PBA Galleries

2 items:
• Marion J. Mayo. “The Mental Capacity of the American Negro”. Reprinted from the Archives of Psychology, No. 28. (NY, Nov. 1913) First Printing thus. Original printed wrappers. 71pp.
• George Oscar Ferguson. The Psychology of the Negro / An Experimental Study  [Archives of Psychology, Columbia University contributions to philosophy and psychology, Vol. XXV, No. 1] (New York, Science Press, 1916) First Edition. Original cloth binding. 138pp.

Scarce imprints. Nearly a century before the “Bell Curve” controversy of the 1990s, the "scientific" development of IQ testing led to these early studies – two of the first three – of “Negro Intelligence”. Ferguson’s conclusions  laid the groundwork for what might be called  “Scientific Racism”, while Mayo surprisingly concluded that Black academic and intellectual performance might be “due solely to a difference in opportunity and not at all to superior  [mental] endowment.”  Assumptions of Black mental “inferiority” had an enormous impact on concepts of Black education from the days of Booker T. Washington onward.