Biological Determinism and the Narrative of Adjustment: The High School Biology Textbooks of Truman Jesse Moon, c. 1921–1963

Abstract

While the mainline eugenics movement in early 20th century was closely associated with racism and the European Holocaust and was present in biology textbooks in the early 20 th century, the following article finds that a transformed eugenics could be found the U.S. science curriculum by mid-century. The following article analyzes the content of 73 high school biology textbooks published between 1914-1964, and traces the patterns in their eugenic content. Those patterns are then compared to the eugenic content in science textbooks written by Truman Jesse Moon and published by Henry Holt between 1921-1963 . Between 1947-1963, and drawing upon eugenics, the series consistently suggested a broad narrative to their adolescent readers. Identified as a "narrative of adjustment," it contained direct, albeit nonracial, political implications. Rooted as it was in a reform view of eugenics, it built on a dialectical nature-nurture paradigm for human development; on insights from twin studies; on IQ testing; and on the presumption that each individual's immutable heredity sets limits on achievement. The Moon series served as a conduit for this reform version of eugenics, and provided its high school readers with a lens through which to understand themselves and their social world. Placed in the context of a national policy to make schooling socially efficient, the texts provided their readers with a specific life narrative, a narrative of adjustment. Its parameters were clear. Readers should accept their fixed heredity, work hard, and adjust to the world as they find it.Man, more than any other organism, adjusts his life to his surroundings. High mentality makes these adjustments possible. The complex nature of human society requires that each individual develop his inherited abilities in the form of trades, skills, and professions. One may become a lawyer, a doctor, a musician, a carpenter, or a mechanic as a result of a long period of training and practice.

“At a Glance:” The Role of Diagrammatic Representations in Eugenics Appropriations of the “Infamous Juke Family”

“… 28 See Selden ( 2007 ). A notable example can be found in the university textbook Genetics: An Introduction to the Study of Heredity by Herbert E. Walter, where the explanation of the diagram of the triangle of life is used as the outright beginning of the book.…”

Black Minds Matter: The Academic Identity of First Year African American STEM Students

“…Although the IQ test was never intended to serve as a gross generalization of smartness, eugenicists capitalized on their agenda and began to develop educational testing, health screenings, and mental assessments as a means to sort and categorize society (Osgood, 2010). From government to teacher education training programs to curriculum in high schools as well as colleges and universities, eugenics ideology was widespread, well received, and considered a socially acceptable practice (Reddy, 2007;Seldon, 2007;Osgood, 2010).…”