Existing comment:
1917: Intelligence tests:
During World War I, the US Army replaces skull measurements with paper-and-pencil tests to rank the intelligence of American recruits. The Army Alpha test is used for those who can read, wile the Beta test is used for those who are illiterate or do not know English. In the early 1920s, Congress uses results from these tests to justify new legislation that greatly restricts immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
"Our data from the army tests indicate clearly the intellectual superiority of the Nordic race group... The Alpine race, according to our figures, .... seems to be considerably below the Nordic type intellectually."
-- Carl C Bingham, " A Study of American Intelligence," (1923)
1924: IQ tests and propaganda:
Nineteen-year-old college student Horace Mann Bond critiques the reasoning behind the idea that race explains differences in intelligence test scores. Later in life, he becomes a prominent educator, eventually serving as president of Lincoln University, his alma mater.
"[A] perusal of those nationalities whom [Bingham] classifies as inferior will be found to have a close correlation existing between the sums of money expanded for education and their relatively low standing."
-- Horace Mann Bond, "Intelligence Tests and Propaganda", The Crisis (June 1924)
"When ... we read... that the greatest and most masterful personalities have had blond hair and blue eyes, we can make a shrewd guess at its author's complexion."
-- Julian Husley and AC Haddon, "We Europeans" (1935)
1936: Race and the Olympics:
The African-American runner and long-jumper Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, dashing Nazi expectations that white Northern Europeans would triumph. Many believe this dominance proves that athletic ability is linked to race and, perhaps, inversely related to intelligence.
To challenge these beliefs, Howard University physical anthropologist W Montague Cobb compares Owens's physical measurements to those of others. He concludes that Owens has few of the characteristics believed to be associated with African Americans, such as a relatively short calf muscle. He also shows that measurements of African Americans' and whites' physical features are too similar to permit any meaningful comparisons of athletic performance. Cobb finds that differences in training and experience, not race, probably account for differences in athletic performance.
1939: A Jewish race?
Adolf Hitler threatens "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." On September 1, he invades Poland, sparking World War II. The racializing of Jews isn't unique to Germany. That same year, two Harvard anthropology professors note traits that supposedly set Jews apart from others.
"[T]he Jewish look seems to be one of the most noticeable and most easily distinguished of characteristic facial expressions found within the racial family of white people."
-- Carleton Coon, "The Races of Europe" (1939)
"[A]nti-Semitic outbreaks will recur whenever societies get into economic messes and politicians are looking for scapegoats, as long as there dwell in our midst physically distinctive Jewish minorities who, by their intelligence, out-strip their non-Jewish competitiors and thrive under adversities which crush the majority of lesser natural endowment."
-- Earnest A Hooton, "Why the Jew Grows Stronger", Collier's Weekly, May 4, 1939 |