August 27, 2012
Samuel J. Holmes was a respected professor of zoology at Berkeley from 1912 until his death in 1964. He was also, and remained throughout his life, an unapologetic eugenicist.
In fairness, life scientists who came of age in the zeros and teens were all steeped in eugenics, and many became fans and promoters. But Holmes, the compiler of A Bibliography of Eugenics (1924), was particularly enthusiastic.
I’ve been working for a while to compile and link this short index of works cited by Holmes in the closing chapters of his 1929 college biology textbook, Life and Evolution. These chapters – ‘Heredity and Variation,’ ‘Heredity and Environment,’ ‘Organic Evolution,’ ‘How Is Organic Evolution Caused’ and ‘The Eugenic Predicament’ – formed a coherent argument. My original goal was to annotate and contextualize the list. But that’s not going to happen anytime soon. So I’m publishing it here as is.
| The Population Problem | 1922 | Carr-Saunders, A. M. | Oxford University Press, Oxford |
| Genetics and Eugencis 2nd ed. | 1920 | Castle, W. E. (M) Harvard | Harvard University Press, Cambridge |
| Heredity and Eugenics | 1912 | Castle, William Ernest, John Merle Coulter, Charles Benedict Davenport, Edward Murray East, William Lawrence Tower | University of Chicago Press, Chicago |
| The Direction of Human Evolution | 1921 | Conklin, E. G. | Scribner, New York |
| The Primary Factors of Organic Evolution | 1896 (1904 in Holmes) | Cope, E D. | The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago |
| Heredity in Relation to Eugenics | 1911 | Davenport, C. B. | Henry Holt, New York |
| Species and Varieties | 1912 (1905 in Holmes) | De Vries, Hugo | The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago |
| Plant Breeding | 1907 | De Vries, Hugo | The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago |
| The Mutation Theory | 1909 | De Vries, Hugo | The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago |
| Mankind at the Crossroads (partial scan) | 1923 [1977] | East, Murray E. | Scribner, New York |
| Hereditary Genius | 1870 (1869 in Holmes) | Galton, Francis | Appleton, New York |
| Inquiries into Human Faculty | 1883 (1907 2nd Edition in Holmes) | Galton, Francis | Macmillan, London |
| Essays in Eugenics (PDF) | 1909 | Galton, Francis | The Eugenics Educaiton Society, London |
| Heredity and Eugenics | 1923 | Gates, R. R. | Constable, London |
| The Mutation Factor | 1915 | Gates, R. R. | Macmillan, London |
| Being Well-Born | 1916 (1918 in Holmes) | Guyer, Michael. F. | Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis |
| The Trend of the Race | 1921 | Holmes, Samual J. | Harcourt, New York |
| A Bibliography of Eugenics | 1924 (1923 in Holmes) | Holmes, Samual J. | University of California Press |
| Studies in Evolution and Eugenics | 1923 | Holmes, Samual J. | Harcourt, New York |
| The Trend of the Race | 1921 | Holmes, Samual Jackson (M) University of California | Harcourt, New York |
| Darwinism To-day | 1907 | Kellogg, V. L. | Holt, New York |
| Is American Safe for Democracy | 1921 | McDougall, W. | Scribner, New York |
| Evolution and Adaptation | 1903 | Morgan, T. H. | Macmillan, New York |
| A Critique of the Theory of Evolution | 1916 | Morgan, T. H. | Princeton University Press, Princeton |
| Applied Eugenics | 1918 | Popenoe, Paul (M) Editor of the Journal of Heredity, Roswell, Johnson Hill, University of Pittsburg | Macmillan, New York |
| Parenthood and Race Culture | 1911 | Saleeby, Caleb. W. | Moffat, Yard, New York |
| Darwin and Modern Science (partial scan) | 1909 | Seward, A. C. | Cambridge University Press |
| The Factors of Organic Evolution | 1887 | Spencer, Herbert | Appleton, New York |
| Principles of Biology | 1910 (1898, 1904 in Holmes) | Spencer, Herbert | Appleton, New York |
| The Revolt Against Civilization | 1922 | Stoddard, Lothrop | Scribner, New York |
| Genetics | 1913 | Walter, Herbert Eugene (M) Brown University | Norwood Press, Norwood, MA |
| The Fruit of the Family Tree (partial scan) | 1924 [1977] | Wiggam, Albert E. | Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis |
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