(Published in 1937 -- the year before Hilter's annexation ...)
Published in 1937 -- the year before Hilter's annexation of the Sudetenland -- Earnest Albert Hooton's "Apes, Men, and Morons" is an example of the then fashionable notion that the human race can save itself only by enacting aggressive measures to promote selective breeding.
From a review in AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH May, 1938:
"The last chapter sums up what we must do to be saved. The author recognizes that there are many gaps in our knowledge of human biology and that we do not know enough to breed geniuses, but is firm in his opinion that we must bring about a 'sit-down reproductive strike of the busy breeders among the morons, criminals, and social ineffectuals of our population.' He holds that a biological purge is the essential prerequisite for a social and spiritual salvation. 'We must stop trying to cure malignant biological growths with patent sociological nostrums. The emergency demands a surgical operation.' "
Beyond the obvious arrogance of such a position (there is little doubt Hooton considered himself and his progeny exempt from the "surgical operation" he calls for), Hooten says nothing as to whom should be entrusted with the power to identify the "social ineffectuals" among us who comprise the "malignant biological growth" to be purged.
Worse, Hooten's endorsement of the very arguments Hitler was at that very moment using to justify the killing thousands of innocent German civilians clearly indicates socially ineffectual thinking. By Hooten's own logic then, he is himself guilty of social inefficacy, and therefore worthy of purging. Oh the irony.
As perfect an example of comfortable, privileged, American armchair Nazism as can be found.
Indian village site and cemetery near Madisonville, Ohio, Volume 8
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections
such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact,
or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,
have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works
worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
++++
The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification:
++++
Indian Village Site And Cemetery Near Madisonville, Ohio, Volume 8; Papers Of The Peabody Museum Of American Archaeology And Ethnology, Harvard University; Indian Village Site And Cemetery Near Madisonville, Ohio; Earnest Albert Hooton
Earnest Albert Hooton, Charles Clark Willoughby
The Museum, 1920
Social Science; Ethnic Studies; Native American Studies; Indians of North America; Madisonville (Cincinnati, Ohio); Madisonville (Ohio); Madisonville, Ohio; Mounds; Social Science / Archaeology; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Native American Studies; Unionville (Lake County, Ohio)
Earnest Albert Hooton was an American anthropologist. He worked on racial classification, and also sat on the Committee on the Negro.
Background
Earnest Albert Hooton was born on November 20, 1887 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, United States. He was the son of William Hooton, a Methodist minister who had emigrated from Nottinghamshire, England, and Margaret Newton, who was a teacher.
He was raised in a series of small towns in the eastern section of Wisconsin, moving every three to five years as his father, following the practice of the Methodist ministry, changed his parish periodically.
Growing up in a ministerial household, he was thoroughly exposed to religious doctrine and to the social duties of a pastor's family. Although in later life he showed no interest in organized or ritualistic religion, his early pastoral environment may have been responsible for the benevolent and concerned relationships that Hooton maintained with students and colleagues throughout his adult years. Hooton was an extremely precocious child, although a somewhat sickly one. He became nearsighted at an early age and was subject to repeated bouts of bronchitis that kept him out of school for long periods of time. Fortunately, his mother's learning and skill as a teacher compensated for these scholastic lapses.
Education
At the age of eleven Hooton entered high school at Mani-towoc, Wisconsin, in his own words "a pallid spectacled child among bearded stalwarts of eighteen or nineteen years who chewed tobacco and spat the juice out of the window. " In 1907, Hooton graduated from Lawrence College, in Appleton, Wis. , where he had majored in Latin, a subject his mother believed essential to a sound education. In the same year he became eligible for a Rhodes scholarship, having passed an examination in Latin, Greek, and mathematics, but he did not present himself as a candidate until he had completed his graduate studies in classics at the University of Wisconsin, three years later. On being awarded the Rhodes scholarship, Hooton entered University College, Oxford, in 1910.
He intended to continue his classical studies, but R. R. Marett, the well-known social anthropologist at Exeter College, quickly captured Hooton's interest. As a result Hooton transferred to anthropology and in his second year at Oxford became demonstrator in physical anthropology. Although he continued to pursue cultural anthropology and archaeology, he now became increasingly involved in human anatomy, physical anthropology, and comparative studies of the human skeletal structure. He also completed his thesis in classics and, in 1911, was awarded the Ph. D. by the University of Wisconsin; during the same academic year (1911-1912), he received a diploma in anthropology (with distinction) from Oxford. In 1913 he won the research degree of Bachelor of Letters from Oxford.
Career
Hooton was appointed, in 1913, to an instructorship in anthropology at Harvard University, at that time one of only a handful of American universities and colleges where anthropology was taught. Hooton remained at Harvard for the rest of his career, becoming a professor of anthropology in 1930. He was notably successful as a teacher, attracting an unusual number of young physical anthropologists to his department. His scientific career was multifaceted.
Hooton's first major research was a study of the racial origins of the prehistoric population of the Canary Islands. Begun in 1915, it was published in 1925 as The Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary Islands. This was followed in 1930 by The Indians of Pecos Pueblo, an ambitious attempt to define the racial types of a prehistoric Indian population and to determine the changes that had taken place in time. His statistical analysis, even more sophisticated than in his previous work, led him to the identification of various strains in the Indian population and to a tentative reconstruction of their history.
During the 1920s Hooton's interest in the biological characteristics of living populations led him to study the body traits of the American criminal population. This was the most elaborate study of its kind ever undertaken; it was largely concerned with racial as well as constitutional correlations. At about the same time Hooton also became engaged in a national survey of Irish physical types based on a sample of 10, 000 male and 2, 000 female subjects, a study planned as part of an interrelated archaelogical and cultural investigation. Monographs containing the results were subsequently published jointly with the students who had done the fieldwork. With the outbreak of World War II, Hooton became involved in planning various projects of applied anthropology for the armed forces. Under his direction his students carried out field studies to determine the normal ranges of various body dimensions for the design of equipment used in airplane turrets. As an out-growth of these researches Hooton also undertook the collection of detailed information on various body dimensions and proportions necessary in the sizing of clothing and standard gear. These latter investigations provided further incentive to his interest in body form and constitutional variations. One of his last works, supported by the Grant Fund, was based on a survey of Harvard undergraduates and was largely concerned with constitution. This was published under the title Young Man, You Are Normal. Up From the Ape, Hooton's first popular book, was published in 1931. This was followed by Apes, Men and Morons (1937), Twilight of Man (1939), Crime and the Man (1939), works assembled mainly from articles written for popular magazines and from lectures which he gave all over the country.
Achievements
As a researcher, Hooton brought innovative techniques and new approaches to physical anthropology. He was, moreover, a delightful speaker and a skillful writer and popularizer of his subject. In his many works Hooton ranged widely over the new insights that physical anthropology and closely related fields were providing into the nature of man and took occasion to apply them to the social and biological problems facing modern society.
In 1947 Hooton was awarded the Viking Fund Medal by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
Hooton was married to Mary Beidler Camp, whom he had met in 1912 when returning from Oxford. According to a letter he wrote years later, he then "pursued this girl about Europe and ultimately succeeded in getting her to agree to marry me. This seems to have been the brightest thing I ever have done. " Their Cambridge home became a widely appreciated tea-time meeting place for students and visiting celebrities. They had three children.
