The Nature of Difference Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics

by Hammonds, Evelynn M.; Herzig, Rebecca M.

• ISBN13: 9780262582759
• ISBN10: 0262582759
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-23
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

The Nature of Differencedocuments how distinctions between people have been generated in and by the life sciences. Through insightful commentaries and a wide-ranging selection of primary documents by the editors, it charts the shifting boundaries of science and race through more than two centuries of American history. The documents, primarily writings by authoritative, eminent scientists intended for their professional peers, show how various sciences of race have changed their object of study over time: from racial groups to types to populations to genomes and beyond. The book's thematic and synthetic approach reveals the profoundly diverse array of practices--countless acts of observation, quantification, and experimentation--that enabled the consequential categorizations we inherit. The documents--most reproduced in their entirety--range from dictionary definitions of racepublished between 1886 and 2005 to an exchange of letters between Benjamin Baneker and Thomas Jefferson; from Samuel Cartwright's 1851 "Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race" to a 1950 UNESCO declaration that race is a social myth; from a 1928 paper detailing the importance of the glands in shaping human nature to a 2005 report of the discovery of a genetic basis for skin color. Such documents, given context by the editors' introductions to each thematic chapter, provide scholars, journalists, and general readers with the rich historical background necessary for understanding contemporary developments in racial science.

Author Biography

Evelynn M. Hammonds is Dean of Harvard College and Barbara Gutman Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930. Rebecca M. Herzig is Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Bates College and the author of Suffering for Science: Reason and Sacrifice in Modern America.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xi
Dictionary Definitions of "Race"	p. 1
Introduction	p. 3
A Complete Pronouncing Medical Dictionary: Embracing the Terminology of Medicine and the Kindred Sciences, with their Signification, Etymology, and Pronunciation (1886)	p. 4
A Practical Medical Dictionary (1911)	p. 5
Gould's Medical Dictionary: Containing All the Words and Phrases Generally Used in Medicine and the Allied Sciences, with Their Proper Pronunciation, Derivation, and Definition Based on Recent Medical Literature (1928)	p. 5
Dictionary of Anthropology (1956)	p. 6
A Dictionary of Scientific Terms (1957)	p. 6
Dictionary of the Biological Sciences (1967)	p. 7
A Dictionary of Anthropology (1972)	p. 7
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of the Life Sciences (1976)	p. 8
Macmillan Dictionary of Anthropology (1986)	p. 8
International Dictionary of Medicine and Biology (1986)	p. 8
Dictionary of Genetics and Cell Biology (1987)	p. 9
Glossary of Genetics: Classical and Molecular (1991)	p. 9
Encyclopedia & Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, & Allied Health (1992)	p. 10
A Dictionary of Genetics (1997)	p. 10
The Cambridge Dictionary of Human Biology and Evolution (2005)	p. 10
Anatomical Observations	p. 13
Introduction	p. 15
"Laws" (Query XIV) (1781-1782)	p. 19
"Letter to the Secretary of State" (1791)	p. 33
Thomas Jefferson's reply to Banneker (1791)	p. 36
"The Effect of Circumstances upon the Physical Man" (1854)	p. 37
"Peculiarities in the Structure and Diseases of the Ear of the Negro" (1887)	p. 42
"The Deformity Termed `Pug Nose' and Its Correction by a Simple Operation" (1887)	p. 52
"The Hair and Wool of the Different Species of Man" (1850)	p. 58
"On Some of the Apparent Peculiarities of Partuition in the Negro Races" (1875)	p. 59
Immunity and Contagion	p. 61
Introduction	p. 63
"Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race" (1851)	p. 67
"The Plague Spot" (1878)	p. 87
"Consumption Among the Indians" (1887)	p. 89
"Does Pulmonary Consumption Tend to Exterminate the American Indian?" (1887)	p. 95
"The Study of Consumption Among the Indians" (1887)	p. 100
Evolution and Degeneration	p. 103
Introduction	p. 105
"The Impossibility of Acclimatizing Races" (1861)	p. 113
"Vital Statistics of the Negro" (1892)	p. 116
"The Influence of Environment and Race on Diseases" (1910)	p. 129
"How to Improve the Race" (1914)	p. 135
Techniques of Measurement	p. 145
Introduction	p. 147
Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers (1869)	p. 151
"Some Recent Criticisms of Physical Anthropology" (1899)	p. 155
"Observations on the Sweat Glands of Tropical and Northern Races" (1917)	p. 161
"The Color-Top Method of Estimating Skin Pigmentation" (1930)	p. 168
"Race and Runners" (1936)	p. 179
Glandular Differences	p. 195
Introduction	p. 197
"The Gland As a Clue to the Mystery of Human Faces" (1920)	p. 201
"Man and the Endocrines: With Stress on the Female" (1921)	p. 205
The Glands Regulating Personality: A Study of the Glands of Internal Secretion in Relation to the Types of Human Nature (1921)	p. 210
"The Relation of the Endocrine Glands to Heredity and Development" (1922)	p. 223
Endocrinology in Modern Practice (1939)	p. 231
Hybridity and Admixture	p. 235
Introduction	p. 237
"Effects of Race Intermingling" (1917)	p. 241
"Biological and Social Consequences of Race-Crossing" (1926)	p. 245
"Racial Fusion Among the California and Nevada Indians" (1943)	p. 255
"The Physical Characteristics of the Hybrid" (1944)	p. 266
Toward Genetics	p. 277
Introduction	p. 279
"The Race Concept in Biology" (1941)	p. 281
"Rh and the Races of Man" (1951)	p. 287
"On the Non-Existence of Human Races" (1962)	p. 296
"The Genetic Basis of Human Races" (1968)	p. 302
The End of Race?	p. 307
Introduction	p. 309
"Statement on Race" (1950)	p. 313
"Statement on Biological Aspects of Race" (1996)	p. 319
"Statement on Race" (1999)	p. 322
"Categorization of Humans in Biomedical Research: Genes, Race, and Disease" (2002)	p. 325
The Importance of Collecting Data and Doing Social Scientific Research on Race (2003)	p. 346
"Zebrafish Researchers Hook Gene for Human Skin Color" (2005)	p. 358
"SLC24A5, a Putative Cation Exchanger, Affects Pigmentation in Zebrafish and Humans" (2005)	p. 360
Index	p. 369
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