Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin

Sunday, December 6, 2015

A Map of Intellectual Talent in the Early-20th-Century United States

By Rebecca Onion

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In the November 1904 issue of the general-interest publication the Century magazine, writer Gustave Michaud published an article titled "The Brain of the Nation." Using the 1901 edition of Who's Who in America, Michaud mapped birthplaces of the men included in the directory and came up with these graphic representations of "The Distribution of Men of Talent."
Michaud wrote that the Who's Who likely selected for "geniuses" over "practical men," adding: "Intellectuality is the main characteristic of the man of genius; intelligence, that of the man who succeeds at life." The births he mapped here were of these "geniuses," or people who had succeeded in idealistic professions: artist, scientist, author.
Michaud, who had some scientific training and often wrote for Scientific American, published an argument for eugenic selection in human reproduction in Popular Science in 1908, and the second half of this article is full of eugenic speculation. Michaud, like many of his contemporaries, was interested in figuring out ways to maximize what he perceived as the most important human characteristics.

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