3/4: Shocking, heart-breaking: 3/4: 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
⏱️ 12 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1914 UK
@Batchelorshow
3/4: Shocking, heart-breaking: 3/4: 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 | Hey, Clarner here! |
| 0:02.9 | We know you're busy getting your true crime, comedy, gossip or history fix. |
| 0:07.3 | Curd the of your fav podcasts and have zero interest in our ad. |
| 0:11.3 | We don't have any interest either, when you pay in three that is. |
| 0:14.7 | So we'll keep this quick. |
| 0:16.2 | Find us at the checkout at your favourite stores, 28,000 in the UK to be exact. |
| 0:20.7 | Shop interest free with Clarner. |
| 0:22.7 | Borrowing your responsibly main negatively impact your financial status and ability to obtain |
| 0:26.4 | credit, team sees and late fees apply, head to clarner.com. |
| 0:30.4 | This is CBS I In The World. |
| 0:36.3 | I'm John Batch for Marilyn Brookwood. |
| 0:38.0 | It's the author of The Orphans of Davenport, Eugenics, The Great Depression and The War of |
| 0:42.6 | Earth Children's Intelligence. |
| 0:44.8 | We go now to our heroes, Harold Skills, his colleague Marie Skodak, who becomes a PhD student |
| 0:51.3 | in Iowa in the mid 1930s. |
| 0:53.6 | Our director George Stoddard, we mentioned Beth Wellman, though we don't have time to |
| 0:57.3 | tell the story, but this was a support of atmosphere at the at the University of Iowa. |
| 1:03.7 | Davenport is an orphanage that was established philanthropically at the end of the Civil |
| 1:10.0 | War for orphans, for children of deceased or damaged Civil War veterans. |
| 1:16.7 | It becomes by 1900 a place where they take on orphans from all over Iowa and put them |
| 1:23.3 | up for adoption. |
| 1:25.2 | Harold Skills and Marie Skodak with a car that's provided to them take upon themselves |
... |
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.