A Decade of Progress in Eugenics. Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics held at American Museum of Natural History, New York, August 21-23, 1932

Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins Co., 1934. First edition.
SCARCE PROCEEDINGS OF THIRD INTERNATIONAL EUGENICS CONGRESS--SIGNED COPY OF EUGENICIST AND PEDIATRICIAN ARNOLD GESELL.
15x23 cm hardcover, blue cloth binding, ink signature of "Arnold Gesell/ 10/1/34" to front free endpapers frontispiece portrait of Charles Benedict Davenport, i-xii, [2], 531 pp, many tables and figures in text, 80 cm long folding "panoramic" photograph of participants of the Congress in front of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, 28 photographic plates showing exhibits at the Congress (including Introductory wall panel "the relation of eugenics to other sciences" (pictured as Haeckel's hereditary tree); Descriptive wall panel, "What eugenics is all about" by HH Laughlin; busts of Charles Darwin and Francis Galton, Pedigrees of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Edison; Indians; Race-assimilation in America; Anti-miscegenation laws of the several states, 1932; Migration of negroes, 1910-1920, Charts by the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fur Anthopologie Menschliche Erblehre und Eugenik, Berlin; Mental disorders of twins; A proposed census card; Race descent; American statesmen; Inventiveness of racial stock in the United States; Historical and legal development of eugenical sterilization; Racial fecundity; Mechanism of Mendelian heredity; Expectation of mental disease; Specialized tests for sense of elegance: "be not influenced by knowledge of cost or fashion--try to respond to real quality"; folding panoramic photograph of participants of the congress, a "who's who" of eugenics in the 1930s. Spine faded, cover corner tips worn, dent top cover edge, binding tight, pages unmarked, very good in custom archival mylar cover.
CHARLES B. DAVENPORT (1866-1944), chairman of the Congress, was initially a professor of zoology at Harvard, where he became one of the most prominent American biologists of his time. He had a tremendous respect for the biometric approach to heredity pioneered by English eugenicists Francis Galton and Karl Pearson. In 1904, Davenport became director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He founded the Eugenics Record Office there in 1910. Davenport's research was guided by the racism and classism of his time. Davenport was particularly interested in race-mixing, which he saw both as a phenomenon that could shed light on the workings of human heredity and as a threat to society. He believed that the biological differences between the races justified a strict immigration policy, and that people of races deemed "undesirable" should not be allowed into the country.
HENRY FARNHAM PERKINS (1877–1956), Chairman of the Publication Committee of the Congress, was an American zoologist. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Vermont, Burlington in 1898, received his M.Sc in 1899 and was awarded his PhD in Zoology at Johns Hopkins University in 1902. In 1903, he was appointed associate professor of Zoology at University of Vermont, Burlington. In 1911 was promoted to full professor and served as chairman of the Zoology Department. It was after World War I that he learned of a study by the U.S. Army which was used as part of the draft process. The results from the Army study showed that men from Vermont had an inordinately high rate of "defects" (such as diabetes, epilepsy, "deformities" and "mental deficiency"). Perkins saw this as a problem that needed to be fixed. He went about trying to "fix" this through investigation and social reform. Around the same time, he revamped his Zoology curriculum and began teaching courses specifically on Heredity and Evolution.
Cited by RC Engs in The Eugenics Movement (2005): "Due to the worldwide Depression, the Third International Congress of Eugenics, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, August 21-23, 1932, was smaller (with 267 delegates) than the two previous congresses. Although British eugenics leader Leonard Darwin did not attend, he submitted a paper. The aim of the conference was to "mark the advance made in the field of eugenics, both as a pure and as an applied science" since the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921. Geneticist and pivotal American eugenics leader Charles Davenport served as president of the congress. Others on the planning committee included noted American eugenics supporters Clarence:e G. Campbell, Irving Fisher, Madison Grant, Frederick Osbom, Leon Whitney, and Harry H. Laughlin, who chaired the exhibits committee. In addition to meeting at the museum, congress delegates took a field trip to the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Biologist Henry F. Perkins chaired the publication committee for the proceedings, A Decade of Progress in Eugenics (1934), which also included Campbell, Grant, Osbom, Laughlin, and Paul Popenoe. The volume was dedicated to Mrs. E.H. (Mary) Harriman, "founder of the Eugenics Record Office." The Camegie Institution of Washington Washington financed the publication, and it was printed by the Williams & Wilkins Company, Baltimore, Maryland. The 531-page proceedings was divided into two parts. Part I, "Scientific Papers," contained eight sections devoted to eugenic research. Part 2, "Exhibits," described the numerous exhibits shown at the conference. Listed in scientific papers, the section topics included research on "Anthropometric Methods and Tests," "Race Amalgamation," "Education and Eugenics," "Positive and Negative Eugenics," "Disease and Infertility," "Differential Fecundity," and "Human Genetics." A total of sixty-five articles comprises the volume, many by American eugenics researchers or promoters including Henry Fairfield Osbom, Samuel J. Holmes, Wilhelmine Key, Hermann Muller, Michael F. Guyer, E, S. Gosnev, and Roswell H. Johnson. Other papers were presented by researchers from Russia, Italy, Holland, Norway, and other countries. The publication was positively reviewed by biologists and considered a "genuine contribution to a scientific eugenics."
PROVENANCE: ARNOLD LUCIUS GESELL (1880 - 1961) was a psychologist and pediatrician who helped develop the field of child development. Gesell was born in Alma, Wisconsin, whose dysgenic qualities Gesell later analyzed through a eugenic perspective in The Village of a Thousand Souls, published in 1913 in 'The American Magazine'. Similar to Perkin's interpretation of data from Vermont (see above), Gesell's widely read article of his hometown of Alma, Wisconsin, described a high prevalence of 'hereditary defectives'. Gesell worked as a high school teacher briefly but then went on to study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He served as a teacher and high school principal before continuing his education at Clark University, where he was highly influenced by its president, G. Stanley Hall, who founded the child study movement. Gesell received his Ph. D. from Clark in 1906. He developed an interest in studying children with disabilities and subsequently earned his MD and was granted full professorship at Yale, where the Gesell Institute of Human Development, named after him, was started by his colleagues, Dr. Frances Ilg and Dr. Louise Bates Ames in 1950, after Gesell retired from the university in 1948. Gesell is listed on page 513 of the volume offered here as one of the 338 active members of the Congress. (Inventory #: 1686)