Wednesday, May 11, 2022

The Orphans of Davenport by Marilyn Brookwood

 
First Line: The young woman who presented herself for indigent maternity care at Iowa City's University Hospital on May 7, 1934, appeared confused and gave the nurses two first names and four last names; because she would not or could not say which were really hers, hospital officials chose for her, and in Iowa's public records she is Viola Hoffman.
 
Brookwood's The Orphans of Davenport is an enlightening look back at the hard-fought origins of childhood development. Little did I know that those annual IQ tests I took throughout grade school in the 1960s were the vestiges of America's once strong stance on eugenics (or how to use human reproduction to build a master race). How strong? The Nazis used many American laws and writings in their own bid to build the perfect race of human beings, that's how strong. 

By the 1930s and the Great Depression, most psychologists believed that childhood development was solely a matter of heredity. If your parents were stupid, you were going to be stupid, too. End of story. Brookwood shows how eugenics was really racism disguised as science. Merely reading the names of various institutions back then shows us how far we've come: the New York State Custodial Asylum for Un-Teachable Idiots, the Home for the Friendless... People classified as morons, idiots, involuntary sterilization (mostly of women), orphanages used as warehouses... As I read, I was sickened, angered, and as I realized how some of these things were still happening today, my blood ran cold.
 
How did this all change? Brookwood takes us to Davenport, Iowa, and a small group of psychologists who were intelligent enough and brave enough to realize that some of the things they were seeing were direct contradictions to what they'd been taught as hereditists (childhood development is solely due to heredity). Two toddler girls whose combined IQ was 81 were sent to an institution for the "feebleminded" to be cared for by "moron" women since they were considered unfit for adoption. The two should have languished there for the rest of their lives. However, Harold Skeels and Marie Skodak found out that, under the women's care, those two girls' IQ scores actually became normal. This provided the basis for their groundbreaking work in childhood development-- that it's not all about nature; that nurture plays a huge role in a child's growth and mental health.

How did Iowa become the location for such crucial work? Because it was considered such a backwater that it was ignored. However, once Skeels, Skodak, and others began publishing their findings, all the hereditists in the country panicked and used every trick in their arsenal in an attempt to obliterate the upstarts' research.

The Orphans of Davenport is the inspiring story of how the dirty tricks did not win. Children no longer take annual IQ tests. Orphanages (really just warehouses for children) are a thing of the past. Many states' laws-- but not all-- abolished. I am so glad that I read this eye-opening book.

The Orphans of Davenport: Eugenics, the Great Depression, and the War over Children's Intelligence
eISBN: 9781631494697
Liveright Publishing Corporation © 2021
eBook, 352 pages

Non-Fiction
Rating: A-
Source: Purchased from Amazon.

17 comments:

  1. This looks good. I read Adam Cohen's book about the infamous Buck v. Bell case before the Supreme Court in 1927. Ir tells of Carrie Buck, born to a poor mother who was adopted and taken out of school at age 7 to become a servant. After she was raped and became pregnant, the adoptive couple took her child and had Carrie Buck sent to an institution in Virginia for people who were poor and considered of low intelligence. I won't repeat the name of the book, too insulting.
    But the state of Virginia want to have her sterilized, as they were promoting eugenics and elimination of poor and "ignorant" people. She fought this involuntary sterilization all the way to SCOTUS. She lost by a vote of 8 to 1, and was sterilized. She later married and wanted children. Her sister was sterilized and never informed about what the surgery did.
    Even the liberals on SCOTUS voted against Carrie Buck. This sterilization abuse went on, especially in the South against people of color mostly, although Buck was a white woman. This went on until the 1970s. It went on in New York until a movement in the 1970s stopped it.
    And once again, women's autonomy, right to decision-making and health are endangered. And the Supreme Court once again is depriving women of rights, especially women hwo are low-income and people of color. I am sick over this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're not the only one, Kathy. What was done to Carrie Buck is discussed in this book, too.

      Delete
    2. Also, although the state of Virginia deemed Carrie Buck "untelligent" (as I can't say what they really said), her teachers said she was intelligent and so did others who tested her. She was poor.
      And her mother was institutionalized, too. She was poor, and when in economic crisis, was a sex worker. The whole story is awfu.
      It's worth reading Adam Cohen's book. When I saw him on TV, he said today it's women prisoners who are involuntarily sterilized or offered shorter terms if they agree to the procedure. It would be tremendous if the state stopped interfering in women's basic human rights.

      Delete
    3. It would be a bit of poetic justice if we went through a period when men's reproductive organs were legislated against just as stridently. Too often, the "wealth" they're spreading isn't wealth at all.

      Delete
  2. The whole story of IQ, development, and what it all meant for education is fascinating and unsettling, Cathy. So much potential was lost because of the eugenics movement, and I'm not even talking about its extreme form under Nazi Germany. The whole idea of eugenics had serious fallout in American classrooms. I remember this topic was one of the things included in a course I used to teach on students with special needs. It always opened a few eyes. The book sounds like a solid exploration of the topic, too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is. One of the things I remember so well (not from this book) is when they conducted research by giving teachers reports on their students in which the results were switched. Poor, under-achieving students had records saying that they were excellent students, and the excellent students' records showed that they were the under-achievers. It proved that how the teachers approached each child mattered a great deal. The under-achievers when treated like over-achievers became much better students while the over-achievers when treated like bad students had a tendency to throw up their hands and stop trying.

      Delete
  3. This does sound like an eye-opening read!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a fascinating and heartbreaking read. I have no doubt that Skeels and Skodak saw some amazing things in their research. Children want to learn and are hungry for knowledge no matter their IQ.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes-- and they're hungry for attention and affection every bit as much. Isolating babies can, quite literally, kill them.

      Delete
  5. Years ago, I saw a documentary about babies being given no attention and affection, and that some did die of grief. Also, in the Magdalene laundries in Ireland, where women worked seven days a week, they were only allowed to be with their babies for an hour a day. Picking them up and showing affection was discouraged for the mothers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The irreparable damage we humans do to each other...

      Delete
    2. I think people have to be taught to be so cruel. I don't think I could ever do that nor anyone I know. I think we are predisposiitoned to be kind and nurturing, just like animal parents and their offspring.

      Delete
    3. I don't think that predisposition holds true for ALL of us, but I would tend to agree with you. There is also a poem I learned while a teen. Its title was "Children Learn What They Live." If a child sees nothing but cruelty, especially cruelty that is never punished in any way, they're going to believe that this behavior is perfectly acceptable.

      Delete
    4. I agree with that. And a friend who works in Texas against the death penalty told me a few times that everyone she has met on death row were all badly abused as children and as teens. Yes, it is learned behavior. And the guy who blew up the Atlanta Olympics, a women's clinic and a gay bar was brought up in an abusive and pro-Nazi home. He learned the bigotry and violence at his home. And I know someone, now a pre-teen who was hitting children at his day care center years ago because he saw his father abuse his mother. It is learned behavior, true.

      Delete
  6. Very informative. Kudos to you for reading it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I seem to be in the middle of a phase of reading non-fiction that makes me gnash my teeth. Don't ask me why!

      Delete

Thank you for taking the time to make a comment. I really appreciate it!