Richard Louis Dugdale

Richard Louis Dugdale (1841-23 July 1883) was an American merchant and sociologist.

Dugdale was born in Paris to English parents, and in 1851 moved with them to New York City and began working for a sculptor at the age of 14. Dugdale suffered from a congenital heart disease and the family moved to Indiana in 1858 in an effort to improve his health. The family returned to New York in 1860, and the following year his father died.Citation
last = Estabrooks
first = Arthur H.
author-link =
contribution =
editor-last =
editor-first =
title = The Jukes in 1915 (Historical note)
volume =
pages = p. 4-5
publisher = The Carnegie Institution of Washington
place = Washington
year = 1916
url = http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/image_header.pl?id=1372&printable=1&detailed=0
accessdate = 2007-07-12 ] Citation
last = Ryan
first = Patrick
author-link =
contribution =
editor-last =
editor-first =
title = American National Biography
volume =
pages =
publisher = Oxford University Press
place = London
year = 1998
url = http://publish.uwo.ca/~pryan2/My%20Pubs/Dugdale.html
accessdate = 2007-07-07 ] Dugdale later worked in business as a stenographer while taking night courses at the Cooper Union.cite book
last = Cravens
first =Hamilton
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = The Triumph of Evolution: Heredity Environment Controversy, 1900-1941
publisher =Johns Hopkins University Press
date = October 1998
location =
pages =3-6
url = http://www.amazon.ca/gp/reader/0801837421/ref=sib_rdr_ex/701-2409086-4589116?ie=UTF8&p=S00T&j=0#reader-page
doi =
id =
isbn = 978-0801837425] He became interested in social science but worked as a merchant and a manufacturer, hoping in the future to be able to devote himself full-time to his interest in sociology studies and social reform. Dugdale was described as a shy and humble man, who believed that good government was dependent on an educated, informed electorate. He was involved with several societies including The Society for Political Education, the New York Social Science Society, the New York Association for the Advancement of Science and the Arts, the New York Sociology Club, and the Civil Service Reform Association.
Dugdale became a member of the executive committee of the Prison Association of New York in 1868 and in 1874 was delegated to inspect thirteen county jails in upstate New York. Noticing that many of the inmates were related by blood or marriage, he self-funded a study of a family living in and around Ulster County, New York, whom he named "Jukes". Using local records and interviews he created detailed family trees and described the lives and histories of individual offenders, and then developed conclusions about what he believed were the causes of crime and dissipation. He reported his findings to the Prison Association in 1875 and published the widely-read "" in 1877. Dugdale pioneered the use of science and scientific methods for the improvement of society, believing that studies that used objective methods would lead to the betterment of public policy and laws. His work marked a move away from religious-based explanations of social problems, and was lauded due to its use of fieldwork to answer questions of nature versus nurture in issues of crime, poverty and other social ills.cite news
last =Christianson
first =Scott
coauthors =
title =Bad Seed or Bad Science? The Story of the Notorious Jukes Family
work =
pages =
language =
publisher =New York Times
date =February 8, 2003
url =http://www.learntoquestion.com/resources/database/archives/001442.html
accessdate = 2007-07-07 ]

Dugdale's book has been interpreted as a eugenic tract by some readers and leaders of the eugenics movement. Others note that Dugdale was not a eugenicist and never suggested forced sterilization or other controls on reproduction.Citation
last = Carlson
first = Elof Axel
author-link =
title = R. L. Dugdale and the Jukes Family: A Historical Injustice Corrected
journal =Biosciences
volume = Vol. 30
issue = 8
pages = pp. 535-539
publisher = BioScience
place = Washington
date = Aug., 1980
url = http://www.jstor.org/view/00063568/ap040225/04a00120/0
accessdate = 2007-07-13 ] Instead, he believed that human behavior was influenced by both heredity and environment. He claimed that physiological disorders were the main cause of social problems, and that "training" could modify disposition and behavior. The conclusions he drew from his study were the need for penal reform, improved public health and early childhood education and care, all indications that he supported an environmentalist position. Dugdale also noted that the Jukes were a composite of 42 families and not a single group: only 540 of his 709 subjects appeared to be related by blood.
Arthur H. Estabrook of the Eugenics Record Office published "The Jukes in 1915", a follow-up study in 1916. Estabrook's eugenic reanalyses strongly emphasized heredity, and he reversed Dugdale's arguments about the environment, proposing controls on reproduction and other eugenics solutions, since he claimed no amount of environmental changes could alter their genetic inheritance towards criminality.Citation
last =Keely
first =Karen
author-link =
last2 =
first2 =
author2-link =
title =Teaching Eugenics to Children:Heredity and Reform in Jean Webster's "Daddy-Long-Legs" and "Dear Enemy"
journal = The Lion and the Unicorn
volume =28
issue =3
pages =363-389
date = Sept. 2004
year =
url =
doi =
id = ] Historians have noted that Estabrook's analysis of the family "won the day". [Citation
last =Paul
first =Diane
author-link =
last2 =
first2 =
author2-link =
title = Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present, p.49, quoted in "Teaching Eugenics to Children:Heredity and Reform in Jean Webster's "Daddy-Long-Legs" and "Dear Enemy"
journal = The Lion and the Unicorn
volume =28
issue =3
pages =363-389
date = 1995
year =
url =
doi =
id = ]
Dugdale never married and his health was fragile throughout his life. He suffered a breakdown in his late thirties and died of congenital heart disease in New York City on 23 July 1883 in his early forties.

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