Charles Benedict Davenport (June 1, 1866–February 18, 1944) was a prominent American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 eugenicist

Eugenics

Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...

 and biologist

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

. He was one of the leaders of the American eugenics movement, which was directly involved in the sterilization

Compulsory sterilization

Compulsory sterilization also known as forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization...

 of around 60,000 "unfit

Fitness (biology)

Fitness is a central idea in evolutionary theory. It can be defined either with respect to a genotype or to a phenotype in a given environment...

" Americans and strongly influenced the Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 in Europe.

Biography

Davenport was born in Stamford

Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...

, Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, to Amzi Benedict Davenport, an abolitionist

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

 of puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 stock, and his wife Jane Joralemon Dimon (of English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

, Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 and Italian ancestry). He attended Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, earning a Ph.D

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 in biology in 1892 and married Gertrude Crotty, a zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 graduate, in 1894.

Later on, Davenport became a professor of zoology at Harvard. He became one of the most prominent American biologists of his time, pioneering new quantitative standards of taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

. Davenport had a tremendous respect for the biometric

Biometrics

Biometrics As Jain & Ross point out, "the term biometric authentication is perhaps more appropriate than biometrics since the latter has been historically used in the field of statistics to refer to the analysis of biological data [36]" . consists of methods...

 approach to evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 pioneered by Francis Galton

Francis Galton

Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...

 and Karl Pearson

Karl Pearson

Karl Pearson FRS was an influential English mathematician who has been credited for establishing the disciplineof mathematical statistics....

, and was involved in Pearson's journal, Biometrika

Biometrika

- External links :* . The Internet Archive. 2011....

. However, after the re-discovery of Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel

Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance...

's laws of heredity

Mendelian inheritance

Mendelian inheritance is a scientific description of how hereditary characteristics are passed from parent organisms to their offspring; it underlies much of genetics...

, he moved on to become a prominent supporter of Mendelism.

In 1898, Davenport became director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, genomics and bioinformatics. The Laboratory has a broad educational mission, including the recently established Watson School of Biological Sciences. It...

, where he founded the Eugenics Record Office

Eugenics Record Office

The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States was a center for eugenics and human heredity research in the first half of the twentieth century. Both its founder, Charles Benedict Davenport, and its director, Harry H...

 in 1910. He began to study human heredity

Human genetics

Human genetics describes the study of inheritance as it occurs in human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, population genetics, developmental genetics, clinical genetics,...

, and much of his effort was later turned to promoting eugenics. His 1911 book, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics

Heredity in Relation to Eugenics

Heredity in Relation to Eugenics is a book by American eugenicist Charles Benedict Davenport, published in 1911. This book was a best-seller and very respected when it was published. It was printed and published with money and support of the Carnegie Institution.Along with its obvious racism, the...

, was used as a college textbook for many years. The year after it was published Davenport was elected to the National Academy of Sciences

United States National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

.

Davenport founded the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations

International Federation of Eugenics Organizations

The International Federation of Eugenic Organizations was founded in 1925. Most members of this organization united eugenics with racism with political propaganda for the enhancement of the 'white race'." Charles Davenport founded the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations and was its...

 (IFEO) in 1925, with Eugen Fischer

Eugen Fischer

Eugen Fischer was a German professor of medicine, anthropology and eugenics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics between 1927 and 1942...

 as chairman of the Commission on Bastardization and Miscegenation (1927). Davenport aspired to found a World Institute for Miscegenations, and "was working on a 'world map' of the 'mixed-race areas, which he introduced for the first time at a meeting of the IFEO in Munich in 1928."

Together with his assistant Morris Steggerda

Morris Steggerda

Morris Steggerda was an American physical anthropologist. He worked primarily on Central American and Caribbean populations.-Biography:...

, Davenport attempted to develop a comprehensive quantitative approach to human miscegenation

Miscegenation

Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....

. The results of their research was presented in the book Race Crossing in Jamaica (1929), which attempted to provide statistical evidence for biological and cultural degradation following interbreeding between white

White people

White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

 and black

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

 populations. Today it is considered a work of scientific racism

Scientific racism

Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...

, and was criticized in its time for drawing conclusions which stretched far beyond (and sometimes counter to) the data it presented. The entire eugenics movement was criticized for being supposedly based on racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 and classist

Classism

Classism is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes and behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes...

 assumptions set out to prove the unfitness of wide sections of the American population which Davenport and his followers considered "degenerate", using methods criticized even by British eugenicists as unscientific.

After Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, Davenport maintained connections with various Nazi

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 institutions and publications, both before and during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. For example, Davenport held editorial positions at two influential German journals, both of which were founded in 1935, and in 1939 he wrote a contribution to the Festschrift for Otto Reche

Otto Reche

Otto Carl Reche was a German anthropologist and professor from Glatz , Prussian Silesia. He was active in researching whether there was a correlation between blood types and race...

, who became an important figure in the plan to "remove" those populations considered "inferior" in eastern Germany. He died of pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

 in 1944.

Eugenics creed

As quoted in the NAS Biographical Memoir of Charles Benedict Davenport by Oscar Riddle

Oscar Riddle

Oscar Riddle was an American biologist. He is known for his research into the pituitary gland and for isolating the hormone prolactin. Riddle was named the Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association in 1958.-Early career:Riddle was born in Cincinnati, Indiana to Jonathan Riddle, Jr...

, the Eugenics creed is as follows:

• "I believe in striving to raise the human race to the highest plane of social organization, of cooperative work and of effective endeavor."
• "I believe that I am the trustee of the germ plasm that I carry; that this has been passed on to me through thousands of generations before me; and that I betray the trust if (that germ plasm being good) I so act as to jeopardize it, with its excellent possibilities, or, from motives of personal convenience, to unduly limit offspring."
• "I believe that, having made our choice in marriage carefully, we, the married pair, should seek to have 4 to 6 children in order that our carefully selected germ plasm shall be reproduced in adequate degree and that this preferred stock shall not be swamped by that less carefully selected."
• "I believe in such a selection of immigrants as shall not tend to adulterate our national germ plasm with socially unfit traits."
• "I believe in repressing my instincts when to follow them would injure the next generation."

Selected works

1891-1900

• Observations on Budding in Paludicella and Some Other Bryozoa (1891)
• On Urnatella Gracilis (1896)
• Experimental Morphology (1897–99)
• Statistical Methods, with Special References to Biological Variation (1899; second edition, 1904)
• Introduction to Zoölogy, with Gertrude Crotty Davenport (1900)

1906

• Inheritance in Poultry, Carnegie Institution Publication, No, 52 (Washington)

1907

• Heredity of Eye-Color in Man, Science, 26:589-592. (With Gertrude C. Davenport.)

1908

• Heredity of Hair-Form in Man, Amer. Nat. 42:341-349. (With Gertrude C. Davenport.) The American Breeders' Association. Science, 27:-4i3-4i7.
• Degeneration, Albinism and Inbreeding, Science, 28 :454-455.

1909

• Inheritance of Characteristics in Domestic Fowl, Carnegie Institution Publication, No. 121 (Washington)
• Heredity of Hair Color in Man, Amer. Nat., 43:193-211. (With Gertrude C. Davenport.)
• Fit and Unfit Matings, Bull. Amer. Acad. Med., 11:657-67O. 4 figures.

1910

• Eugenics—The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding, Henry Holt & Co., N. Y. 35 pp.
• Heredity of Skin Pigment in Man, Amer. Nat., 44:641-731. (With Gertrude C. Davenport.)

1911

• Heredity of Skin Pigment in Man, Amer. Nat., 44:641-731. (With Gertrude C. Davenport.)

1912

• The Origin and Control of Mental Defectiveness, Pop. Sci. Mo., 80:87-90.
• The Nams. The Feeble-Minded As Country Dwellers, The Survey, 27:1844-1845.
• The Inheritance of Physical and Mental Traits of Man and Their Application to Eugenics, Chapter VIII in "Heredity and Eugenics." The University of Chicago Press, 269-288.
• The Geography of Man in Relation to Eugenics, Chapter IX in "Heredity and Eugenics." The University of Chicago Press, 289-310.
• The Hill Folk. Report on a Rural Community of Hereditary Defectives, Eugenics Record Office Mem. No. I, 56 pp. 4 text figures, 3 charts. (With Florence H. Danielson.)
• The Nam Family. A Study in Cacogenics, Eugenics Record Office Mem. No. 2, 85 pp. 4 text figures, 4 charts. (With Arthur H. Estabrook.)
• How Did Feeble-Mindedness Originate in the First Instance?, The Training School, 9:87-90.
• Eugenics in Its Relation to Social Problems, The N. Y. Assoc. for Improving the Condition of the Poor. Pub. No. 70, 7 pp.

1913

• Heredity, Culpability, Praiseworthiness, Punishment and Reward, Pop. Sci. Mo., 82:33-39.
• State Laws Limiting Marriage Selection Examined in the Light of Eugenics, Eugenics Record Office Bull. No. 9, 66 pp. 2 charts, 3 tables.

1914

• Skin Color of Mulattoes, Jour. Hered., 5:556-558.

1915

• Inheritance of Temperament, Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 12:182.
• The Feebly Inhibited. I. Violent Temper and Its Inheritance, Jour. Nerv. Mental Dis. 42:593-628. Also, Eugenics Record Office Bull. No. 12.
• The Feebly Inhibited: (A). Nomadism or the Wandering Impulse With Special Reference to Heredity. (B). Inheritance of Temperament, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. 236, 158 pp. 89 figures.
• Field Work an Indispensable Aid to State Care of the Socially Inadequate, Read at 42nd Annual Session of the Nat. Conf. of Charities and Corrections, May 15, 16-19.
• The Racial Element in National Vitality. Pop. Sci. Mo., 86:331-333.
• A Dent in the Forehead, Jour. Hered. 6:163-164.
• The Heredity of Stature, Science, 42 :495.
• Hereditary Fragility of Bone (Fragilitas Osseus, Osteopsathyrosis), Eugenics Record Office Bull. No. 14, 31 pp. (With H. S. Conard.)
• How to Make a Eugenical Family Study. Eugenics Record Office Bull, No. 13, 35 pp. 4 charts and 2 tables. (With H. H. Laughlin.)

1916

• Heredity of Albinism. Jour. Hered., 7:221-223.Introduction in "The Jukes in 1915" by Arthur H. Estabrook. Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. 240.
• Heredity of Stature. (Abstract), Proc. XIX Internat. Congress of Americanists.

1917

• The Effect of Race Intermingling, Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc, 56 :364-368.

1919

• A Comparison of White and Colored Troops in Respect to Incidence of Disease, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 5:58-67. (With A. G. Love.)

1920

• Heredity of Constitutional Mental Disorders, Psychol. Bull., 17 :300-310. Reprinted as Eugenics Record Office Bull. No. 20. 11 pp.

1921

• Comparative Social Traits of Various Races, School and Society, 14:344-348.

1923

• Comparative Social Traits of Various Races, Second Study. Jour. Applied Psychol., 7:127-134. (With Laura T. Craytor.)
• The Deviation of Idiot Boys From Normal Boys in Bodily Proportions, Proc. 47th Ann. Session Amer. Assoc. for Study of Feeble-minded: 8 pp. (With Bertha E. Martin.)
• Hereditary Influence of the Immigrant, Jour. Nat. Inst. Soc. Sci., 8 :48-49.

1925

• What Proportion of Feeblemindedness Is Hereditary? Investigation and Reports, Assoc. Res. Nerv. Mental Dis., 3 :295-299.
• Notes on Physical Anthropology of Australian Aborigines and Black-White Hybrids, Amer. Jour. Phys. Anthrop., 73-94.

1926

• Human Metamorphosis, Amer. Jour. Phys. Anthrop.. 9 :2O5-232.
• Notes Sur l'Anthropologie des Aborigines Australiens et des Metis Blancs et Noirs (Traduction de Mile. M. Renaud.), Bull. de la Societe d'Etude des formes humaines. Annee 4 :3-22.
• The Skin Colors of the Races of Mankind, Nat. Hist. 26 :44-49.
• A Remarkable Family of Albinos, Eugenical News, 11 :5o-52. (With Grace Allen.)

1927

• Heredity of Human Eye Color, Bibliographica Genetica, 3:443-463.

1928

• Control of Universal Mongrelism. How a Eugenist Looks at the Matter of Marriage, Good Health, 10-11 (June).
• Crime, Heredity and Environment, Jour. Hered., 19 :307-313.
• Nasal Breadth in Negro x White Crossing, Eugenical News, 13:36-37. (With Morris Steggerda.)
• Race Crossing in Jamaica, Sci. Mo., 27 :225-238.
• Are There Genetically Based Mental Differences Between the Races? Science, 68 :628.

1929

• Do Races Differ in Mental Capacity? Human Biol., 1.
• Laws Against Cousin Marriages; Would Eugenicists Alter Them? Eugenics, 2 122-23.
• Race Crossing in Jamaica, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. 395. IX -f- 516 pp. 29 plates. (With Morris Steggerda
  Morris Steggerda
  Morris Steggerda was an American physical anthropologist. He worked primarily on Central American and Caribbean populations.-Biography:...
  
  .)

1930

• The Mingling of Races, Chap. XXIII in "Human Biology and Racial Welfare," ed. by E. V. Cowdry, 553-565.
• Intermarriage Between Races; A Eugenic or Dysgenic Force? Eugenics, 3:58-61. (Discussion by C. B. D., Hrdlicka, Newman and Herskowitz.)
• Interracial Tests of Mental Capacity, In Proc. and Papers of 9th International Congress of Psychology.
• Some Criticisms of "Race Crossing in Jamaica", Science, 72:501-502.

1934

• The Value of Genealogical Investigation to the Promotion of the Welfare of Our Families and Our Nation, American Pioneer Records, 2:143-144.
• Better Human Strains, 25th Annual Report Board of Visitors, Letchworth Village, 49-51.
• How Early in Ontogeny Do Human Racial Characters Show Themselves? Eugen Fischer
  Eugen Fischer
  Eugen Fischer was a German professor of medicine, anthropology and eugenics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics between 1927 and 1942...
  
  -Festband, Zeitschr. f. Morph. u. Anthrop., 34 :76-78.

1935

• Influence of Economic Conditions on the Mixture of Races, Zeitschrift fir Rassenkunde, 1 :17-19.

1937

• An Improved Technique for Measuring Head Features, Growth, 1 :3~5.

1938

• Genetics of Human Inter-Racial Hybrids, Current Science. Special Number on "Genetics" (March) 34-36.

1939

• The Genetical Basis of Resemblance in the Form of the Nose, in Kultur and Rasse, Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag Otto Reches, pp. 60-64. J. F. Lehmann's Verlag München/Berlin.

1940

• Developmental Curve of Head Height/Head Length Ratio and Its Inheritance, Amer. Jour. Phys. Anthrop., 26:187-190.

1944

• Dr. Storr's Facial Type of the Feeble-Minded, Amer. Jour. Men. Def., 48:339-344.

External links

• NAS Biographical Memoir of Charles Benedict Davenport by Oscar Riddle
• A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Charles Davenport at www.pbs.org
• Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, (New York / London: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003);
• Elof Axel Carlson
  Elof Axel Carlson
  Elof Axel Carlson is distinguished teaching professor emeritus at State University of New York at Stony Brook, as well as an American geneticist and noted historian of Science. Dr. Carlson earned his B.A. in 1953 from New York University, and his PhD in 1958 in zoology from Indiana University...
  
  , "Times of triumph, Times of Doubt, science and the battle for the public trust", (Cold Spring Harbor; Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2006) ISBN 0-87969-805-5
• International Eugenics
• 8. The Nazi Connection

See also

• Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive
  Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive
  At the end of World War II, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society was renamed the Max Planck Society, and the institutes associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were renamed "Max Planck" institutes. The records that were archived under the former Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its institutes were placed in the...