This is a book that explores in detail the use that Americans have made of their history for commercial, cultural, and ideological purposes. It focuses on popular adaptations of historical incidents and artifacts to reveal how successive generations of Americans have been able to adapt their heritage to address the needs of their contemporaries. Further, it indicates how the past has helped to shape the attitudes of later generations toward their own society.

This book offers the first complete study of the origins of American intelligence testing. It follows the life and work of Henry Herbert Goddard, America's first intelligence tester and author of the famous American eugenics tract, The Kallikak Family. The book traces the controversies surrounding Goddard's efforts to bring Alfred Binet's tests of intelligence from France to America and to introduce them into the basic institutions of American life--from hospitals to classrooms to courtrooms. It shows how testers used their findings to address the most pressing social and political questions of their day, including povery, crime, prostitution, alcoholism, immigration restriction, and military preparedness. It also explores the broader legacies of the testing movement by showing how Goddard's ideas helped to reshape the very meaning of mental retardation, special education, clinical psychology, and the "normal" mind in ways that would be felt for the rest of the century.

This book offers the first complete study of the origins of American intelligence testing. It follows the life and work of Henry Herbert Goddard, America's first intelligence tester and author of the famous American eugenics tract, The Kallikak Family. The book traces the controversies surrounding Goddard's efforts to bring Alfred Binet's tests of intelligence from France to America and to introduce them into the basic institutions of American life--from hospitals to classrooms to courtrooms. It shows how testers used their findings to address the most pressing social and political questions of their day, including povery, crime, prostitution, alcoholism, immigration restriction, and military preparedness. It also explores the broader legacies of the testing movement by showing how Goddard's ideas helped to reshape the very meaning of mental retardation, special education, clinical psychology, and the "normal" mind in ways that would be felt for the rest of the century.