Henry Herbert Goddard (14 August 1866 – 18 June 1957) was an American psychologist and eugenicist during the early 20th century. He was Director of Research at the Vineland Training School for Feeble-Minded Girls and Boys in New Jersey before being recruited by Charles Davenport during his eugenics crusade.
Biography[]
Henry Herbert Goddard was born in East Vassalboro, Maine in 1866, and he came from a family of devout Quakers. He graduated from Haverford College in 1887 and taught Latin, history, and botany at the University of Southern California before teaching at the Damascus Academy Quaker school in Ohio. In 1899, he received his doctorate in psychology from Clark University, and he served as Director of the Vineland Training School for Feeble-Minded Girls and Boys from 1906 to 1918. In 1913, he established an intelligence testing program on Ellis Island, and he found that 80% of immigrants were "feeble-minded". He went on to collaborate with Charles Davenport, the leader of the eugenics movement, by experimenting on his patients at the training school and making pedigrees of their families to investigate the heredity of "feeble-mindedness" and other undesirable traits. He died in Santa Barbara, California in 1947 at the age of 90.