Charles Davenport
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{{Infobox Scientist
|name = Charles Davenport
|box_width =
|image =Charles Davenport 1921.jpg
|image_width =150px
|caption = Charles B. Davenport at a 1921 eugenics conference
|birth_date = [[June 1]], [[1866]]
|birth_place = [[Stamford, Connecticut|Stamford]], [[Connecticut]]
|death_date = [[February 18]], [[1944]]
|death_place =
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|nationality = [[United States|American]]
|ethnicity =
|field = [[biology|biologist]] and [[eugenics|eugenicist]]
|work_institutions = [[Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory]]
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'''Charles Benedict Davenport''' ([[June 1]], [[1866]]–[[February 18]], [[1944]]) was a prominent [[United States|American]] [[biology|biologist]] and [[eugenics|eugenicist]]. He was born in [[Stamford, Connecticut|Stamford]], [[Connecticut]] and went to [[Harvard]], getting a PhD in biology in [[1892]]. He married in [[1894]] and died of pneumonia in 1944.
== Biography ==
Davenport was an instructor of Zoology at [[Harvard University]]. He became one of the most prominent American biologists of his age, pioneering new [[quantitative standards]] of [[taxonomy]]. Davenport had a tremendous respect for the biometric approach to evolution pioneered by [[Francis Galton]] and [[Karl Pearson]], and sat on the editorial committee of Pearson's journal, ''[[Biometrika]]''. However after the "re-discovery" of [[Gregor Mendel]]'s laws of heredity, he became a strict convert and major participant in the [[Mendelian school]] of [[genetics]].
Davenport became director of [[Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory]] in [[1910]], where he founded the [[Eugenics Record Office]]. He began to study [[human genetics|human heredity]], and much of his effort was later turned to promoting [[eugenics]]<ref>{{Citation
|id = [[PMID]]:17735069
|url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17735069
|last=Davenport
|first=
|publication-date=1921 Oct 28
|year=[[1921]]
|title=RESEARCH IN EUGENICS.
|volume=54
|issue=1400
|periodical=[[Science Magazine|Science]]
|pages=391-397
|doi = 10.1126/science.54.1400.391
}}</ref>. His 1911 book, ''[[Heredity in Relation to Eugenics]]'' was a major work and was used as a college textbook for many years. The year after it was published Davenport was elected to the [[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]].
Davenport and an assistant attempted to develop a comprehensive quantitative approach to [[miscegenation]], or, as he put it, "race crossing" in humans. The resulting work, published in [[1929]], ''[[Race Crossing in Jamaica]]'', purported to give statistical evidence for biological and cultural degradation following interbreeding between white and black populations. Today it is considered a work of [[scientific racism]], and was criticized in its time for drawing conclusions which stretched far beyond (and sometimes counter to) the data it presented.
Davenport maintained connections with institutions and publications in [[Nazi]] [[Germany]], before and during [[W.W.II]]. These have been documented by [[Stefan Kühl]]. For example, Davenport held editorial positions at two influential German journals, both of which were founded in 1935, and in 1939 he wrote a contribution to the ''Festschrift'' for [[Otto Reche]], who became an important figure in the plan to "remove" those populations considered "inferior" in eastern [[Germany]]<ref>Kuhl, S. "The Nazi Connection; Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism" (Oxford/ New York, O.U.P., 1994.</ref> .
==References==
<references/>
==Selected works==
* ''Observations on Budding in Paludicella and Some Other Bryozoa'' (1891)
* ''On Urnatella Gracilis'' (1893)
* ''Experimental Morphology'' (1897-99)
* ''Statistical Methods, with Special References to Biological Variation'' (1899; second edition, 1904)
* ''Introduction to Zoölogy'', with Gertrude Crotty Davenport (1900)
* ''Inheritance in Poultry'', Carnegie Institution Publication, No, 52 (Washington, 1906)
* ''Inheritance of Characteristics in Domestic Fowl'', Carnegie Institution Publication, No. 121 (Washington, 1909)
* ''Heredity in Relation to Eugenics'' (1911)
* ''Heredity of Skin-Color in Negro-White Crosses'', Carnegie Institution Publication, No. 188 (1913)
* ''Race Crossing in Jamaica'' (1929)
*
== External links ==
* http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhdave.html
*Edwin Black, ''War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race'', (New York / London: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003);
* [[Elof Axel Carlson]], "Times of triumph, Times of Doubt, science and the battle for the public trust", (Cold Spring Harbor; Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2006) ISBN 0-87969-805-5
[[Category:Harvard University alumni|Davenport, Charles]]
[[Category:American science writers|Davenport, Charles]]
[[Category:American biologists|Davenport, Charles Benedict]]
[[Category:American eugenicists|Davenport, Charles Benedict]]
[[Category:1866 births|Davenport, Charles Benedict]]
[[Category:1944 deaths|Davenport, Charles Benedict]]
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[[ja:チャールズ・ダベンポート]]
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