Columbia University Press

Earlier this week, Lawrence Friedman, author of The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet, appeared on The Leonard Lopate Show, to discuss the book and the life and legacy of Erich Fromm:

Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900, and died almost eighty years later, on March 18, 1980. In celebration of Fromm’s life, we have a two-part Q&A with Lawrence J. Friedman, author of The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet, looking back at Fromm’s many intellectual contributions and accomplishments.

In part two of the interview, Friedman discusses how Fromm’s ideas can be applied to modern political problems.

Question: Fromm led efforts to revitalize American democracy. What did he feel was wrong with our system?

Lawrence Friedman: Fromm was the principal funder and platform architect for Senator Eugene McCarthy’s bid to win the White House in 1968. McCarthy ran as a peace candidate determined to extract America from the Vietnam War. This fit with Fromm’s antimilitarism. On a deeper level, he felt that pointless wars like Vietnam might be avoided if American democracy were restored. Invoking the old New England town meeting as his point of departure, Fromm tried to promote a small, community-based government structure with all officials directly and personally responsible to the local citizenry. Fromm continued to promote this view of democracy throughout his life even as, in his opinion, a Big Brother–like national-security state thrived under less democratic presidencies such as Nixon’s.

Fromm would have seen the possibility of democracy restored in the 2008 Obama campaign, with Obama’s appeal to racial minorities, women, and students and his ability to spark excitement about the political process. But he would have been less enthusiastic for the Obama of 2012 because the president sent additional troops to Afghanistan and essentially ordered the assassination of Bin Laden. But he would have voted for Obama a second time because he was somewhat more democratic and less elitist than Romney. Fromm had strong ideals and democracy was one of them. But he was also a pragmatist, willing to take half a loaf as a first installment on any basic goal. He would have supported Obama with this perspective.

Q: While Fromm was a strong advocate for democracy around the globe, he was also critical of how bureaucratic state socialism (such as obtained in the Soviet Union) and corporate capitalism (such as in the United States) both alienated modern man. He envisioned a “Third Way”: a humanist society that valued the happiness of the individual in a democratic polity. Can this type of government ever truly exist and function?

LF: Fromm saw both the alienating capitalism and consumer culture of the West (especially the United States) and the bureaucratic socialist societies of the Eastern bloc as anathema to the human condition. Western societies for the most part offered only the façade of democracy while covering selfhood in a plethora of estranged consumerism. The Russians were more dictatorial, Fromm argued, and the Russian leadership promoted inhumane and inefficient bureaucracy.

Fromm cooperated with intellectuals and activists in “Third Way” countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland that were trying to break from the Soviet sphere of influence while distancing themselves from Western “democracies.” They were relatively small countries and the citizenry passionately sought small community-based democratic socialism free of both Soviet bureaucracy and Western alienation. In our contemporary world where there is no longer a Soviet Union and the United States can no longer impose its will abroad. Fromm would see continuing potential for a “Third Way,” especially in small countries like Finland, Denmark, and even Tunisia.

Q: Fromm challenged the dominant Freudian model of psychoanalysis and paid a professional price for doing so. His approach encourages “central relatedness,” where confidentiality breaches may sometimes occur and the clinician is personally involved with the patient rather than distanced by therapeutic neutrality. What is his legacy in the psychiatric world and has his approach been embraced or rejected by modern psychoanalysis?

LF: Orthodox Freudian psychoanalysis involved a seemingly neutral and distant analyst. The patient projected his repressed concerns on the analyst so these concerns could be studied. Fromm’s “central relatedness” was markedly different. The analyst was not neutral but opened himself to his deepest personal issues and encouraged the patient to similarly open his “center” to the analyst.

Traditional Freudian analysis is essentially gone. Given Fromm’s and other clinicians’ affairs and other professional breaches with their patients, rooted in the temptations of “central relatedness”, it, too, has a problematic legacy. But Fromm, like his friend Harry Stack Sullivan, emphasized the clinical relationship as an interpersonal one– the connectedness between people as the way to understand what troubled patients. Because the interpersonal is perhaps the dominant clinical approach today within psychoanalytically informed therapy, Fromm and Sullivan have reemerged as significant figures. From a therapeutic perspective, Fromm has finally come of age.

Q: You write that mental health and illness are heavily social constructs. If Fromm were living today, current clinicians might have labeled him as bipolar. Yet there were “stabilizers” in his life that pushed away bipolarity and let Fromm be very productive. What can we learn from Fromm’s approach to dealing with the effects of mental illness?

LF: Contemporary psychiatrists and other mental health experts are too quick to label their patients “bipolar” and “schizophrenic.” Both tend to be seen as genetically rooted organic maladies; psychotropic drugs are the remedies or alleviants of choice. Coming from the social misery of a deeply depressed mother and a manic father and trying somehow to keep the family together, Fromm adapted. By his own admission, he would have been called manic depressive or bipolar. However, considering the way he led his life, “manic depressive” is diagnostically far off the mark even if he was genetically or temperamentally disposed.

Fromm developed an array of daily habits that “stabilized“ or fine-tuned his existence. He wrote regularly, meditated, conversed with a small circle of convivial friends, cultivated a love for political activism, and corresponded regularly and caringly with those close to him. Succinctly, Fromm’s life and the social emphasis behind his therapeutic approach suggest that our daily social arrangements may keep us healthy and happy without recourse to drugs. At least these arrangements should precede drug trials that may be unnecessary. Fromm thought so and always emphasized social circumstances in caring for his patients even as he never dismissed the possibility of drugs as periodic supplements down the line.

Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900, and died almost eighty years later, on March 18, 1980. In celebration of Fromm’s life, we have a two-part Q&A with Lawrence J. Friedman, author of The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet, looking back at Fromm’s many intellectual contributions and accomplishments.

In part one of the interview, Friedman discusses Fromm’s views on love and politics, and how his works still have political impact today.

Question: Fromm was a believer in love or, as you call him, “love’s prophet.” How did his relationships with women influence his philosophy about the role of love in the world?

Lawrence Friedman: The Art of Loving (1956) sold over 25,000,000 copies and still sells well globally. The theme is easy to fathom. At a very deep level, one must simultaneously love oneself, the cherished other, and all of humankind. Love starts as a specific relationship and then becomes a global transformation of humankind into a peaceful and caring society.

Succinctly, a self in love with another is transformative. This was a perspective on love that connected to Fromm’s view of humanism and spirituality. The theme of love had an overwhelming dose of authenticity. It was rooted in Fromm’s own life. Fromm’s unhappy first marriage led to a divorce; in the second, his wife committed suicide; the third, with Annis Freeman, was love from the start. Sometimes Fromm would write six or seven love letters to Freeman every day, and she would reciprocate. The expressions of love through letters bound their lives together and energized Fromm’s spiritual crusade to humanize the world.

Q: Fromm was a founder and major funder of Amnesty International. How has Amnesty transformed our understanding of social justice and human rights?

LF: Fromm was a founder of Amnesty International in the early 1960s and was its principal funder for the next twenty years. He did much to make Amnesty perhaps the most vibrant and effective global agency for human rights and against government brutalities. To free incarcerated victims of harsh regimes, Fromm could play the part of global diplomat, shuttling among Washington, New York, London, and Moscow with remarkable skill and effectiveness. His money and his strategies to free people from governmental barbarities did much to make Amnesty International the most important human rights organization in the world today.

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Today is Valentine’s Day! In honor of the occasion, we have a post from Lawrence J. Friedman, author of The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet, in which Friedman discusses Erich Fromm’s views on love, as articulated in his book The Art of Loving.

Erich Fromm had many “lives”. He was a political activist, a psychoanalyst, a theologian, a personality theorist, a social psychologist, a philosopher, and a clinician. Fromm wrote a great many books. Only one sold less than 1,000,000 copies. Through these volumes, Fromm conveyed the most complex thoughts of Einstein, Goethe, Darwin, Freud, Marx, and other intellectual giants in a way that readers everywhere could understand. In a very real sense, he was an “educator to the world.”

Fromm is primarily known for two of his books. Escape from Freedom (1941) addressed murderous dictators like Hitler who were running rampant over Europe and threatening to extinguish millions. For Fromm, hatred and sado-masochism were basic to their mass appeal. The Art of Loving (1956), on the other hand, was very different. It concerned hope and joyfulness – the upside of human experience. Whereas Escape from Freedom sold roughly 5,000,000 copies, The Art of Loving marketed 25,000,000 copies globally and continues to sell well.

Why has The Art of Loving had such an enormous attraction? Why has it competed with flowers and candy as a Valentine’s Day gift? Why does it appeal to my current Harvard undergraduates just as it appealed, half a century ago, to the undergraduates I studied with at the University of California?

We all seem to be animated by love and downcast by its absence. It is perhaps the most upbeat emotion of human existence. Fromm’s delineation of love is clear. Love requires a good deal of effort on many fronts and for the duration of one’s life. One has to love oneself, other(s), and all of humankind. For Fromm, love is Biblical command to “love thy neighbor as thyself” and then some. Love requires “central relatedness” – allowing the deepest region or essence of one’s spiritual self to enter another self and to extend that entrance into all of humankind. There is a reciprocity of feeling and commitment that begins with self understanding, extends to parental understanding, takes the form of erotic mutuality with a partner, and extends into all of humankind. Fromm’s view of love resembles the Quaker concept of the “inner light of God” that connects (on the deepest possible level) the self, the other, and all of humankind.

If Fromm’s explication of the meaning of “love” was not unprecedented, he advanced it with such animation and freshness of vision that it has appealed to millions. He offered up an inspiring sense of hopefulness in a world that he found blighted for most of his life by war, terrorism, bigotry, famine, and other dispiriting ills. But there was another quality that added a zest and conveyed a credibility to Fromm’s discussion of love. He was in love at a very deep level as he wrote his book about love.

Fromm had three wives and several affairs. The first marriage, to Frieda Fromm Reichmann, ended in divorce. Henny Gurland, his second wife, committed suicide. He started dating Annis Freeman shortly after Gurland’s suicide. Raised in Alabama, Freeman was tall, sensuous, and beautiful. Whereas Fromm Reichmann and Gurland had been Jewish, intellectual, and professional, Freeman was a Gentile and had no vocation. She practiced astrology, meditated, enjoyed tai chi, and took some interest in Eastern spiritual traditions. Despite their differences, Freeman fell quickly and deeply in love with Fromm. She considered all of his thoughts to be brilliant and was thrilled by his every mannerism. From the start, Fromm professed a lifelong commitment to Freeman. He enthusiastically indulged her with tea, pastries, flowers, and all else she might desire. When Fromm was with Freeman, there was not much else that he could desire – not even an affair a film celebrity or dancer.

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This week our featured book is The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet by Lawrence J. Friedman. Today, we have an interview from 1958, in which Fromm talks to Mike Wallace about his views on materialism and society. We hope you’ve enjoyed our Erich Fromm-themed content this week, and we hope you remember to enter our Book Giveaway for a chance to win a FREE copy of The Lives of Erich Fromm.

This week our featured book is The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet by Lawrence J. Friedman. Today, we have an excerpt from The Lives of Erich Fromm in which Friedman discusses Fromm’s encounter with D. T. Suzuki, and the influence of Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism on Fromm’s ideas. Stay tuned for more great content on Erich Fromm coming up this week, and remember to enter our Book Giveaway to win a FREE copy of The Lives of Erich Fromm.

Erich Fromm, DT Suzuki, and Zen Buddhism by Columbia University Press

This week our featured book is The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet by Lawrence J. Friedman. Today, we have an excerpt from The Lives of Erich Fromm in which Friedman discusses Fromm’s early years at the Frankfurt Institute and, in particular, his interest in combining the ideas of Marx and Freud. Stay tuned for more great content on Erich Fromm coming up this week, and remember to enter our Book Giveaway to win a FREE copy of The Lives of Erich Fromm.

The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love's Prophet — Lawrence J. Friedman by Columbia University Press

For those of you suffering from the prospect of six months without football, we give you one last look at the Super Bowl via Avidan Milevsky, Baltimore Raven fan and author of Sibling Relationships in Childhood and Adolescence: Predictors and Outcomes.

As you might have guessed from the title of his book, Milevsky was not commenting on the Ravens’ punter taking a safety but rather what the game said about the relationship between Jim and John Harbaugh the coaches of the 49ers and Ravens respectively. In a blog post The Super Bowl of Sibling Rivalry, Milevsky wrote about how the pressure would be on John, the older brother, to beat his brother Jim, who enjoyed far more success as a football player. Further complicating the rivalry is the fact that the Harbaughs’ father is also a football coach.

After the game, Milevsky wrote a post entitled The Super Bowl Lesson to Parents of Siblings in which he discussed the much-anticipated post-game handshake between the two brothers:

Based on everything that is known about the dynamics of sibling rivalry you would have expected Jim to reach his brother midfield, lunge toward his brother’s neck and try and strangle him. Instead, the Harbaugh brothers taught us all a valuable life lesson. What I saw at that moment was profoundly special. What I saw at that moment was a disappointed Jim genuinely happy for his brother’s victory. What beauty, what maturity, what class. After all the tension and hype it all ended with two brothers embracing.

This week our featured book is The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet by Lawrence J. Friedman. Today, we have an excerpt from The Lives of Erich Fromm in which Friedman discusses Annis Freeman and Fromm’s The Art of Loving. Stay tuned for more great content on Erich Fromm coming up this week, and remember to enter our Book Giveaway to win a FREE copy of The Lives of Erich Fromm.

The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love's Prophet — Lawrence J. Friedman by Columbia University Press

This week our featured book is The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet by Lawrence J. Friedman.

Throughout the week we will highlight aspects of The Lives of Erich Fromm here on our blog, on our Twitter feed, and on our Facebook page. We are also offering a FREE copy of the book to the winner of our Book Giveaway.

To enter our Book Giveaway, simply e-mail lf2413@columbia.edu with your name and preferred mailing address. We will randomly select one winner on Friday at 1:00 pm. Good luck, and spread the word!

In the following video, W. Bradford Wilcox, the co-editor with Kathleen Kovner Kline of Gender and Parenthood: Biological and Social Scientific Perspectives, discusses the different ways in which fathers and mothers parent.

While recognizing that a variety of familial structures (single parents, etc.) Wilcox cites various studies which reveal that on average children fare better when raised by their biological parents. Wilcox focuses on how mothers and fathers each model different behavior for their children:

Writing for The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen named The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper , by Carmeta Albarus and Jonathan H. Mack, as one of The Best 2012 Books About Justice.

Here’s what Andrew Cohen wrote about the book:

I read and wrote about this book in early October, around the same time that Malvo gave a series of well-publicized media interviews on the 10th anniversary of the Beltway shootings. There are young people everywhere in the world who endured worse from their parents than Malvo did, but who did not become the killer he did. But if you want a sense of the damage a broken life can create for innocent victims decades later, read this book.

For more on The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo, here is a recent interview with the authors on Due Process:

In a recent episode on the podcast The Psych Files, Kerry Malawista discussed her book Wearing My Tutu to Analysis and Other Stories: Learning Psychodynamic Concepts from Life (written with Anne J. Adelman and Catherine L Anderson).

In particular she discusses transference and countertransference as it relates to the patient-therapist relationship. You can listen to the full podcast here but The Psych Files also published a couple of excerpts from Kerry Malawista during the interview:

Basically, transference is when we take real live feelings from our own life and then literally transfer them onto the therapist or analyst. We do this in all aspects of our lives. If the brain had to respond to every new encounter like it had never seen it before we’d be overwhelmed with data. So transference is our way of using what se’ve learned from our earlier lives and then representing it on new people that come along. Sometimes that’s for positive when things went well in the past, and sometimes negatively when we keep repeating relationships [from the past] that weren’t helpful.

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“My reasons for taking on this project include the fact that the journey that led Malvo to this place is one that begs for understanding.”—Carmeta Albarus

We conclude our week-long focus on The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper with an excerpt from the introduction in which Carmeta Albarus describes her relationship with Lee Boyd Malvo and her work with his defense:

There was no doubt as to whether or not Lee Boyd Malvo committed the crimes for which he had been charged. There was no doubt as to whether or not he pulled the trigger in many of the shootings. The question that loomed for his defense, and for those around the world who had followed the horrible case, was why. Finding the answer was further complicated by the fact that without Malvo’s cooperation, it would be difficult to mount any meaningful defense. Malvo had provided the authorities with a full confession, taking responsibility for all the murders, and he had continued to maintain his guilt. Experts who had met with Malvo and assessed the situation suggested that it would take years for him to come to any true understanding of himself, separate from John Muhammad.

At the time of my appointment I was informed that my focus in the case would be limited to investigating and tracking Malvo’s life in the islands of Jamaica, where he was born, and Antigua, where he met John Muhammad. I was told that there would be little value in my meeting with Malvo, given his lack of cooperation. I challenged that position, for even as I recognized the frustration his attorneys might have been feeling, I knew from many years of professional experience that commonality of culture and ethnicity goes a long way in establishing trust, and trust is the hallmark of any successful client–attorney relationship. “I believe that you and your client will be better served if I played a more central role in meeting and working with him,” I remember telling Craig Cooley

I worked hundreds of grueling hours and finally established a relationship of trust with Lee Boyd Malvo. Once that trust was there, Malvo was more inclined to cooperate with his defense team. Ultimately, as previously stated, he was found guilty of capital murder in the death of Linda Franklin, but he was spared the death penalty and instead received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

The end of the trial did not signal an end to my interaction with Malvo, however; our communication has extended to the present time. The work that I have done with offenders over the years has fostered my belief that even in the worst of us there is the possibility of redemption. My continued contacts and interactions with Malvo contribute to an even better understanding of this.

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We continue our week-long feature on The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper with an interview with Jonathan H. Mack, Psy.D. Mack is a forensic psychologist and in the book he identifies and analyzes the underlying clinical psychological and behavioral processes that led to Malvo’s dissociation and turn toward serial violence.

Question: Dr. Mack, what can we learn from the Malvo case and the fact that these types tragic mass murders continue?

Jonathan Mack: I think that one critical point is that there are a large number of mentally disturbed juvenile and young adult individuals, predominately males but also females, whose mental disorders are either unidentified or poorly treated. These tragedies emphasize that mental and psychological disorders are every bit as life-threatening and devastating to our society as medical disorders, and that mental health care needs to have absolutely full parity with medical care . The cost to society is just too great not to implement this.

Q: What are some of the specific steps we as a nation can take to help curtail this epidemic of murders by disturbed people?

JM: Just about every police and public safety officer is required to pass a psychological examination and psychological testing prior to being cleared to carry a gun. I think we as a nation must consider mandatory psychological testing and evaluation prior to clearing any citizen to carry firearms, possibly with a background check that reveals prior mental health treatment and a full medication list. If you scratch the surface of the individuals who commit mass murders you will find that a lot them were on psychiatric medication, and specifically SSRI or SNRI-type antidepressants, at the time of the commission of those crimes. These medications have black box warning labels that these medications may significantly increase the risk of violent behavior (suicidal or homicidal) in young people.

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The following is an interview with Carmeta Albarus, author of The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper. Albarus, a social worker, was instructed by the court to uncover any information that might help mitigate the death sentence the teen faced

Question: Why a book about “the making” of Lee Boyd Malvo?

Carmeta Albarus: Malvo was still a teen when he became part of the nation’s and the world’s consciousness in a most tragic way. Of all the clients I have worked with over the years, Malvo is one whose name still makes us ask, “What went wrong? And why?”

Q: Who is Lee Boyd Malvo from your perspective?

CA: The name Lee Boyd Malvo is now synonymous with the term “DC Sniper.” However, Lee’s life did not begin with the sniper shootings. He was a boy with great potential. He could have grown up to be a doctor, a lawyer, or the airline pilot he dreamed of being when he was a small child. He never got over the separation from his father when he was five years old, and it was especially difficult for him because his mom was often away from home too. He would be left with various individuals, some of them relatives, some of them strangers, but never long enough to form any permanent or stable attachment. Nevertheless, he generally did well in school and was motivated to be the best student in his class.

Q: So then when did he start to go wrong?

CA: Things took an ill-fated turn after his mother took him to Antigua, where he met John Muhammad. So, Muhammad presented this image of being a replacement father, especially after Malvo’s mother left him in Antigua on his own. Muhammad pretty much became Malvo’s father. From there Muhammad initiated the process of molding Malvo into the sniper.

For me to work with Malvo, I could not just see him as the sniper. I had to be able to see him growing up, and be able to relate to that part of him which was truer to his identity and his aspirations before he became linked with John Muhammad.

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The tenth anniversary of the the sniper shootings in Washington, D.C. has brought renewed attention to John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo’s killing spree, which terrified the city. Two people with an especially close relationship to the case are Carmeta Albarus and Jonathan Mack authors of The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper. On October 3, Politics and Prose in Washington D.C. is hosting an event with the authors.

Carmeta Albarus was called in by the judge to serve on Malvo’s defense team and instructed by the court to uncover any information that might help mitigate the death sentence the teen faced. Albarus met with Malvo numerous times and repeatedly traveled back to his homeland of Jamaica, as well as to Antigua, to interview his parents, family members, teachers, and friends.

In a recent and much-discussed interview with The Washington Post (see below), Malvo credits Albarus with restoring his identity and sense of self. He explains that before he met her he was unable to understand what he had become and what he had done.

In the interview, Malvo also details his relationship with John Muhammad and the process in which he was brainwashed and the events leading up to the killings. Malvo points to his difficult upbringing, lack of a steady home life, and how his sense of abandonment made him “ripe” to fall under Muhammad’s control. However, Malvo also expresses a sense of guilt and takes responsibility for what he did, “I was a monster. If you look up the definition, that’s what a monster is. I was a ghoul. I was a thief. I stole people’s lives. I did someone else’s bidding just because they said so. . . . There is no rhyme or reason or sense.”

“The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo offers the unabashed truth about children who face emotional and psychological scars resulting from feelings of rejection, abandonment, and other trauma by being left home by parents who immigrated overseas.” — Geneive Brown Metzger

This week our featured book is The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo by Carmeta Albarus, MSW, LCSW, with forensic analysis by Jonathan H. Mack, Psy.D..

To enter our book giveaway, simply e-mail pl2164@columbia.edu with your name and address. We will randomly select one winner on Friday at 1:00 pm. Good luck and spread the word!

Throughout the week we will highlight aspects of The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper and we are offering a FREE copy of the book to one winner.

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In honor of Valentine’s Day, we offer a post from earlier this summer:

Mari Ruti, author of The Summons of Love, also writes a blog for Psychology Today called The Juicy Bits: Love, lust, and the luster of life, recently wrote a post exploring the reasons why it is important to fall in love.

For Ruti, love “ushers us to frequencies of human life that we might find difficult to access otherwise,” and allows us a break from the pragmatic preoccupations that dominate our everyday life. Drawing on the ideas of Julia Kristeva and Alain Badiou, Ruti writes that love, “adds a layer of luster to our mundane existence, making us feel empowered and self-connected even as it ‘decenters’ us from our customary concerns.”

In considering the potential for disappointment and disillusion that comes with love or love’s failure, Ruti writes:

The problem, of course, is that we can’t access the depths of love without opening ourselves to its risks – that the price of allowing ourselves to experience love’s mystery is utter vulnerability. This is why it’s easy to refuse love’s summons, to decline its invitation to self-transformation. And those who have already been burned by love may find this invitation even more challenging. This is why I have been arguing that it might help to stop thinking about love’s disenchantments as the antithesis of love and see them, instead, as an essential part of love’s trajectory. It might help to conceive of romantic failures as love’s way of teaching us the kinds of lessons we might never otherwise learn. When it comes to love, our so-called failures are often (not always, but often) merely new opportunities for growth, new opportunities for singularizing our character. Those who understand this are more likely to welcome love’s summons because they know that the happily-ever-after is only one aspect of love – that to love is, among other things, to accept the possibility of disappointment.

The following is an interview with John T. E. Richardson, author of Howard Andrew Knox: Pioneer of Intelligence Testing at Ellis Island

Question: Who is the subject of your book?

John T.E. Richardson: Howard Andrew Knox was one of the physicians employed by the U.S. Public Health Service at the Ellis Island immigration station in New York during the first part of the twentieth century. He and his colleagues were charged with assessing the health and in particular the intelligence of potential immigrants who were seeking entry to the United States. Many books have been written about the experiences of the immigrants at Ellis Island, but less has been written about the physicians who were responsible for examining them. Knox’s work is barely known.

Q: Why was Knox’s work at Ellis Island important?

J.T.E.R: Knox made a key contribution in developing a wide range of new intelligence tests with which to test potential immigrant and in promoting the idea that any adequate measure of intelligence should be based on both verbal and nonverbal (“performance”) tests. Although his own work in this field was confined to a period of just four years between May 1912 and May 1916, it represents a crucial link between the early endeavors of Francis Galton, Alfred Binet, and Henry Goddard (whose tests were mainly verbal in nature) and the later work of Rudolf Pintner, Robert Yerkes, and David Wechsler (who accepted the need for both verbal and nonverbal tests).

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