Third Annual Report of the Eugenics Committee
Web version by: Nancy Gallagher
The first report of this Survey was published in 1927 through the generosity of a friend, Clarence Morgan of Shelburne, under the title, "Lessons From a Eugenical Survey of Vermont." A year ago the "Second Annual Report" appeared. Both of these reports, covering together the work of two and a half years, had to do with families which had figured conspicuously in the institutions and poor-relief of Vermont. Their contributions to their communities we found to be pretty consistently of the wrong sort; their cost to these communities a steady drain on the tax payer.
Two purposes in selecting low grade families for our earlier work were:
1. To accumulate facts having a clear bearing upon social betterment problems in Vermont and to classify these facts for future reference by legitimate organizations, state departments and authorized social workers.
2. The discovery of material from which useful conclusions might be drawn for scientific purposes such as the study of hereditary tendencies as compared with effects of environment.
As regards the first of these purposes, the amount of material now in our files, carefully classified and cross-indexed, is, we feel, ample justification for the time, effort and money expended. Those who have consulted our files have found them of great use. In regard to the second purpose, there has been gratifying evidence of a considerable amount of interest in our findings amongst scientific workers in the field of human heredity all over the country, as indicated by the demand for and comment upon our annual reports.
The Survey is peculiar in that it is not a part of any institution for defectives and is being conducted as a university enterprise with impartial scientific motivation. Early in the history of the Survey, the Advisory Committee went on record as favoring the passage of certain laws looking toward the improvement of the population of Vermont by some restrictive measure. The Survey was first conceived as a means of applying scientific technique to the question of the wisdom of such measures. The results have in no way lessened the faith of the Committee in such laws, but the scope of the Survey has greatly broadened so that any particular form of legislation no longer constitutes its chief concern. It became apparent early in the history of the enterprise that its scope was much broader than that.
The question has frequently and properly been raised as to why we centered our efforts upon low grade families. Since defects and delinquency had already been made a matter of record in the cases of those who had found their way to the state institutions, these traits furnished the easiest and most obvious starting point.
In order to present the other side of the story it was determined as indicated in the last report to make an investigation of the recurrence, suggesting hereditary transmission, of desirable qualities in the families that had been previously studied, and also in new families.
During the year the indexing and cross-indexing of the families on file has been continued, so that now all individuals of the main pedigrees are included, with cross references.
Eleven clock-dial charts have been added this year, making the total number thirteen‐‐one for each of the main pedigrees.
Clippings having to do with crime, bankruptcies, and other items of interest to the Survey, and news from the various towns, particularly those in which we are working or are likely to work, are taken daily from the Burlington Free Press, and filed for reference.
During the course of our study we have come across three types of corruptions of French names:
1. English pronunciations of the original French spelling.
2. Names in which the spelling has been changed to agree with the English pronunciation.
3. Translations of the original French.
It was not only interesting but also extremely useful to make some study of these names and their corruptions because in several cases this knowledge enabled us to connect branches of a family in which the connection would not have been otherwise evident, as with Riley‐‐Brouillard.
The information was gathered in interviews with French Canadians, from the records of St. Joseph's Church in Burlington, and from Town Clerks' Records in which the spelling of a name is seen to change through successive generations. It is easy to see that such discrepancies might throw one off: the track for a long time. It is only by accident or after a considerable amount of investigation that this relationship is brought to light.
The following are some of the English names and French equivalents which we have found:
{Table of Names thirdannual-08 and -09}
A much longer list might easily be compiled from the state at large. These names happen to have been encountered in the course of our investigations. A cross-index of ninety French names and their English corruptions has been compiled for reference in our office.
One of the pedigrees, that of the Rector family, which had presented a particularly unfavorable picture because of the prevalence and seriousness of its defects and delinquency, was chosen for investigation in regard to the favorable characteristics to be found in certain of its branches. This we call the study of the "better branches." We undertook to make as thorough a study as possible of several generations in a part of this family which had not previously revealed the presence of serious defects. The Field Investigator accordingly went over the information in our files, and in addition gathered new data from relatives and town officials and interviewed members of the group located in various parts of Vermont and neighboring states.
In this study which is in effect an attempt to estimate the value of the Rector family to society, the terms social, unsocial and undetermined are used with the following meanings:
A. Social individuals‐‐those who are apparently law-abiding, self-supporting and doing some useful work, of whatever intellectual or social class, from mill hands who are said to be "the only respectable members of their immediate family," to professional people who are also active in community affairs.
B. Unsocial individuals‐‐those showing any of a group of defects observable in the family, as follows: 1. Those insane, mentally deficient, or who committed suicide, and those who are said to be "crazy," "low grade," or extremely peculiar. 2. Criminals, delinquents and sex offenders. 3. Those on a low subsistence level‐‐whose homes are dirty, children uncared for, their living meager and uncertain, etc. 4. Dependent
C. Undetermined‐‐those about whom too little is known to make any judgment possible, and those who, while not definitely showing any of the defects, do not seem to show any socially desirable tendencies either.
All figures given are for the direct line, mention being made separately of the mates. Children who died under 16 years of age and about whom nothing is known were omitted.
* * *
John Rector and Rachael Stone were married late in the eighteenth century and lived somewhere in Connecticut. Although little is definitely known of either of them, Rachael is said to have been insane.
They had nine children who lived to adulthood. Of these, six come in our group called undetermined, two in the social group, and one, Asa, who was insane, in the unsocial group.
One of the most striking results of the study was the discovery that all of the defects‐‐not only all of the insanity but also all of the unsocial traits found‐‐were in the descendants of the one insane son, Asa, of John and Rachael.
Both Asa and his wife Ruth were insane, two of their five children were insane, and of their direct descendants, one in every 15.3‐‐6.5 percent‐‐was insane at some time. If it were possible to know very definitely the severity and type of mental disease of both Asa and Ruth, it might be possible to explain the fact that one of their children and a large number of their descendants were normal. It is probable, judging by the evidence offered by other similar investigations in which thorough examination of parents and children was possible, that their psychoses were not of the same type.
It has been stated that the purpose in making the "study of the better branches" was to investigate the recurrence of desirable qualities in this family which had previously been studied because of its defects.
One of the two insane sons of Ruth and Asa started a branch in which 15.4 percent were unsocial‐‐insane, feebleminded, degenerate, sex offenders, worked uncertainly if at all, and subsisted on a low level.
But it is also among the descendants of Asa and Ruth that one of the decidedly better branches appears. Their other son who was at one time insane, went to the far West as a young man and although several of his children were insane, his descendants are otherwise desirable citizens. It is in this branch that the good traits seem to counterbalance the bad. Among its members were eight mill owners of whom two also had two farms, a quarry, and a large orchard; one was a musician and several were teachers. Their mates too were, as a rule, in the social group‐‐there being several school teachers, one musician, several stenographers, successful salesmen, one woman who managed a large boarding house in connection with her husband's mill, one who wrote for newspapers and is said to have been "clever enough to beat lawyers," etc. The women are said to be good housewives and mothers; the men respected, successful members of their communities.
In order that our large chart of the Rector family might indicate the extent and distribution of defects, some of these individuals appear on it in black although they were during the major part of their lives, socially desirable.
The occupational level, so far as known, of the members of the whole family, is shown in the following table. It also makes clear the fact that, although there was considerable insanity in Asa's branch, the occupational level was high. It must be remembered that there are two reasons why this list does not give a complete picture of the occupations of the family:
1. The occupations are not known for all members of the family.
2. The "better branches" were studied more intensively than the others and we therefore know the occupations of a larger percent of people in those than in the other branches.
There is some overlapping of these groups‐‐two of the lumbermen appear also in the group of farmers, and one in the group of skilled laborers; none of the town and state officials devote all of their time to this work‐‐three of them are also farmers and one is a minister.
The extent and distribution of defects and social traits in the entire family is shown graphically in the two-page chart, and summarized in the accompanying figure which shows the distribution by generations. The conclusion drawn from the study is that, in spite of a great diversity in environment and occupation, there is as strong a tendency for the good traits to perpetuate themselves as for the bad.
No great difference is to be seen in the average number of children per individual having desirable characteristics and the average number of children per individual showing tendencies to deficiency and delinquency, the difference being less than 1 percent.
What is most important socially as well as scientifically, a really high degree of excellence of character and achievement has been brought to light in both the "bad" and "better" branches of the family of these two defective people. The good branches of otherwise low grade stocks are thus seen to be capable of making an important contribution morally, intellectually, economically, and socially to the same communities which are at heavy cost to support delinquent and deficient individuals from the same stock. The harm done by one group is thereby to a considerable degree offset by the benefits contributed by another of the same ancestral origin.
This is not to be taken as offsetting any arguments advocating measures for the restriction of propagation by defectives. It is probable that no competent board of examiners would have recommended these people in the better branches for sterilization.
At the joint meeting of the Eugenics Research Association and the American Eugenics Society in New York on June 2, 1928, the members of the Survey staff presented a paper, an abstract of which was published in Eugenical News, Vol. XIII, No. 7, and is here reprinted.
This information was supplemented by charts which we should have been glad to reproduce in this report had our finances justified that expense. We realize that our figures would be more valuable if all the persons listed as feebleminded or as normal could have been given accurate tests by competent psychiatrists. The information in this paper was presented to the societies and is given here with the confidence that in certain respects at least the errors cancel each other leaving a reasonably dependable quotient.
The study is an analysis of the information on file in the office of the Eugenics Survey of Vermont. It was not undertaken as a separate study and no investigation especially for this purpose has been conducted.
Recent studies by various workers, including Paul Popenoe in California, tend to show that the rate of reproduction by the feebleminded is not so high as was formerly supposed. It has been suggested that there may be an automatic check on reproduction‐‐a natural sterility in the worst cases, with a graded degree in others, corresponding roughly to the degree of mental degeneracy. Amos W. Butler found that in Indiana ( 1900) the average number of persons per feebleminded family was 3.76, this number including only the children: Other calculations are Goddard (1914), children born to feebleminded mothers, 6.2; Estabrook (1915), average number of children among the Jukes women, including childless matings, 3.56; excluding childless matings, 4.025; Green (1927, data at the Eugenics Record Office) showed the birth rate of the feebleminded to be 6.43 + .17.
In Vermont, this study of families includes over 6,000 individuals, making up pedigrees of random samplings of socially inadequate families, and is summarized as follows:
The term "family" is here used to designate two parents and their children. In several cases a second or third husband or wife, with a new group of children, created a problem in terminology but it was decided to count such a group as a second or third separate family since a part of the inheritance was different from any other previously recorded.
The average number of children per inadequate family (one or both parents feebleminded or insane) 3.5. This average excludes those children who died in infancy, stillbirths, and sex unknown. Including the above the average is 4.3.
In the case of the parents not known to be insane or feebleminded, excluding the children who died in infancy, stillbirths, and sex unknown, the average is 3.04; including the above, 3.34.
The total number of children involved in the above summery is 672, belonging to 152 families (excluding 5 childless matings).
Of these 152 families, 65‐2.8 percent‐‐had feebleminded children; 30‐19.7 percent‐‐had insane children; and 57‐37.5 percent‐‐had only normal children.
A comparison was therefore made of the numbers and percentages of feebleminded, insane and normal children in these families. When classifications based on the mental states of the parents were made for these children' the parents of the feebleminded and normal were found to fall into eight groups, while those of the insane fell into only five groups In other words, three combinations of defective parents‐‐father feebleminded and mother normal, mother normal and father feebleminded, and both parents feebleminded‐‐did not have insane children. The classifications with the symbols used for them in the accompanying table, are as follows:
Father feebleminded and mother normal (F M x N); father normal-and mother feebleminded (N x F M); both parents feebleminded (F M x F M); father insane and mother normal (I x N); father normal and mother insane (N x D; both parents insane (I x D; father insane and mother feebleminded (I x F M): father feebleminded and mother insane (F M x I).
Participation in the Vermont Commission on Country Life in the last annual report it was stated that the Eugenics Survey was then formulating plans for an extensive amplification of its work‐‐a study of a variety of aspects of rural life. It was then expected that during the year just past definite decisions would be made as to the carrying out of these plans. It is gratifying to be able to report the entire success of the preliminary efforts and the consequent beginning of the active work in Vermont.
At a meeting of about seventy representatives of rural communities and activities in May, 1928, the Vermont Commission on Country Life was organized. It has for its object the planning and promulgating of a comprehensive program for the whole state, following a thorough investigation of all the factors influencing the life of country people. The investigation will occupy at least a year. Each of the sixteen divisions of the fact-finding investigation and program is under an appropriate committee.
As to organization, Governor John E. Weeks is Chairman of the Commission, and for Director of the Survey‐‐the fact-finding organ of the Commission‐‐Vermont is fortunate in having secured the services of Dr. H. C. Taylor of Northwestern University. The Social Science Research Council gave a great deal of assistance in the forming of plans, officially endorsed the undertaking at a meeting in April, 1928, and helped secure the Director. They were also instrumental in securing a sum of money sufficient to cover the costs of administration of the headquarters office of the Commission for- three years, this being the period estimated to be required for preliminary planning, the fact-gathering studies and the digesting of the findings in preparation for the program.
One of the obviously important phases of rural life to be analyzed is the human factors. The Director of the Eugenics Survey has been made secretary of the Commission and also of the Committee on Human Factors, and the Eugenics Survey is looked to for an important contribution to the sum total of the Rural Survey's results. Much thought has been devoted by the Advisory Committee and staff of this Survey to the most effective approach to the problem of human factors, and to the attempt by this Survey to answer the question "What part has heredity been playing in the rise and growth and, in many cases, the decline of rural communities in Vermont?"
At the annual meeting of the Advisory Committee the whole matter was gone into thoroughly and the following plan for the participation of the Eugenics Survey in the work of the Vermont Commission on Country Life was decided upon.
Three towns were chosen after careful comparisons. Town A has had a serious falling off in its population and activities. Town B seems to be in a critical period with chances of improvement or of decline nearly equal. Town C looks like a growing concern. They are located so differently as to offer a good variety of physical conditions and each has interesting characteristics, almost an individuality of its own. They are all suitable loci for the conduct of studies by other units of the investigating staff. Our selection of the three towns will be taken into account in the distribution of areas to other committees, since from the outset of the planning it has been the intention to combine two or more, but not too many, of the squads of investigators on a single area for the sake of the increased value of conclusions arrived at jointly by more or less diverse sorts of inquiry. Doctors and nurses. rural schools. clubs or stores, to name a few of the factors to be studied, could be more easily, expeditiously and profitably estimated in the light of the data collected by the Committee on Human Factors, or by the Eugenics Survey acting for the Committee on Human Factors.
Having selected the three areas for a beginning, with the hope of adding several others during the next year-and-a-half, it was our next concern to choose key families in each. These families must have two qualifications‐‐first, long residence in the given town, and second, accessibility for study.
Our basic thesis is this: The families that live in a town for several generations make their mark, for both good and ill, upon that town. They help or hinder its growth and give it their own moral, intellectual and social tone. Most families, perhaps all, both add to and detract from the welfare of their communities. Their contribution may be measured as regards the past, and predicted for the future in terms of their more positive hereditary traits, whether these traits are predominantly constructive or social, or destructive‐‐antisocial.
Our effort, then, has been to ascertain to as great an extent as possible how much and in what direction the Furman family for example has affected the Town of Garfield (names fictitious, of course), and at the same time to ascertain something about the effect upon the Furman family of living in Garfield for several generations. What has the Furman family done to Garfield and what has Garfield done to the Furman family? Garfield, by the way, is the "Town B" mentioned above.
The following account of the matter is herewith submitted as a very incomplete sample of the kind of study that it has been decided to make. Additional data will be secured for this family and more exhaustive inquiries will be made on other families.
The Town of Garfield, the home of the Furman family, was one of seven towns granted in 1779 by the State of Vermont. It was organized in 1798. Nearly all of the early settlers belonged to the Society of Friends, and for many years that was "the only society that sustained regular religious worship" in the town.
It is said that the town was at its best about 1880 when there were three butter tub factories, at least one grist-mill, and several saw-mills; and it is certain that that was the time of the highest population. Since then, the supply of wood has been greatly decreased, and consequently, the number of industries.
One of the families which has always been prominent in the town is the Furman family. Matthew Furman was one of the earliest settlers and there have been numerous members of the tribe in this town and among the emigrants from Vermont who have contributed to many other communities. While some of these have wandered no farther than the neighboring villages, Massachusetts, New York, or Quebec, where they are occupied as shophands, house painters, carpenters and farmers, others, presumably the most valuable, are scattered in the far West. Many of these are active in churches and in education; some own ranches, and some are in business.
Matthew Furman was born in Anton, New Hampshire, in 1757, and settled in Garfield, Vermont, in 1803, purchasing another settler's place and also two adjoining lots, making a total of about 300 acres. He brought with him two yoke of oxen, a pair of horses and six cows. Three of his sons came with the cows anc oxen, bringing a load of goods. The remainder of the family followed in a few days with the horse team, bringing what good! they were able. There were few settlers at that time and he had little to work with in the task of making a home for his family.
Matthew settled on the hill above the present village of Garfield, where the major settlement was at that time. He was the first blacksmith to settle in the town, and three years after his arrival he built the first mill for grinding corn and provender Formerly the nearest grist-mill had been about five miles distant.
He had eight children, all of whom lived to a remarkable age, the average age of the eight being 78 years. One of them died at 92 and five others lived to be over 80. The families of this second generation were large enough so that at the funeral of one of Matthew's daughters, a spinster, there are said to have been present over 100 relatives, all of whom, with one exception, were her nieces and nephews. We know of 372 direct descendants of Matthew.
In spite of the distance separating the different groups, a strong feeling of family solidarity is evident. The family antiques are highly prized as mementos of the past. Speaking of the recent marriage of her brother to a member of another branch of the family who had inherited some of the Furman furniture, one woman added that they were especially glad because now these antiques would come back to the family again. The various branches of the family are always in touch with one another, and visiting and annual reunions show their pride in their blood. Only recently one member, on his wedding trip, made a tour of the country visiting relatives. The family reunions have been held for the last fifty years and are usually attended by as many as one hundred people.
Insanity is the family's only defect. The six known cases‐‐including two suicides‐‐and 2 more suicides not known to be insane, are all in one branch. Evidences of insanity appear elsewhere‐‐one often hears of other individuals who were "queer," had nervous breakdowns, or were sick for long periods of time. One such is the case of a girl of nineteen who is said to have committed suicide because her parents were so strict and kept her shut up Other informants say, however, that she had been ill for a year and a half. These various statements suggest the possibility that she was insane. There are several equivocal cases which suggest that more complete information might reveal some mental trouble, such as that of a man who was planning to study for the ministry when "his health gave out," and who now works "when he can" as a book agent, while his wife teaches, and another man who fell from a stepladder and was "never himself afterward," being unable to work for the 15 years until his death.
All evidence the Quaker virtues‐‐industry, thrift and simple living, although some no longer hold strictly to their Quaker beliefs. As an illustration of their simple living a story is told of one of the family, who, being taken to an hotel to dine when visiting relatives in Boston, quietly ordered a bowl of bread and milk. The children were often sent to a Quaker school in Ohio to finish their education. Three members of the direct line and one mate have been Quaker ministers. There is no longer a Friends' place of worship in the Town of Garfield, a fact which is deplored by the Furmans who say they would enjoy again attending the Meetinghouse.
The family as a whole is law abiding, highly respected, and its members are usually successful in whatever they undertake. Of 160 whose occupations are known (the study is not yet complete), 34 own farms and ranches which are usually large and are handed down from generation to generation; 6 have held town offices, one man being Clerk of Garfield at present; 26 are in business; 10 are skilled and 14 unskilled laborers; 30 are professional people. In this last group seven professions are represented but the majority (20) of the number are teachers. Although most of them have had only Normal School training and teach in rural schools, some of them graduated from colleges and teach in high schools and colleges.
The story of the Furman family is one of many examples which could be found in the State of Vermont of the gradual drifting away of descendants of the original stock in search of better occupational and educational opportunities. Of this large family there are only four households left in Garfield. One is that of a retired farmer and his two middle-aged daughters who are unmarried and take care of their father and of the old home stead. One is active in church and social affairs. Number 2, a farmer, runs his own large farm in a very progressive way and also manages that of his father, Number 1. He is a Selectman and both he and his wife are active in community affairs. They have no children of their own, but have adopted two boys. Number 3, a second son of Number 1, is the owner of the general store and also clerk of the town. He has been married twice, his second marriage taking place recently. Of his four children by his first wife, one died as a little girl, one daughter teaches out of town, and the third daughter and the one son are both married and live out of town. Number 4 is a prosperous farmer. He has two daughters who are both away‐‐one teaching school, and the other going to school in a neighboring town.
Chart Showing the Number and percent of Social and Unsocial Individualsin the Direct Line of the Furman Family, by Generations
Social‐‐those who seem to be desirable citizens‐‐law-abiding, self supporting and doing some useful work.
Unsocial‐‐insane and suicides.
Undetermined‐‐those who, while not definitely showing either of the defects, do not seem to show any socially desirable tendencies, and those about whom too little is known to make any judgment possible.
It appears therefore that the death of the present members of the Furman family in Garfield will end the line in this town which their ancestors struggled to establish. As has been said, the town seems to be in a critical period of its history with chances of improvement or decline nearly equal. If, as at present seems likely, there are as few descendants of the other early settlers in the town as there are of the Furmans, it seems possible that this dying out of the desirable old stock may, since there seems to have been little new stock coming in to replace the old, help to account for the decline of the town.
The Survey is privately financed. One Vermont woman is now giving money for the third consecutive year and agrees to continue the support during the three years' period of the program of the Comprehensive Survey.