Mixing Races: From Scientific Racism to Modern Evolutionary Ideas

by Paul Lawrence Farber

Overview

This book explores changing American views of race mixing in the twentieth century, showing how new scientific ideas transformed accepted notions of race and how those ideas played out on college campuses in the 1960s.

In the 1930s it was not unusual for medical experts to caution against miscegenation, or race mixing, espousing the common opinion that it would produce biologically dysfunctional offspring. By the 1960s the scientific community roundly refuted this theory. Paul Lawrence Farber traces this revolutionary shift in scientific thought, explaining how developments in modern population biology, genetics, and anthropology proved that opposition to race mixing was a social prejudice with no justification in scientific knowledge.

In the 1960s, this new knowledge helped to change attitudes toward race and discrimination, especially among college students. Their embrace of social integration caused tension on campuses across the country. Students rebelled against administrative interference in their private lives, and university regulations against interracial dating became a flashpoint in the campus revolts that revolutionized American educational institutions.

Farber’s provocative study is a personal one, featuring interviews with mixed-race couples and stories from the author’s student years at the University of Pittsburgh. As such, Mixing Races offers a unique perspective on how contentious debates taking place on college campuses reflected radical shifts in race relations in the larger society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801898136
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2011
Series:	Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Paul Lawrence Farber is OSU Distinguished Professor of History of Science, Emeritus, at Oregon State University and author of Discovering Birds: The Emergence of Ornithology as a Scientific Discipline, 1760–1850 and Finding Order in Nature: The Naturalist Tradition from Linnaeus to E. O. Wilson, both also published by Johns Hopkins.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. A Mixed-Race Couple in the 1960s
2. Scientific Ideas on Race Mixing
3. Challenges to Opinions on Race Mixing
4. The Modern Synthesis
5. The Modern Synthesis Meets Physical Anthropology and Legal Opinion
6. University Campuses in the 1960s
7. Science, "Race," and "Race Mixing" Today
Epilogue
Suggested Further Reading
Index

Editorial Reviews

Mixing Races is a fascinating look at how evolutionary science has changed alongside social beliefs.
—Midwest Book Review

Books like this one will open the dialogue about social barriers and group identities. A must read for undergraduates, students, faculty and administration, and parents. Essential.
—Choice

It provides a succint, well-organized review of 20th-century scientific research and thinking relevant to notions of race that may assist in our understanding of many of the racial issues that we continue to face as a nation.
—Vetta L. Sanders Thompson, PsycCRITIQUES

Farber’s short book (110 pages of actual text) traces both historically and sociologically the changing attitudes on race-mixing (miscegenation) in western culture, though the focus is on the United States . . . Mixing Races is a clear, well written and useful book. Particularly unique are the personal experiences that the author brings to the story . . . The documentation is inclusive without being overpowering, and the extra readings at the end of each chapter provide ample opportunities for further exploration.
—Garland E. Allen, Journal of the History of Biology

Farber does an impressive job of demonstrating how practitioners like Linnaeus, Buffon, Saint-Hilaire, and Cuvier advanced the field and set the stage for the development of science as we know it today . . . [An] estimable volume.
—Publishers Weekly

The history of natural history can rarely have been as succinctly told as in Paul Lawrence Farber's 129-page Finding Order in Nature . . . It is an odyssey beautifully told.
—New Scientist

From the Publisher

Mixing Races is a fascinating look at how evolutionary science has changed alongside social beliefs.

Midwest Book Review

It provides a succint, well-organized review of 20th-century scientific research and thinking relevant to notions of race that may assist in our understanding of many of the racial issues that we continue to face as a nation.

PsycCRITIQUES - Vetta L. Sanders Thompson

Farber’s short book (110 pages of actual text) traces both historically and sociologically the changing attitudes on race-mixing (miscegenation) in western culture, though the focus is on the United States . . . Mixing Races is a clear, well written and useful book. Particularly unique are the personal experiences that the author brings to the story . . . The documentation is inclusive without being overpowering, and the extra readings at the end of each chapter provide ample opportunities for further exploration.

Journal of the History of Biology - Garland E. Allen

"Books like this one will open the dialogue about social barriers and group identities. A must read for undergraduates, students, faculty and administration, and parents. Essential."

Choice

"The history of natural history can rarely have been as succinctly told as in Paul Lawrence Farber's 129-page Finding Order in Nature... It is an odyssey beautifully told."

New Scientist

It provides a succint, well-organized review of 20th-century scientific research and thinking relevant to notions of race that may assist in our understanding of many of the racial issues that we continue to face as a nation.

— Vetta L. Sanders Thompson

PsycCRITIQUES

Farber studies the concept of race-mixing, going back to campus life in the 1960s and interviewing mixed-race couples. He assesses the shift in attitudes toward race relations in the 20th century.

Library Journal

The history of natural history can rarely have been as succinctly told as in Paul Lawrence Farber's 129-page Finding Order in Nature . . . It is an odyssey beautifully told.

New Scientist