Presents late-19th-century composite portraiture, photo albums, and posture pictures from Ivy League, Seven Sisters colleges and universities to explore the indoctrination of eugenics at these institutions.

This is the first study to explore the connections between late-19th-century university/college composite class portraits and the field of eugenics – which first took hold in the United States at Harvard University. Eugenics, "Aristogenics," Photography takes a closer look at how composite portraiture documented an idealized “reality” of the New England social-caste experience and explains how, when positioned in relation to the individual stories and portraits of members of the class, the portraits reveal points of non-conformity and rebellion with their own rhetoric.