The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness

One of the things I find most fascinating about Henry Herbert Goddard’s book from 1912 is the usage of photographs as proper rather than common names. Most of the photographs published around the turn of the century were of “types” rather than people. Goddard goes to great lengths to identify each of the people in the photographs and to describe the method of study used. It is a forerunner of the case study, a now standard research method. The “thick descriptions” which accompany these texts are disturbing but not prurient when compared with the later versions from the 1930s.

Reading it reminded me of Sondra Perl’s “The Composting Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers” from 1978. Goddard’s book uses an elaborate notational system to describe all of the social dysfunctions of the Kallikak family (a pseudonym, of course—just like most modern case studies). Like modern case studies, it also draws rather far-fetched conclusions from supposedly “scientific” information. I’m sorry if my disdain for case-study research shows—I think it is the worst crock of half-cooked shite ever confused with “science.”

Goddard goes to great lengths to establish both the history and current status of one of his research subjects, Deborah Kallikak. The retouching on the photographs of Deborah is minimal, if there is any retouching at all. The photographs of the girl being “helped” by the well meaning social workers are not significantly distorted (unless you count the cheesy posing) when compared with almost every other photograph in the book. The photographs of the rest of the family show noticeable retouching around the eyes and mouths to accentuate a “dumb” appearance.

The photographs turn the girl into an interesting, “feeble-minded” version of the Gibson girl.