Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gq7q9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T10:51:58.835Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS ON RACE AND EUGENICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2023

Luca Fiorito  and
Valentina Erasmo Open the ORCID record for Valentina Erasmo [Opens in a new window]
Luca Fiorito*
Affiliation:
Luca Fiorito: University of Palermo.
Valentina Erasmo
Affiliation:
Valentina Erasmo: Economy of Francesco Academy.
*
Email: luca.fiorito.1967@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Franklin H. Giddings can be considered one of the founding fathers of sociology in the United States. With many of his contemporaries, Giddings shared a firm commitment to eugenics, scientific racism, and race-conscious imperialism—a biologically rooted impetus that recent literature has placed at the core of the Progressive Era reform agenda, and which was particularly strong among the most sociologically inclined figures of the period. The aim of this article is to present a discussion of Giddings’s views on race, immigration, eugenics, and American imperialism, and how these views evolved over time. What follows adds to our general understanding of the extent to which racial and eugenic considerations permeated American social thought during the first decades of the last century and how, in the specific case of Giddings, this influence found expression in an inherently ambiguous and often contradictory fashion.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , First View , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the History of Economics Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, and Baiocchi, Gianpaolo. 2007. “Anything but Racism. How Sociologists Limit the Signification of Racism.” In Hernan, Vera and Feagin, Joe R., eds., Handbook of Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations. New York: Springer, pp. 79–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bramen, Carrie T. 2000. The Uses of Variety: Modern Americanism and the Quest for National Distinctiveness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, John Bates, and Giddings, Franklin H.. 1888. The Modern Distributive Process. Boston: Ginn & Company.Google Scholar
Commons, John R. 1907. Races and Immigrants in America. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Degler, Carl N. 1991. In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dugdale, Robert L. 1920. T he Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity. Fourth edition, with an Introduction by Giddings, Franklin H.. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.Google Scholar
Ellis, Mark. 2013. Race Harmony and Black Progress: Jack Woofter and the Interracial Cooperation Movement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Fairchild, Henry P. 1911. “The Paradox of Immigration.” American Journal of Sociology 17 (2): 254–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Stephen C. 2015. Philosophy of African American Studies: Nothing Left of Blackness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorito, Luca, and Orsi, Cosma. 2016. “Anti-Semitism Progressive Era Social Science: The Case of John R. Commons.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 38 (1): 55–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1887. “The Theory of Profit-Sharing.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 1 (3): 367–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1889. “The Cost of Production of Capital.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 3 (4): 503–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1890a. “The Theory of Capital.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 4 (2): 172–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1890b. “Malthusianism and Working Women.” Ethical Record 3 (July): 84–91.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1893. “The Ethics of Social Progress.” International Journal of Ethics 3 (2): 137–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1894. “Review of Social Evolution by Benjamin Kidd.” Political Science Quarterly 9 (4): 730–734.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1896. The Principles of Sociology: An Analysis of the Phenomena of Association and of Social Organization. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1897. The Theory of Socialization: A Syllabus of Sociological Principles for the Use of College and University Classes. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1898a. The Elements of Sociology. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1898b. The Principles of Sociology: An Analysis of the Phenomena of Association and of Social Organization. Third edition. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1898c. “Review of L’Avenir de la Race Blanche by Jacques Novicow.” Political Science Quarterly 13 (3): 569–571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1898d. “Imperialism?” Political Science Quarterly 13 (4): 585–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1900. Democracy and Empire: With Studies of Their Psychological, Economic, and Moral Foundations. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1901. Inductive Sociology: A Syllabus of Methods, Analyses and Classifications, and Provisionally Formulated Laws. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1903a. “Sociological Questions.” Forum 35 (4): 245–255.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1903b. “The American People.” International Quarterly 7 (June): 281–299.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1904. “The American Idea.” Harper’s Weekly 48 (November 5): 1702–1713.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1906. “Race Improvement Through Civilization.” Independent 61 (February 15): 383–384.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1919. “The Seven Devils.” Independent 99 (September 13): 356–357.Google Scholar
Giddings, Franklin H. 1924. The Scientific Study of Society. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Hobson, John A. 1902. “The Scientific Basis of Imperialism.” Political Science Quarterly 17 (3): 460–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Independent. 1916. “Was the Doctor Right? Some Independent Opinions.” Independent 85 (January 3): 23–27.Google Scholar
Kidd, Benjamin. 1898. The Control of the Tropics. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Laughlin, Harry H. 1921. “The Socially Inadequate: How Shall We Designate and Sort Them?” American Journal of Sociology 27 (1): 54–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, Thomas C. 2016. Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Literary Digest . 1908. “Are We a People?” Literary Digest 37 (July 11): 37–38.Google Scholar
McGilvary, Evander B. 1900. “Review of Democracy and Empire, with Studies of Their Psychological, Economic and Moral Foundations by Franklin Henry Giddings.” Philosophical Review 9 (6): 651–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montague, Francis C. 1900. “Review of Democracy and Empire, with Studies of Their Psychological, Economic and Moral Foundations by Franklin Henry Giddings.” Economic Journal 10 (39): 377–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New York Times . 1912. “Race War Coming, Dr. Giddings Says. Sociologist Declares Enfranchisement of Negro Was a Great Mistake.” New York Times, September 26.Google Scholar
New York Times . 1915. “Defective Baby Dies as Decreed: Physician, Refusing Saving Operation, Defends Course as Wisest for Country’s Good.” New York Times, November 18.Google Scholar
Novicow, Jacques. 1897. L’Avenir de la Race Blanche; Critique du Pessimisme Contemporain. Paris: F. Alcan.Google Scholar
Odum, Howard W. 1951. American Sociology: The Story of Sociology in the United States through 1950. New York: Longmans, Green.Google Scholar
Page, Charles H. 1969. Class and American Sociology: From Ward to Ross. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Patten, Simon N. 1902. The Theory of Prosperity. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Pernick, Martin S. 1996. The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of Defective “Babies” in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Recchiuti, John Louis. 2007. Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Reid, G. Archdall. 1906. “Heredity and Social Problems.” Independent 61 (February 15): 379–383.Google Scholar
Report of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 1904. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 24: 273–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ripley, William Z. 1899. The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study. New York: D. Appleton and Co.Google Scholar
Ross, Dorothy. 1991. The Origins of American Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Salter, William M. 1900. “Review of Democracy and Empire, with Studies of Their Psychological, Economic and Moral Foundations by Franklin Henry Giddings.” International Journal of Ethics 11 (1): 123–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, Robert W. 1992. “Starting a Department and Getting It Under Way: Sociology at Columbia University, 1891–1914.” Minerva 30 (4): 497–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Vernon J. 1989. From a Caste to a Minority: Changing Attitudes of American Sociologists Toward Afro-Americans, 1896–1945. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar