1912: Henry Goddard publishes The Kallikak family: A study in the heredity of feeble-mindedness
The scientist behind this study of a poor rural white family (inspired by a similar study of the Juke family) acknowledged that many of the people “diagnosed” in the study had been dead for generations, and that others had been diagnosed solely on the basis of facial appearance. Before long it acquired a reputation as a poor piece of scientific work, and was later dismissed as highly fraudulent.
That the study was initially popular underlines the fact that ideas, such as a natural predisposition for feeble-mindedness amongst the rural poor, were commonplace, and even respected, in scientific and social circles.
