Label:
German educational slide explaining the Kallikak family, 1924
Description:
DNAi location:
Chronicle>Threat of the Unfit>threats
"Feeblemindedness," a catch-all mental illness characterized mainly by low scores on intelligence tests and supposed promiscuity, was a major concern of eugenicists. This owed much to Henry Goddard's influential book, The Kallikaks (1912), an effectively related study of Martin Kallikak, whose marriage to a Quaker woman produced a good lineage (kallos for "beauty"). Martin's dalliance with an attractive, but feebleminded, barmaid produced a second, dysgenic lineage (kakos for "bad"). Goddard hypothesized that feeblemindedness was caused by a recessive gene, which would be spread throughout the national germ plasm by the supposedly promiscuous behavior of feebleminded persons.
Biological elements:
Concepts precesses:
eugenics
Tools & methods :