Talk:Madison Grant/Archive 1

Herbert Hoover
Can you tell me where you got the info from about Madison Grant being a good friend of Herbert Hoover or can you elaborate more on their friendship/where I can find resources - I have been doing some research on Hoover's racial views and was just curious. Thanks Mithrandir111--Mithrandir111 02:45, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly sure it is mentioned in Matthew Pratt Guterl, The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940 (Harvard University Press, 2001), but there aren't a lot of details on Grant's social connections. The best source on Grant is the hefty (three volume) dissertation by Jonathan Spiro, "Patrician Racist The Evolution of Madison Grant" Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, Department of History (2000). The dissertation is of course difficult to find if you don't have access to a well-connected research library, but if you are really interested in Grant's connections to Hoover and others it is the place to look. Another option is to e-mail Spiro directly (he is the expert on everything related to Madison Grant) if you can find his contact info (he teaches at Castleton College in Vermont, I believe); he responds to e-mail but it can take a week or so. --Fastfission 03:12, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a million - I really appreciate your help!!--Mithrandir111 16:31, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

More questions
I talked to Professor Spiro and he said that Grant and Hoover were acquantances at the most and he mentioned Hoover allowing his name to be used on some of the letterheads of Madison Grant's organizations. Any ideas on where I can find documents related to the organizations Madison Grant headed? Thanks


 * It is probably a very long list of organizations that Grant had some sort of major role in. Offhand, I know he held high positions in the American Eugenics Society, the New York Zoological Society, and the Save-the-Redwoods League. I'll see if I can find any more. Technically I should have a copy of Prof. Spiro's thesis but I think it was mailed to an old address of mine and I have yet to pick it up, but I'll try to do that soon. --Fastfission 00:09, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I was able to get a bunch of other organization information from an obituary of Grant, and have inserted much of it in the text (there are lots of little organizations he was part of as well which I didn't bother to insert). --Fastfission 01:50, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality?
''Grant's works of scientific racism are often cited by scholars to demonstrate that many of the genocidal and eugenic ideas associated with the Third Reich did not arise specifically in Germany, and in fact that many of them had origins in the United States. As such, because of Grant's well-connectedness and influential friends, he is often used to contradict the idea that the U.S. did not have its own history of racism, eugenics, and the popularity of quasi-Fascist ideals.''
 * ... is not a feature of the article, when one has to read stuff like this....


 * So what's your neutrality objection? We're not saying Grant was behind these policies or ideas, we're saying that scholars cite him as such. --Fastfission 17:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I made edits to improve the selection, as it caught my eye as well. I edited out "many" and "scholars," as tendentious, seeing as there is only one citation and it isn't a scholar but a journalist who was writing in a popular work.  The last edit was to make it clearer that the paragraph was not meant to apply exclusively to the United States.  As it stood, it read like someone read Mr. Black's book and rushed to the internet to present his views as widely accepted fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.214.1.51 (talk) 14:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Recently added section
I don't entirely disagree with the content below but to me it sounds a little bit too much like original analysis.
 * As of the early 21st Century, this "belief in the power of the environment", hand-in-hand with a largely successful attack on the physical reality of race per se, has almost completely triumphed in worldwide academia, is easily the the majority position at the level of legislators and policy-makers, and is winning even at the level of the man and woman "on the street" in almost all developed countries. The major impetus for this triumph has been a severe recoil effect from the horrors of the Nazis' implementation of Grant's ideas. As World War II and the eugenicist death camps recede further and further in memory, the power of this recoil diminishes, and small gains for modified versions of Grant's precepts have been observed. Somewhat ironically, these gains have been helped rather than hindered by certain  socio-anthropological trends that, while laudable in isolation on humanistic grounds, are so counter to obvious human biology that "people on the street", policy-makers and even some academicians find themselves confused or unsettled on the whole matter of race. This confusion, according to several public opinion experts, could become a breeding ground for Grant-like approaches to the issue. The antidote, in their view, is to abandon the extremist position that race is purely a " social construct" in favor of a position that honestly celebrates human diversity and draws plain lessons from nature showing that such diversity is indeed an overall adaptive strength of our species despite its potential for abuse by demagogues. As general educational levels rise, the prospects for simplistic demagoguery fall and finally a healthy balance in this dangerous area will be attained in the great majority of nations, which should then be collectively empowered (through a body such as the United Nations) to confront and, if need be, forcibly stop any Nazi-like assaults on perceived "undersirable populations" in the future.

I think my problems with it are 1. the "man on the street" stuff (I have no idea what the "man on the street" thinks and would definitely want to see actual statistics on this -- I think most "men on the street" have very different views on race than academics do, and there seems to be something of a contradiction of how this "man" is handled in the above text), 2. I'm not sure the WWII atrocities have diminished over time (one could well argue that their implication for biology and society has actually grown over time since the 1940s), 3. I'm not sure that the section on whether a Grant-like approach to race will work in the future is necessary here or sensible (these "public opinion experts" are surely not referring to Grant personally with these assessments, and Grant's approach to race is not even the one which gained the most influence among hereditarians in the 1930s -- Stoddard's "bi-racialism" was far more compelling after the Great Migration than Grant's "draw fine divisions between Europeans" approach). Anyway, just some thoughts. I think with a little tightening up it could be fine, but I figured I'd post my thoughts on it here first before trying anything myself. --Fastfission 20:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree on the above. What does this have to do with Madison Grant himself? This is a bit of creative grandstanding that does not directly relate to anything this article is about, and should be removed. 80.169.138.156 13:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Alleged U.S. commercial success
Moving 16,000 copies between 1916 and 1937 was reasonably solid sales for a ponderous non-fiction tome, but it wasn't a runaway commercial success, and shouldn't be presented as such. I bet there were a lot of trashy novels that sold more than 16,000 in a single year... AnonMoos 10:12, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Comparing the sales rates to trashy novels doesn't really tell us anything. For a book of its type it was a big success and very influential, which is all the article conveys. (The Origin of Species sold around 16,000 copies in 20 years too; obviously that's an earlier context but just as a point of comparison I think it is illustrative, considering how far more important the book is.)--Fastfission 20:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Ota Benga?
If he was the head of the Zoological society from 1925 until his death, and through this he lobbied to have the African tribal put on display in the zoo, how is that possible if the tribal was dead in 1916?


 * He was influential in the Zoological Society long before 1925. William Temple Hornaday was head of the Zoological Society at the time, and a close associate of Grant's. Grant was the Secretary of the Society at the time, I believe. --Fastfission 20:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Grant Tree ("World's Largest")
I believe the "Grant" tree was named after Gen. and Pres. U. S. Grant, not Madison Grant. This would make sense, since the tree that replaced it as the "world's largest" is the Gen. Sherman.

Is there a source that says a tree was named for Madison Grant? Everything I've found notes a sequoiah named for U. S. Grant, not Madison Grant. Edarrell (talk) 20:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think they are different trees. Given that the current text says it was in Dyerville, I suspect the tree in question was the "Dyerville Giant" described in this article. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 20:50, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's correct. As his NYT obit says, "...the tallest tree in the United States is dedicated to the memory of him and his associates. ... in September 1931, the California State Board of Parks dedicated the largest known tree in the world to Mr. Grant and his two associates, Dr. John C. Merriam and Professor Henry Fairfield Osbourn. This tree, 364 feet high, is at Dyerville, Calif." It was the Dyerville Giant in the Founder's Grove—he's one of the "Founders" in question (of the Save-the-Redwood League). --Fastfission (talk) 20:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 17:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Conservation efforts
Why is Grant's effort to put Oto Benga on display in the conservation section? Quote: "In 1906, as Secretary of the New York Zoological Society, he lobbied to put Ota Benga, a Congolese pygmy, on display alongside apes at the Bronx Zoo." Is this supposed to be a good thing, or should this rather be put under a section relating to his scientific-racist ideas? Ykerzner (talk) 03:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Quotations need page number and source citations
Where do these juicy quotes come from? Ryoung 122 20:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree. Actually the entire article lacks inline citations. This is why I have added a nofootnotes tag.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 20:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Many of the quotations will be easier to trace now that Spiro's biography of Grant (2009) is widely available in libraries. There are other good sources for Grant's life and intellectual milieu, which I will be using to update this article and many articles in the same category. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 22:23, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I want evidence that scientists considered it "amateurish", that Grant refused to shake Boas hand, etc.
Where are the citations for the disparaging claims made on Madison Grant's character? The tone of the paragraph I reference looks like a targeted character assassination to me. It should be wiped in its entirety if citations are not forthcoming.
 * It may well be true, but not shaking hands is not nearly as bad as Grant's trying to get Boas fired, which is easily sourced, so I've removed the shaking hands bit and replaced it with his trying to get Boas fired. Dougweller (talk) 10:05, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 15:18, 1 May 2016 (UTC)