Orphans of Davenport, The, Marilyn Brookwood
Orphans of Davenport, The, Marilyn Brookwood
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
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Orphans of Davenport, The
Eugenics, the Great Depression, and the War Over Children's Intelligence

Author: Marilyn Brookwood

Narrator: Susie Berneis

Unabridged: 12 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/29/2021


Synopsis

Doomed from birth was how psychologist Harold Skeels described two toddler girls at the Orphans Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls had inherited their parents low intelligence and sent them to an institution for the feebleminded to be cared for by moron women. To their astonishment, under the womens care, the childrens IQ scores became normal. This revolutionary finding, replicated in eleven more retarded children, infuriated leading psychologists, all eugenicists unwilling to accept that nature and nurture work together to decide our fates. Recasting Skeels and his team as intrepid heroes, Marilyn Brookwood weaves years of prodigious archival research to show how after decades of backlash, the Iowans finally prevailed. In a dangerous time of revived white supremacy, The Orphans of Davenport is an essential account, confirmed today by neuroscience, of the power of the Iowans scientific vision.

About Marilyn Brookwood

Marilyn Brookwood is a psychologist who has worked in public education and held an adjunct faculty position at the College of New Rochelle in New York. In 2008, she earned her third postgraduate degree in Harvard University’s Mind, Brain, and Education Program.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jane on February 26, 2022

This book is stellar and for anybody who cares about children--and the people they grow up to become--it is required reading. I had never heard about the ground breaking research that these two young psychologists did in Iowa and the battle to get their findings a hearing. Its an amazing and fascina......more

Goodreads review by Marta Demianiuk on June 20, 2024

Wydawałoby się, że zajmowanie się jakąkolwiek dziedziną nauki wymaga otwartej głowy i gotowości na nowe odkrycia. Niesamowite, jak ego niektórych naukowców jest dla nich od tego ważniejsze. Taki mam wniosek po tej książce. Bardzo ciekawy tytuł, choć miałam moment kryzysu i byłam bliska zrobienia DNF.......more

Goodreads review by Lori L on July 25, 2021

The Orphans of Davenport: Eugenics, the Great Depression, and the War over Children's Intelligence by Marilyn Brookwood is a very highly recommended meticulously researched and thoughtfully presented examination of the early psychologists in Iowa during the Great Depression who studied and challenge......more

Goodreads review by Helen on April 22, 2022

An excellent account of the studies done on how proper care and attention in early childhood can affect intelligence. The studies were carried out in Iowa in the 1930’s and documents the struggles the young phychologists had to get their results accepted.......more

Goodreads review by klaudia on December 27, 2024

po prawie 6 miesiącach skończona! temat dosyć ciekawy ale że wszystko było takie mocno naukowe to potrzebowałam czystej głowy żeby to czytać i niestety, musiałam tekst dawkować. jest to tak niszowy temat, że nie dziwię się jak mało osób to czyta, a momentmi szkoda.......more