[1] In the beginning of the 20th century, the idea that eugenics could improve the biological basis of society was widely held by academics and lawmakers, particularly in northern Europe and the United States.

In 1922 Sweden established a eugenic governmental agency, the State Institute of Racial Biology, of which Lundborg was appointed as the head.

Under his leadership, the institute began gathering copious statistics and photographs to map the racial make-up of about 100,000 Swedish people.

[5][6] The Swedish writer Maja Hagerman has written a biography on Herman Lundborg and made a documentary about his racial research in Laponia.

In the novel 'The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared' by the Swedish author Jonas Jonasson, dr. Lundborg is portraited in chapter 4.