1/4: Shocking, heart-breaking: 1/4: Marilyn Brookwood, THE ORPHANS OF DAVENPORT: Eugenics, the Great Depression, and the War over Children's Intelligence, by Marilyn Brookwood @MarilynBrookwo1 @wwnorton.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
France 1913
@Batchelorshow
1/4: Shocking, heart-breaking: 1/4: Marilyn Brookwood, THE ORPHANS OF DAVENPORT: Eugenics, the Great Depression, and the War over Children's Intelligence, by Marilyn Brookwood @MarilynBrookwo1 @wwnorton.
https://www.amazon.com/Orphans-Davenport-Depression-Childrens-Intelligence/dp/1631494686
The fascinating―and eerily timely―tale of the forgotten, Depression-era psychologists who launched the modern science of childhood development.
“Doomed from birth” was how the psychologist Harold Skeels described two toddler girls at the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Their IQ scores, added together, totaled just 81. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs of the times, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls had inherited their parents’ low intelligence and were therefore unfit for adoption. The girls were sent to an institution for the “feebleminded” to be cared for by “moron” women. To Skeels and Skodak’s astonishment, under the women’s care, the children’s IQ scores became normal.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Monso Business Banking. It just works. So you can too. Join businesses like Target |
| 0:05.7 | to Wishing by opening a Monso Business account. |
| 0:07.8 | What I love about Monso Business account is how easy everything is. It can be filtered, |
| 0:13.1 | it can be tagged. We thought we'd have to manage our business around our banks, but that's |
| 0:17.3 | not the case for Monso. |
| 0:18.4 | My name is Shun. I am the Founder of Target Trition. |
| 0:21.6 | Apply in minutes at Monso.com slash business. To apply you must be a sole trader or director |
| 0:26.6 | of the limited company UK Business is only terms and conditions apply. |
| 0:33.6 | This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:40.5 | I welcome the author Marilyn Brookwood. The new book is The Orphans of Davenport. This |
| 0:46.6 | is the story of eugenics, the Great Depression, and the war over children's intelligence. |
| 0:52.0 | Here in the 21st century it is common sensical that a loving family is critical to the |
| 0:58.0 | development of a child to adulthood. |
| 1:01.0 | Marilyn Brookwood is a psychologist. She's worked in public education at Ajak faculty position |
| 1:06.8 | at the College of New Rochelle. Writing this book from the documents assembled over the |
| 1:12.2 | last hundred years from heroic work at the University of Iowa. We begin with one of those |
| 1:18.5 | heroes at the University of Iowa in the 1930s during the depses of the Depression. |
| 1:23.7 | Iowa went from being the fourth wealthiest state to poverty as all farming prices collapsed |
| 1:31.3 | with the dislocation of the weather, the climate, and worldwide affairs. |
| 1:37.3 | In Chicago at the American Association on Mental Deficiency 1939, a man takes to the podium |
| 1:44.2 | in the fourth day. It's unseasonably hot. This is Marilyn's reporting. His name is Harold |
| 1:49.3 | Skiehl's. He's a professor. He's a doctor. He's a psychologist. Marilyn, congratulations |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

