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

1 This work has been sponsored in part by a grant from the Spencer Foundation and a sabbatical award from the University of Maryland College Park.

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 20th 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.

Notes

1 This work has been sponsored in part by a grant from the Spencer Foundation and a sabbatical award from the University of Maryland College Park.