Based on primary government sources and cultural documents, this paper explores the American eugenics movement as an exemplary model of progressive reform from 1890 to 1940. Other progressive reforms met with mixed success due to opposing goals and moral beliefs within similarly interested groups. However, American eugenicists introduced a single, coherent message concerning a new biological vision for an improved society and disseminated it through popular cultural mediums, making eugenics a socially identifiable and effective tool for the agendas of numerous reforms. As a scientifically based movement that seamlessly converged with the American cultural debate on the preservation of national character, eugenic principles animated several prominent reform projects. Furthermore, scientific and social ideas were popularized at national, state and local levels, sustaining long-term legislative and judicial success. Eugenics became a means of gaining practical and legislative results and was a prominent method of social engineering. For instance, sexual immorality was denounced by the anti-prostitution movement, the concept of a biologically fit and capable nation pleased American imperialists, and the declaration of alcoholism as an undesirable trait interested the prohibition lobby. Organized labour supported restrictive immigration policies based on eugenic arguments, concerned with immigrants affecting wages. Eugenics can be seen as a method of understanding American culture and psyche in the first half of the twentieth century.