Human Biology 1918-1945
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2014 Managing Life: Human Biology 1918-1945 Jason Alan Oakes University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons Recommended Citation Oakes, Jason Alan, "Managing Life: Human Biology 1918-1945" (2014). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1390. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1390 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1390 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Managing Life: Human Biology 1918-1945 Abstract In the interwar period between 1918 and 1945, before the programmable computer and information theory were mobilized by biologists and economists as heuristics and instruments, the study of "man the animal" as a biological and social being was a managerial and bureaucratic pursuit. This pursuit was informed by changes in organization, the work process, and other institutions then taking place across wide swaths of American society. Coming as it did from such diverse sources, the field of human biology was always a loosely organized project, whose elements were in dynamic tension with each other. Human biology's research and popularizations would also necessarily be in tension with earlier eugenic arguments about heredity, even as they shifted the focus of concern onto the fields of human population growth, human variability, and social order. Two of the biggest recipients of human biology funding in the 1920s were the research groups led by Raymond Pearl at Johns Hopkins University and Lawrence Henderson at Harvard, particularly its business school. Henderson and Pearl were not only interested in solving social problems but also in establishing themselves in their fields. This consideration influenced their choice of audiences away from reform-oriented intellectuals and towards those they most directly needed to convince of their project's efficacy: university administrators, government officials, and business managers. For Pearl the problem of population growth and the differential rate of reproduction between native whites and immigrants would resolve itself through the natural action of the population's self-regulating capacities. Henderson on the other hand, and his allies at Harvard Business School Elton Mayo and Wallace Donham, saw an organizational and social world thrown badly out of equilibrium by the rapid changes of the early 20th century. They prescribed an elite cadre of manager-administrators to play a leading role in the key institutions of American life in order to reestablish equilibrium through their knowledge of "man the animal." What united Pearl and Henderson politically was their elitist conceptions of citizenship and science, and their animosity for progressive social reform, "uplift" and the New Deal. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History and Sociology of Science First Advisor Susan Lindee Second Advisor John Tresch Keywords Alfred Lotka, Elton Mayo, Equilibrium, Lawrence Henderson, Raymond Pearl, System Subject Categories History of Science, Technology, and Medicine This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1390 MANAGING LIFE: HUMAN BIOLOGY 1918-1945 Jason Oakes A DISSERTATION in History and Sociology of Science Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Supervisor of Dissertation Co-Supervisor of Dissertation ___________________ _______________________ M. Susan Lindee John Tresch Professor of History and Sociology of Science Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science Graduate Group Chairperson __________________ John Tresch Associate Professor, History and Sociology of Science Dissertation Committee: M. Susan Lindee, Professor of History and Sociology of Science John Tresch, Associate Professor, History and Sociology of Science Elihu M. Gerson, Director, Tremont Research Institute MANAGING LIFE: HUMAN BIOLOGY 1918-1945 COPYRIGHT 2014 Jason Alan Oakes This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ny-sa/2.0/ iii My deep and heartfelt thanks to all my family and friends, chosen and not. iv ABSTRACT MANAGING LIFE: HUMAN BIOLOGY 1918-1945 Jason Oakes M. Susan Lindee John Tresch In the interwar period between 1918 and 1945, before the programmable computer and information theory were mobilized by biologists and economists as heuristics and instruments, the study of “man the animal” as a biological and social being was a managerial and bureaucratic pursuit. This pursuit was informed by changes in organization, the work process, and other institutions then taking place across wide swaths of American society. Coming as it did from such diverse sources, the field of human biology was always a loosely organized project, whose elements were in dynamic tension with each other. Human biology’s research and popularizations would also necessarily be in tension with earlier eugenic arguments about heredity, even as they shifted the focus of concern onto the fields of human population growth, human variability, and social order. Two of the biggest recipients of human biology funding in the 1920s were the research groups led by Raymond Pearl at Johns Hopkins University and Lawrence Henderson at Harvard, particularly its business school. Henderson and Pearl were not only interested in solving social problems but also in establishing themselves in their fields. This consideration influenced their choice of audiences away from reform-oriented intellectuals and towards those they most directly needed to convince of their project's efficacy: university administrators, government officials, and business managers. For Pearl the problem of population growth and the differential rate of reproduction between native whites and immigrants would resolve itself through the natural action of the population's self-regulating capacities. Henderson on the other hand, and his allies at Harvard Business School Elton Mayo and Wallace Donham, saw an organizational and social world thrown badly out of equilibrium by the rapid changes of the early 20th century. They prescribed an elite cadre of manager-administrators to play a leading role in the key institutions of American life in order to reestablish equilibrium through their knowledge of “man the animal.” What united Pearl and Henderson politically was their elitist conceptions of citizenship and science, and their animosity for progressive social reform, “uplift” and the New Deal. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................IV CHAPTER 1: THE BIOLOGY OF LIBERALISM ............................................................. 1 What was human biology? .................................................................................................................... 1 The Problem of Complicated Things .................................................................................................... 6 Institutional Rationalization and the Managerial Revolution............................................................... 8 Scientific Anti-Democrats ................................................................................................................... 13 Description of Chapters ...................................................................................................................... 16 A concluding note on studying research programs in human biology ................................................ 19 CHAPTER 2: THE HUMAN BIOLOGY OF RAYMOND PEARL ..............................21 “…Mencken ain’t done right by our Pearl”........................................................................................ 21 Pearl’s Early Life and Career............................................................................................................. 26 The Logistic Curve.............................................................................................................................. 38 The Institute for Biological Research.................................................................................................. 43 Raymond Pearl’s Center of Calculation in World War I ................................................................... 49 The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Problems ......................................... 53 The First General Assembly meeting in Paris, July 4th 1928: “I am pretty sore about the whole matter, but there is no use crying over spilled milk” .......................................................................... 57 The Second General Assembly in London, June 15th-18th 1931: “An Already Sufficiently Harassed World.” ............................................................................................................................................... 59 The Third General Assembly in Berlin, 1935: “…he who pays the piper has a right to call the tune.” ............................................................................................................................................................. 63 CHAPTER