George William Hunter (June 29, 1863,

Williamsburg, West Virginia Williamsburg is a small unincorporated community in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States. Williamsburg is west of Falling Spring. Williamsburg has a post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides m ...

- February 4, 1948) was an American writer. He wrote ''

Civic Biology ''A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems'' (usually referred to as just ''Civic Biology'') was a biology textbook written by George William Hunter, published in 1914. It is the book which the state of Tennessee required high school teachers to u ...

'', the text at the center of the Scopes "monkey" trial in 1925. George William Hunter Jr. spent his later years lecturing at the

Claremont Colleges The Claremont Colleges (known colloquially as the 7Cs) are a consortium of seven private institutions of higher education located in Claremont, California, United States. They comprise five undergraduate colleges (the 5Cs)— Pomona College, Sc ...

. He died on February 4, 1948, at the age of 74, in Claremont, California. He is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Redlands, California.

Teaching

A biologist, he went to school at

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

. He earned his doctorate at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he was the educational director for the War Work Council in

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He also worked summers at

Woods Hole Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The population was 781 at ...

. After teaching biology at Carleton College and Knox College, in 1926 he came to

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became t ...

to teach one class each semester. He then lectured at Claremont Graduate School. During his career, he wrote or co-wrote 20 textbooks about biology or teaching it.

''Civic Biology'' and views

In ''Civic Biology'', Hunter advocated both

eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...

and

segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

, writing that "If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country." His views in his textbooks included the viewpoint that there were five human races, ranked from inferior to superior, with those of Caucasian descent purported by Hunter to be "the highest type of all." While this was a relatively normal academic outlook in the 1920s, his inclusion of evolution in his textbooks proved highly controversial at the time, and led to lawsuits in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, George William Williams College alumni Year of birth uncertain 1948 deaths Pomona College faculty Carleton College faculty Knox College (Illinois) faculty 1863 births New York University alumni 19th-century American biologists 20th-century American biologists People from Greenbrier County, West Virginia Biologists from West Virginia