The Feebleminded Self: Measuring Intelligence,

Race and Eugenics

Darwin’s Family Tree

Francis Galton (1822-1911)

Eugenics (“well-born”):The attempt to improve the human race through

selective breeding

Galton’s Chart of notable persons withfamily member of talent

HEREDITARY GENIUS 1869

GALTON’S CHART OF HEREDITARY GENIUS

GALTON’S ANTHROPOMETRIC LABORATORY

GALTON’S HEAD CALIPERS, 1882

James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944)

1891-1917 Professor of Psychology,Columbia University

editor of Psychological Review (1894-1903) Popular Science Monthly (1900-1915).

Vineland Training School, Vineland, NJ

Cottages, 1898

Central Dining Room for Boys

Professional Associations for Care of Feeble-minded

• 1876: Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Persons (only for medical personnel).

• 1896: Journal of Psycho-Asthenics (weak in body)

• 1906—changed name: American Association for the Feeble-Minded, now admitted psychologists.

Henry Herbert Goddard (1866-1957)Director of research,

Vineland Training School NJ

The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of

Feeble-Mindedness (1912)

Feeble-Mindedness: its Causes

And Consequences (1914)

Boys’ Classroom, Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children, 1886

Military Drills at Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded, c. 1890

Alfred Binet (1857-1911) and Théodore Simon

with Simon, “On thenecessity of establishing

a scientific diagnostic of inferior state of intelligence”

(1905)

The Development of Intelligence in Children

(1908)

BINET-SIMON TEST 1919—DUTCH VERSION

Degrees of Feeblemindedness

• IDIOT: Mental Age less than 3 years

• IMBECILE: Mental Age between 3 and 7

• FEEBLEMINDED or MORON: Mental Age of 8-12 years of Age.

American Association for the Study of the Feeble-Minded 1910

Psychologist Administering an Intelligence Test, c. 1930

Mental Testing in the American Educational SystemAmerican School Journal, 1922

Psychological Testing of Immigrants, Ellis Island

Archives of the History of Psychology, Akron, Ohio

Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale IQ—Intelligence Quotient

• Developed by Lewis Terman

Professor of Education

Stanford University, 1916

• Mental age (Binet Score),

divided by chronological age,

multiplied by 100. The mean

was set at 100.

Image from a pamphlet entitled:The Menace of the Feeble-Minded (1919)

The KallikakFamily

H.H. Goddard(1912)

From a 1915 pamphlet of the Juvenile Protective Association of Cincinnati

Eugenics Organizations• Eugenics Society (London) 1907

Sir Francis Galton as Honorary President

• Eugenics Record Office 1910 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory New York (under direction of biologist Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin)

• Race Betterment Foundation,Galton Society, Eugenics Education Societies and other local groups

• American Eugenics Society 1923 (with 28 State committees)

Army Testers: APA Committee on the Psychological Examination of Recruits

Yerkes, Goddard, Terman, 1917

Test 6 of the Army Beta

Task is to fill in the missing elements

of the pictures

Yerkes’ Grading Instructions:Item  4.—Any spoon at any angle in right hand receives credit. Left hand, or unattached spoon, no credit.Item  5.—Chimney must be in the right place. No credit for smoke.Item  8.—Plain square, cross etc., in proper location for stamp, receives credit.Item 10.—Missing part is the rivet. Line of the ‘ear’ may be omitted.Item 15.—Ball should be in the hand of the man. If represented in hand of woman, or in motion, no credit.Item 16.—Single line indicating net receives credit.Item 18.—Any representation intended for horn, pointing in any direction, receives credit.Item 19.—Hand and powder puff must be put on proper side.Item 20.—Diamond is the missing part. Failure to complete hilt on sword is not an error.

IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION ACT: 1924

TO RESTRICT IMMIGRATION FROM SOUTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE;THOSE FROM MEDITERANEAN NATIONS WITH MINIMAL SCORES ON INTELLIGENCE TESTS

MENTIONED ARMY DATA

REDUCED NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS FROM THESE COUNTRIES TO ABOUT 15 PERCENT OR LESS FROM PREVIOUS YEARS,

e.g. Since 1900, approx. 200,000 Italians immigrated per year.In 1924 and after only 4,000 did per year.