American Passage (61 page)

238
During the depths
: On the Zitello family, see File 54050-240, INS.
241
When Dr. Thomas Salmon
: On the life and career of Thomas W. Salmon, see Earl D. Bond,
Thomas W. Salmon: Psychiatrist
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1950) and Manon Parry, “Thomas W. Salmon: Advocate of Mental Hygiene,”
American Journal of Public Health
96, no. 10 (October 2006).
241
Salmon saw the chance
: For a description of the work of a psychologist on line examination at Ellis Island, see Thaddeus S. Dayton, “Importing Our Insane,”
HW
, October 19, 1912.
242
Salmon was on the
: Ian Robert Dowbiggin,
Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880–1940
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), 203.
242
The results of Salmon’s work
: Salmon would later become the first medical director of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. During World War I, he served as a consultant for the U.S. Army and worked with returning soldiers suffering from shell shock and other psychological disorders. In 1923, he was elected president of the American Psychiatric Association. Despite having no formal background in psychiatry, Salmon had reached the pinnacle of his profession.
242
At the time
: On the Binet tests, see Stephen Jay Gould,
The Mismeasure of Man
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 176–188.
243
There was also
: Leila Zenderland,
Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 102–103.
243
If there was some
: C. B. Davenport,
Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding
(New York: Henry Holt, 1910). For more on Davenport, see Daniel J. Kelves,
In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 41–56.
244
In 1911, Davenport recommended
: Letter from C. B. Davenport, Secretary of the America Breeders Association, Eugenics Section, to Prescott Hall, May 20, 1911, File 342, IRL; Report of the Immigration Committee of the Eugenics Section, American Breeders Association, December 30, 1911, File 1064, Folder 1, IRL. Interestingly, one member of the committee was Columbia anthropologist Franz Boas, who achieved fame for his criticism of eugenics.
244
Now many IRL members
: Robert DeC. Ward, “National Eugenics in Relation to Immigration,”
NAR
, July 1910; Robert DeC. Ward, “The Crisis in Our Immigration Policy,” File 1063, Folder 9; Robert DeC. Ward, “Our Immigration Laws from the Viewpoint of National Eugenics,”
National Geographic
, January 1912. “The need is imperative for applying eugenic principles in much of our legislation. But the greatest, the most logical, the most effective step that we can take is to begin with a proper eugenic selection of the incoming alien millions. If we, in our generation take these steps, we shall earn the gratitude of millions of those who will come after us for we shall have begun the real conservation of the American race.”
244
For Prescott Hall
: “Eugenics and Immigration,” Prescott Hall, undated, File 1061, Folder 1, IRL;
Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall
, Compiled by Mrs. Prescott F. Hall (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1922), 53. 245
One answer for Hall
: Prescott Hall, “Birth Control and World Eugencis,” unpublished manuscript, in
Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall
.
245
As to whether humans
:
Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall
, 33, 83. Interestingly, anthropologist Franz Boas had recently completed his study, published by the Dillingham Commission, which showed a divergence in head size between foreign-born Hebrews and Sicilians and American-born Hebrews and Sicilian Americans. The American environment, Boas concluded, was having some effect on the “race characteristics” that many believed immutable. The irony is that Boas used the discredited theory of craniometry to prove his anti-eugenic, anti-racist theory. See “Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants,” Reports of the Immigration Commission, Volume 38, 61st Congress, 2
^nd
Session.
245
At the intersection
: “Is it any wonder that serious students contemplate the racial future of the Anglo-Saxon American with some concern? They have seen the passing of the American Indian and the buffalo; and now they query as to how long the Anglo-Saxon may be able to survive.” William Z. Ripley, “Races in the United States,”
Atlantic
, December 1908. See also Robert DeC. Ward, “National Eugenics in Relation to Immigration,”
NAR
, July 1910. 245
Progressive sociologist
: Ross quoted in M. Victor Safford, “The Business Side of Immigration,” speech delivered at Old South Club, October 20, 1913, File 1064, Folder 8, IRL.
246
Ross proudly noted
: Edward Alsworth Ross,
The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American People
(New York: Century, 1914), 285–286.
246
A leading academic
: Ross,
The Old World in the New,
289–293. 246
Ross predicted that
: Ross,
The Old World in the New,
228, 254–256. 246
These descriptions placed
:
NYT
, June 20, 1914.
247
Amidst such pressing
: “Immigration and Insanity,” address of William Williams, U.S. Commissioner of Immigration, before the Mental Hygiene Conference at New York City, November 17, 1912, File 53139-13, INS; “The Crisis in Our Immigration Policy,” Robert DeC. Ward, File 1063, Folder 9, IRL. 247
Williams complained
: See File 53139-13A, INS.
247
Neither Congress
: H. H. Goddard, “The Binet Tests in Relation to Immigration,”
Journal of Psycho-Asthenics
18 (1913); Henry H. Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant,”
The Training School
, November/December 1912; and Steven A. Gelb, “Henry H. Goddard and the Immigrants, 1910–1917: The Studies and Their Social Context,”
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
22 (October 1986). For more general background on Goddard and intelligence testing, see Zenderland,
Measuring Minds
; Franz Samelson, “Putting Psychology on the Map: Ideology and Intelligence Testing,” in Allan R. Buss, ed.,
Psychology in Social Context
(New York: Irvington Publishers, 1979); and Gould,
The Mismeasure of Man,
188–204.
248
Believing this was proof
: Goddard’s own mathematical abilities were less than stellar. He translated his assistants’ success rate of nine out of eleven into a rate of “seven-eighths.” Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant.”
249
Goddard magnanimously said
: Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant”; Goddard, “The Binet Test in Relation to Immigration.”
249
Goddard’s test did not go
: Goddard, “The Binet Test in Relation to Immigration.”
249
Goddard’s staff chose
: Henry H. Goddard, “Mental Tests and the Immigrant,”
Journal of Delinquency
, September 1917. For some unknown reason, perhaps owing to his sloppiness as a researcher, Goddard claims to have tested “about 165 immigrants.” Other scholars have used that figure as well, but a count of the figures from Goddard’s own article comes up with 191: 54 Jews, 70 Italians, 45 Russians, and 22 Hungarians. Even the numbers on Goddard’s chart (252) don’t add up to 191, and there is an error of arithmetic in one of the columns.
250
The results, wrote Goddard
: Gelb, “Henry H. Goddard and the Immigrants, 1910–1917: The Studies and their Social Context”; Gould,
The Mismeasure of Man,
194–198.
251
As for whether
: Zenderland,
Measuring Minds,
274.
251
Even a nonscientist
: The debate over Goddard’s legacy is contentious. On one side, Leon Kamin and Stephen Jay Gould have been harshly critical of Goddard’s work, methods, and intentions. On the other side, Franz Samelson, Leila Zenderland, and Steven Gelb have been more measured in their interpretations, placing the psychologist within the context of his times. Gelb’s description is the most helpful: “Goddard’s writings about Ellis Island immigrants, when placed in their proper context, do not provide evidence of the virulent type of racism with which his name has become associated. Goddard is more accurately described as a ‘decent’ man, pursuing questions and conclusions—in the name of disinterested ‘science’—that were, in fact, driven by the engines of an institutionalized, pernicious social ideology.” Gelb, “Henry H. Goddard and the Immigrants, 1910–1917: The Studies and Their Social Context.” For a harsher view of Goddard, see Leon Kamin, “The Science and Politics of IQ,”
Social Research
41 (1974).
251
The Survey
, the nation’s leading
:
Survey
, September 15, 1917.
252
Goddard had been
: C. P. Knight, “The Detection of the Mentally Defective Among Immigrants,”
JAMA
, January 11, 1913.
252
For immigrants suffering
: E. H. Mullan, “Mental Examination of Immigrants: Administration and Line Inspection at Ellis Island,”
Public Health Reports
, U.S. Public Health Service, May 18, 1917, 737, 746.
253
Ellis Island doctors
: Knight, “The Detection of the Mentally Defective Among Immigrants”; E. H. Mullan, “Mental Examination of Immigrants: Administration and Line Inspection at Ellis Island,” 738.
253
Howard Knox
: For background on Knox, see John T. E. Richardson, “Howard Andrew Knox and the Origins of Performance Testing on Ellis Island, 1912– 1916,”
History of Psychology
6, no. 2 (May 2003); John T. E. Richardson, “A Physician with the Coast Artillery Corps: The Military Career of Dr. Howard Andrew Knox, Pioneer of Psychological Testing,”
Coast Defense Journal
15, no. 4, November 2001.
253
Knox shared many
: Howard A. Knox, “The Moron and the Study of Alien Defectives,”
JAMA
, January 11, 1913.
253
Knox was also sensitive
: Howard A. Knox, “Psychogenetic Disorders: Cases Seen in Detained Immigrants,”
Medical Record
, July 12, 1913; Howard A. Knox, “The Difference Between Moronism and Ignorance,”
NYM
, September 20, 1913; E.K. Sprague, “Mental Examination of Immigrants,”
Survey
, January 17, 1914. “Does the Binet-Simon measuring scale of intelligence or its American modification . . . represent the average normal intelligence of practically the entire human race,” asked Ellis Island doctor Bernard Glueck. “Assuredly not. We are convinced of this both from experience with the immigrant and actual experimental investigation of the subject and were it considered necessary to adduce facts to prove the fallacy of such a contention, these could easily be gotten from the hundreds of case histories on file at Ellis Island.” Bernard Glueck, “The Mentally Defective Immigrant,”
NYM
, October 18, 1913. 254
Knox noted one case
: Howard A. Knox, “Psychological Pitfalls,”
NYM
, March 14, 1914; Howard A. Knox, “Diagnostic Study of the Face,”
NYM
, June 14, 1913.
254
Another Ellis Island doctor
: Glueck, “The Mentally Defective Immigrant.” 255
Ignoring Goddard’s work
: Knox, “The Moron and the Study of Alien Defectives.”
255
The testing room
: Howard A. Knox, “Measuring Human Intelligence,”
Scientific American
, January 19, 1915; Howard A. Knox, “Tests for Mental Defects,”
Journal of Heredity
5 (1914).
255
Once the conditions
: Glueck, “The Mentally Defective Immigrant.” 256
This battery of questions
:
NYT
, November 1, 7, 1912.
256
The questions that
: Howard A. Knox, “A Comparative Study of the Imaginative Powers in Mental Defectives,”
Medical Record
, April 25, 1914. 257
Immigrants were also
: E. H. Mullan, “The Mentality of the Arriving Immigrant,”
Public Health Bulletin
90 (October 1917): 118–124.
257
Ellis Island doctors were increasingly bothered
: Bernard Glueck, “The Mentally Defective Immigrant”; Zenderland,
Measuring Minds,
276–277. 257
Howard Knox created
: For examples of the various tests, see Howard A. Knox, “Mentally Defective Aliens: A Medical Problem,”
Lancet-Clinic
, May 1, 1915; Howard A. Knox, “A Scale Based on the Work at Ellis Island for Estimating Mental Defect,”
JAMA
, March 7, 1914; Mullan, “The Mentality of the Arriving Immigrant.” Mullan’s report contains detailed results from the whole array of tests used at Ellis Island on a sample of literate and illiterate immigrants in 1914. 258
These tests were about
: Mullan, “The Mentality of the Arriving Immigrant,” 42–43; T. E. John, “Knox’s Cube Imitation Test: A Historical Overview and an Experimental Analysis,”
Brain and Cognition
59 (2005).
258
In 1913, the number of
:
NYT
, September 16, 1913; Berth Boody,
A Psychological Study of Immigrant Children at Ellis Island,
reprint (New York: Arno Press, 1970), 65; Knox, “Mentally Defective Aliens: A Medical Problem,” 495. 259
Like others
: Howard Knox, “Mental Defectives,”
NYM
, January 31, 1914.