the influx of people from entire nations deemed unfit, anti-miscegenation laws that restricted “race mixing”; as well as “fitter family contests” that praised the fecundity of fit couples, eugenic sermon contests that encouraged clergy to preach the religious justifications for eugenics, and eugenic guidance to couples considering reproduction (Rosen 2004; Lombardo 2008).