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''The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness'' was a 1912 book by the American
psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...
and
eugenicist Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetics, genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human Phenotype, phenotypes by ...
Henry H. Goddard Henry Herbert Goddard (August 14, 1866 – June 18, 1957) was an American psychologist, eugenicist, and segregationist during the early 20th century. He is known especially for his 1912 work '' The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Fe ...
, dedicated to his patron
Samuel Simeon Fels Samuel Simeon Fels (February 16, 1860 in Yanceyville, North Carolina – June 23, 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an American businessman and philanthropist. Biography Born to a Jewish family in Yanceyville, North Carolina, Fels fami ...
. Supposedly an extended case study of Goddard’s for the
inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
of "
feeble-minded The term feeble-minded was used from the late 19th century in Europe, the United States, and Australasia for disorders later referred to as illnesses, deficiencies of the mind, and disabilities. At the time, ''mental deficiency'' encompassed a ...
ness", a general category referring to a variety of mental disabilities including
intellectual disability Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability (in the United Kingdom), and formerly mental retardation (in the United States), Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010).Archive is a generalized neurodevelopmental ...
,
learning disabilities Learning disability, learning disorder, or learning difficulty (British English) is a condition in the brain that causes difficulties comprehending or processing information and can be caused by several different factors. Given the "difficulty ...
, and
mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...
, the book is noted for factual inaccuracies that render its conclusions invalid. Goddard believed that a variety of mental traits were hereditary and that society should limit reproduction by people possessing these traits. The name Kallikak is a pseudonym used as a family name throughout the book. Goddard coined the name from the Greek words καλός (''kalos'', good) and κακός (''kakos'', bad).


Summary

The book begins by discussing the case of "Deborah Kallikak" (real name Emma Wolverton, 1889–1978),J. David Smith and Michael L. Wehmeyer
Who Was Deborah Kallikak?
''Intellectual and developmental disabilities'' 50(2):169–178, 2012 , doi:10.1352/1934-9556-50.2.169.
a woman in Goddard's institution, the New Jersey Home for the Education and Care of Feebleminded Children (now
Vineland Training School The Vineland Training School is a non-profit organization in Vineland, New Jersey with the mission of educating people with developmental disabilities so they can live independently. It has been a leader in research and testing. The Training Sch ...
). In the course of investigating her
genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
, Goddard claims to have discovered that her family tree bore a curious and surprising moral tale. The book follows the genealogy of Martin Kallikak, Deborah's great-great-great grandfather, a Revolutionary War hero married to a
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
woman. On his way back from battle the normally morally upright Martin dallied one time with a "feeble-minded" barmaid. He impregnated her and then abandoned her. The young Martin soon reformed and went on with his upright life, becoming a respected New England citizen and father of a large family of prosperous individuals. All of the children that came from this relationship were "wholesome" and had no signs of developmental disabilities. But according to Goddard, a child was born by the dalliance with "the nameless feeble-minded girl". This single child, a male, called Martin Kallikak Jr. in the book (real name John Wolverton, 1776–1861), went on to father more children, who fathered their own children, and on and on down the generations. And so with the Kallikaks, Goddard claims to have discovered, one has as close as one could imagine an experiment in the hereditability of intelligence, moral ability, and criminality. On the "feeble-minded" side of the Kallikak family, descended from the abandoned single-parent barmaid, the children wound up poor, mentally ill, delinquent, and intellectually disabled. Deborah was, in Goddard's assessment, "feeble-minded": a catch-all early 20th century term to describe various forms of intellectual or learning disabilities. Goddard was interested in the heritability of "feeble-mindedness"—and often wrote of the invisible threat of recessive "feeble-minded" genes carried by otherwise healthy and intelligent looking members of the population (
Mendel's laws Mendelian inheritance (also known as Mendelism) is a type of biological inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, and later popularized by ...
had only been rediscovered a decade before; Goddard's genetic shorthand was, in its day, considered to be on par with cutting-edge science). It was in tracing the family history of Deborah that Goddard and his assistants discovered that Deborah's family of drunks and criminals was related—through Martin Kallikak—to another family tree of economy and prosperity. On the "normal" side of the Kallikak family tree, the children Martin had with his wife and their descendants all ended up prosperous, intelligent, and morally upstanding. They were lawyers, ministers, and doctors. None were "feeble-minded". Goddard concluded from this that intelligence, sanity, and morality were
hereditary Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic inform ...
, and every effort should be undertaken to keep the 'feeble-minded' from procreating, with the overall goal of potentially ending 'feeble-mindedness' and its accompanying traits. The damage from even one dalliance between a young man and a "feeble-minded" woman could create generations and generations worth of crime and poverty, with its members eventually living off the generosity of the state (and consequently taxpayers), Goddard argued. His work contains intricately constructed family trees, showing near-perfect Mendelian ratios in the inheritance of negative and positive traits. Goddard recommended segregating them in institutions, where they would be taught how to work various forms of menial labor.


Present-day evaluation

In its day, ''The Kallikak Family'' was a tremendous success and went through multiple printings. It helped propel Goddard to the status of one of the nation's top experts in using
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
in policy, and along with the work of Charles B. Davenport and
Madison Grant Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) was an American lawyer, zoologist, anthropologist, and writer known for his work as a conservation movement, conservationist, eugenics, eugenicist, and advocate of scientific racism. Grant i ...
is considered one of the canonical works of early 20th-century American
eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...
. Research published in 2001 by David MacDonald and Nancy McAdams revealed that Goddard's account of the division of the Kallikak family into a "good" lineage—descended from Martin Kallikak Sr. and his wife—and a "bad" lineage—descended from Martin Kallikak Sr. and an unnamed feeble-minded barmaid—was fictitious. Martin Kallikak Jr., the supposedly illegitimate offspring of Martin Kallikak Sr. and the barmaid, was in fact the son of Gabriel Wolverton and his wife Catherine Murray. His real name was John Wolverton (1776–1861), and he was a landowner prosperous enough to buy two tracts of land for cash in 1809. Census records of 1850 show that all the adults in his household (which included Wolverton, one daughter, and several grandchildren) were able to read. The "bad" side of the Kallikak family included poor farmers but also school teachers, an Army Air Corps pilot, and a bank treasurer. It has been argued that the effects of
malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...
were overlooked in the Kallikak family. Goddard's peer, Davenport, even identified various forms of diseases now known to be caused by diet deficiencies as being hereditary. Another perspective has been offered that the Kallikaks almost certainly had undiagnosed
fetal alcohol syndrome Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) are a group of conditions that can occur in a person who is exposed to alcohol during gestation. FASD affects 1 in 20 Americans, but is highly misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed. The several forms of the ...
. In addition to poverty and malnourishment, prenatal alcohol exposure can create
craniofacial Craniofacial surgery is a surgical subspecialty that deals with congenital and acquired deformities of the head, skull, face, neck, jaws and associated structures. Although craniofacial treatment often involves manipulation of bone, craniofacial ...
and other physical anomalies that could account for their peculiar facial features.Streissguth, A.P. (1997). ''Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: A Guide for Families and Communities''. Baltimore, MD: Brookes. Furthermore, prenatal alcohol exposure may also damage the
central nervous system The central nervous system (CNS) is the part of the nervous system consisting primarily of the brain, spinal cord and retina. The CNS is so named because the brain integrates the received information and coordinates and influences the activity o ...
, which can result in impaired
cognitive Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
and behavioral functioning similar to that described by Goddard.


Alteration of photographs

The paleontologist and science writer
Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
advanced the view that Goddard—or someone working with him—had retouched the photographs used in his book in order to make the "bad" Kallikaks appear more menacing. In older editions of the books, Gould said, it has become clearly evident that someone had drawn in darker, "crazier" looking eyes and menacing faces on the children and adults in the pictures. Gould argues that photographic reproduction in books was still then a very new art, and that audiences would not have been as keenly aware of photographic retouching, even on such a crude level. The 14 photos were subsequently studied further to show the nature of the retouching and subsequent use to help make Goddard's points.


Influence

The overall effect of ''The Kallikak Family'' was to temporarily increase funding to institutions such as Goddard's, but these were not seen to be worthwhile solutions of the problem of "feeble-mindedness" (much less "rogue" "feeble-mindedness"—the threat of idiocy as a recessive trait), and more stringent methods, such as
compulsory sterilization Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, refers to any government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually do ...
of people with intellectual disabilities, were undertaken. The term "Kallikak" became, along with " Jukes" and " Nams" (other case studies of similar natures), a cultural shorthand for the rural poor in the Southern and Northeastern United States. In August 1977,
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
premiered a situation comedy called ''The Kallikaks'', which depicted the comic misadventures of an Appalachian family that moved to California and feuded with another family named the Jukes; the series lasted only five episodes. A June 8, 1987, cartoon in ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' provided a further update to the concept, depicting "The Jukes and Kallikaks Today". In the book ''
The Manchurian Candidate ''The Manchurian Candidate'' is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a communist conspiracy. T ...
'', Richard Condon makes an adjective of the Kallikak name in describing a
country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
song in the 1950s: "... a loudly lovable old standard out of Memphis, Tennessee, in which the rhyme of the proper name Betty Lou and the plural noun ''shoes'' were repeated, in a Kallikakian couplet, over and over again...."


See also


References


Further reading

*
Henry H. Goddard Henry Herbert Goddard (August 14, 1866 – June 18, 1957) was an American psychologist, eugenicist, and segregationist during the early 20th century. He is known especially for his 1912 work '' The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Fe ...
, ''The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness'', New York: Macmillan, 1912. *
Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
, ''
The Mismeasure of Man ''The Mismeasure of Man'' is a 1981 book by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The book is both a history and critique of the statistical methods and cultural motivations underlying biological determinism, the belief that "the social and economic ...
'', Norton: New York, 1996, revised edn. *R. E. Fancher, "Henry Goddard and the Kallikak family photographs," ''American Psychologist'', 42 (1987), 585-590. * J. David Smith, ''Minds Made Feeble : The Myth and Legacy of the Kallikaks'', Rockville, MD : Aspen, 1985 * * J. David Smith, Michael L. Wehmeyer, "Good Blood, Bad Blood: Science, Nature, and the Myth of the Kallikaks," Washington, DC : AAIDD, 2012 * Shirley Garton Straney, "The Kallikak Family: A Genealogical Examination of a Classic in Psychology," ''
The American Genealogist ''The American Genealogist'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic disc ...
'', 69 (April 1994): 65-80.


External links


Digitised version of the 1912 edition of ''The Kallikak Family''
* * Latest Book on the Kallikak Famil
/ Good Blood, Bad Blood: Science, Nature, and the Myth of the Kallikaks
* 1919 Report by the Kansas Commission on Provision for the Feeble Minde
The Kallikaks of Kansas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kallikak Family Eugenics books Eugenics in the United States Euthenics History of eugenics Works about eugenics 1912 non-fiction books Criminology Working-class culture in New Jersey