Henry Herbert Goddard’s work studying the supposedly degenerate “Kallikak” family made him world famous. In the words of a teacher at the Vineland Training Center, it also made Emma Wolverton, aka Deborah Kallikak, the “World’s Best Known Moron.” But the acclaim Goddard achieved for his work faded as psychologists discovered fatal flaws with his research. However, before Goddard’s work was dismissed as worthless by the scientific community is was cited as justification for eugenic programs both at home and in Nazi Germany.
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Written by Travis View. Theme by Nick Sena (https://nicksenamusic.com). Additional music by Pontus Berghe and Nick Sena. Editing by Corey Klotz.
REFERENCES:
Carlson, Axel Elof ( 2001) The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea
Cohen, Adam (2016) Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck
Smith, David J. and Wehmeyer, Michael L. (2012) Good Blood, Bad Blood. Science, Nature, and the Myth of the Kallikaks.
Smith, David J. and Wehmeyer, Michael L. (2012) Who Was Deborah Kallikak?
https://meridian.allenpress.com/idd/article/50/2/169/14846/Who-Was-Deborah-Kallikak
Smith, David J. (1985) Minds Made Feeble: The Myth and the Legacy of the Kallikaks
Zenderland, L. (1998). Measuring minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the origins of American intelligence testing.
Zimmer, Carl (2018) She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
Sometimes one of the challenges involved with defining disability is defining normality.
Research psychologist Henry Herbert Goddard believed that intellectual disability involves a weak understanding of facts about the world and societal harm.
But the problems with defining disability this way are obvious.
Supposedly, normal people can have a confused understanding of the world.
Goddard certainly has his share of misunderstandings.
Normal people can also massively harm society, especially when they wield a lot of influence and power.
The fact that normal people can also be prone to confusion was noticed by Emma Woolverton, aka Deborah Kalakak, whose family line was made famous in Goddard's study that supposedly proved that inherited feeble-mindedness was the cause of all of society's ills.
One day, Emma Wolverton told the Vineland Training Center teacher, Helen Reeves, this.
"Did you know it's normal people who are the real problems?
They think us feeble-minded people are problems, but they're the real ones.
They got so much to think about, half the time they don't know what to think.
Yes, sir, normal people are the real problems.
I've been watching them a long time now."
Helen Reeves responded, "But Deborah, as you know, the feeble-minded problem is considered very depressing by
a lot of folks."
Of course, it isn't.
But what about the problem of normal people?
Is that depressing?
Emma replied warily, Sometimes yes, and sometimes no.
I'd say most generally, always yes.
I'm Travis View, and this is Trickle Down, a podcast about what happens when bad ideas flow from the top.
With me are Julian Field and Jake Rokitansky.
Episode 2.
Bad Seed.
Part Two.
In the last episode, I talked about Henry Herbert Goddard's study of the Kalakak family.
The study told the story of the Revolutionary War soldier Martin Calicac, who slept with a feeble-minded, nameless barmaid who had a son which produced generations of feeble-minded criminals.
As Goddard explained in his book, after the war, Martin Calicac married a respectable Quaker woman who would go on to produce generations of upstanding citizens.
We know today that the study is complete bunk.
But at the time of its publication in 1912, it was one of the most celebrated texts in psychology.
The editor of the Journal of Psychoesthetics keeps praise on the study, and they included photographs of the poor members of the Kalakak family in dilapidated housing conditions.
This is a book that should be studied by every adult who is interested in eugenics.
And who is not?
The illustrations showing the housing conditions of some of the bad side Serve a good purpose in impressing upon the reader the nature of the usual environmental conditions in such cases and into which such people always gravitate and in which they always remain unless the stock is rehabilitated by the influx of better blood.
Dr. Goddard's contribution in this work to the study of mental defect is epoch-making.
A magazine called The Dial gushed, It is a scientific study in human heredity, a convincing sociological essay.
A contribution to the psychological basis of the social structure, a tragedy of incompetence, and a sermon with a shocking example as a text.
The magazine The Independent said this, "This is the most convincing of the sociological studies
brought out by the eugenics movement. It would be hardly possible to devise in the laboratory
experimental conditions better adapted to produce a clear and decisive influence of heredity. Nor
Nor could there be a more impressive lesson of the far-reaching and never-ending injury
done to society by a single sin.
The American Journal of Psychology also had high praise for the book.
Dr. Goddard has been fortunate enough, as the archaeologists say, to make a find.
And he has also had the training which enables him to utilize his discovery to the utmost.
Some early reviews of Goddard's work were critical, but they always focused on procedural
or interpretive matters rather than the core claims of the study.
For example, a 1913 review in the magazine Popular Science Monthly observes that it's unsurprising that the family line established by an illegitimate child born in the late 18th century wasn't prosperous, but nonetheless assumes that feeblemindedness is a heritable trait.
A comparison of the two lines of dissent from Martin Kalakak certainly exhibits a dramatic contrast, but it is scarcely the natural experiment in true heredity which Dr. Goddard claims it to be.
If, on the one hand, Martin Kalakak had left neglected, illegitimate children without taint of feeble-mindedness, it is not likely that they would have established prosperous lines of dissent.
On the contrary, they would have probably intermarried with the degenerate and feeble-minded.
If, on the other hand, the feeble-minded son had been legitimate, he would have been properly cared for and in all probability would have left no such descendants as came from the illegitimate and neglected child.
The pioneering psychologist James McKean Cattell, himself a eugenicist, praised the contribution and conclusions but criticized the research design.
But these mild criticisms did little to stem the influence of Goddard's book.
The popularity of the Kalakak story was so great that an agent for a Broadway dramatist approached Goddard for the dramatic rights to the book.
Goddard, man of science that he was, replied that he could only agree if the play preserved the integrity of his work.
We would have to be assured that the play would be on which would carry the moral lessons which the book is intended to convey.
We would not consent to its being dramatized for any other purpose.
Interestingly, Goddard emphasized the moral rather than the scientific lessons of his book.
Negotiations broke down and the play was never produced.
In 1925, journalist D.L.
James of Kansas City, Missouri wrote to the Vineland Training Center and said that he wrote a play based on the Calicak study called The Seed.
James wrote to Goddard about the topic of casting.
It is likely that Goddard suggested the use of feeble-minded actors for certain parts in the play.
Goddard felt that the feeble-minded were excellent mimics and had been a strong supporter of the dramatic arts while at the Vineland Training School.
Despite these talks, there's no evidence that The Seed was ever published or produced.
Unsurprisingly, Eugenicist Techs quickly picked up the Kalakak story.
Hey there, you've been listening to a sample clip of Trickle Down.
This is a side project that I've been working on.
It's a 10 episode series about misinformation and bad ideas that flow from high authority sources.
I think it's fascinating, and it's a way for me to explore the way people who should know what they're talking about don't always actually.
Not gonna lie, some of it's kind of a bummer, but if you're anything like me, that's actually more of a reason to dive into the subject matter.
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