Mixed Race Studies

Skin Color of Mulattoes

Journal of Heridity
Volume 5, Number 12 (December 1914)
pages 556-558

Charles B. Davenport, Director
Department of Experimental Evolution
(Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York

Apparently Four Factors Involved—Segregation in Second Generation—Skin Pigment Developed After Birth—No Correlation Between Color of Skin and Curliness of Hair in Offspring of Mulatto Marriages.

The method of heredity in negro-white crosses has long been cited as a demonstration of the failure of modern principles of heredity in their application to some specific cases. Skin color is said to show a typical blending, as in the mulatto, and it is generally assumed that all of the offspring of two mulattoes resemble their parents in skin color; and if a mulatto be crossed with a white that all of the offspring will be of a shade still lighter than the mulatto parent, namely, of a quadroon color. The current theory also has a great social importance because according to it, “once a negro, always a negro;” since the negro characteristics can not be wholly eliminated even by successive matings with white. However, as a concession, certain States even in our South permit the offspring of a person containing one-eighth negro blood and a pure white to pass as a white citizen and to marry, legally, a white person. That is, after matings of a mulatto and her offspring for two further generations with white persons the final generation may pass for white…

VARIATION IN MULATTO PROGENY The family of a white man of colored ancestry, and a mulatto woman. All seven sons and daughters are shown in the photograph. The infant is the lightest, with 8% black in the skin; this will doubtless darken with age. The son at the extreme right of the picture has 22% black in his skin; the boy at the extreme left has 26% black. (Fig. 17.)

OFFSPRING OF WHITE X MULATTO MATING Part of the “W” family, including a medium colored mother and six of her seven children by a white man; also a little first cousin of the other children, who is directly in front of the mother. Note the great variation in the facial coloration of full brothers and sisters. The skin color of the youngest child is the same as that of a typical white infant, namely, 5% black, whereas the oldest boy of the group has a skin color of 32%black, considerably darker than his mother. (Fig. 18.)

Read the entire article here.

Hybrid Types of the Human Race: Racial Mixture as a Cause of Conspicuous Morphological Changes of the Facial-type

The Journal of Heredity
Volume 12, Number 6 (June 1921)
pages 274-280

Herman Lundborg (1868-1943)
Race-Biological Institution, Uppsala, Sweden

It has been possible for recent hereditary research to show that some racial qualities are inherited according to Mendel’s law. In 1913, Eugen Fischer, the anthropologist, made a close study of questions of this kind and laid a scientific foundation for hybrid research in the human world.

The morphological race-characters, which are formed through an early and complete ossification—for instance the form, the length, the breadth of the skull etc.—seem to be depending upon heredity in a higher degree than, for instance, the length of the body, which is more easily modified by environmental factors, which depend upon an ossification completed at a later period. I have treated this latter question in a recent communication.

During my travels and investigations in the far north of Sweden, among the population there, which has originated through strong race-mingling among Lapps, Finns and Swedes principally, I could not help noticing that the types vary in a very high degree, and that not unfrequently certain obvious changes of the facial type appear, which do not appear among individuals of a purer race. The numerous recombinations of the genetic structure are probably important causes for this circumstance. There will spring up, it seems to me, in these racial hybrids, besides qualities depending solely on the germ-plasm, in many respects stronger modifications, which probably are to be considered as a partial atrophy. Similar phenomena are often observed in crossings in the vegetable and the animal world…

List of Figures

• RACIAL MIXTURE IN ROYAL FAMILIES
• TYPES OF RACIAL MIXTURE IN SWEDEN
• RACIAL MIXTURES IN SWEDEN
• MIXED TYPES OF UNCIVILIZED PEOPLES

Read the entire article here.

Another Woolly-Hair Mutation in Man

The Journal of Heredity
Volume 25, Number 9 (September 1934)
pages 337-340

C. Ph. Schokking
Rotterdam, Holland

A Dutch peasant family living near Leiden carries a dominant gene for a type of woolly hair characteristic of the Negro races. This is not to be explained as due to race crossing for two reasons.  In the first place there is no tradition in the family of an infusion of Negro blood and no other evidence of anything but pure Dutch ancestry. Furthermore, hair form behaves in racial crosses not as a simple dominant character but as a “blending” character (in which to or more genes are involved).  Thus simple mendelian inheritance of hair form is not found in Negro-white crosses. Among such hybrids various degrees of curly and wavy hair are observed, and in later generations wooly hare may appear but only where both parents are partly Negro. Thus the occurrence of woolly hair in this family is clear due to mutation rather than race hybridization.

While studying twins in Leiden in 1929 and 1930, I encountered a pair of non-identical twin sisters, one of whom had remarkably curly hair. Since little is known of the inheritance of such genuine woolly hair among Europeans, I followed up the history of this pair. It soon transpired that in the village of Rijnsburg, near Leiden, whence the girls came, many woolly-haired persons were to be found, and that all of these belonged to the same family. After a deal of effort I was able to put together a pedigree chart covering five generations (Figure 3). The founder of the family had already died and no photograph of him was to be had, but an old Rijnsburger, who knew both this man and his father, was able to give me definite information that both of them had woolly hair…

Read the entire article here.

The Skin Color of Children from White By Near-White Marriages

The Journal of Heredity
Volume 38, Number 8 (August 1947)
pages 233-234

Curt Stern (1902-1981), Professor of Zoology and Genetics [Read a biographical memoir by James V. Neel here.]
University of California, Berkeley

It is well known that the inheritance of color differences in negro-white crosses is based on multiple genes, as first postulated by Gertrude C. and Charles B. Davenport in 1910. Most textbooks present the specific hypothesis first proposed by Davenport  that two pairs of genes are involved which act cumulatively and with intermediate effects in heterozygotes, so that negro pigmentation may be symbolized by AABB, white by aabb and various shades of diverse hybrid pigmentation by AABb, and AaBB (dark mulatto) AAbb, aaBB, and AaBb (mulatto), and aaBb and Aabb (light mulatto). In a general way this hypothesis fits the data on negro-white hybrids collected by Davenport. Undoubtedly, however, it is at best only a first approximation. Pigmentation is greatly variable in either whites or negroes. While it is known that much of this variability is inherited, little information is available as to the specific genetic conditions underlying the degrees and types of pigmentation found in either group. Correspondingly limited is our knowledge of the interaction of the “minor” genes for pigment variability with each other and with the “major” ones in negro-white crosses.

Read the entire article here.

Making Sense of New Census Classifications for Race

UCLA School of Public Health Magazine
June 2007
page 31

STARTING WITH THE 2000 CENSUS, the federal government revised how it collects data on race and ethnicity—respondents were allowed to identify themselves as a member of more than one category (which 7 million opted to do), whereas in prior censuses they were forced to choose one. The revision was made in recognition of the nation’s growing number of interracial couples, who in turn are producing children whose diverse lineage defies a single classification. But the change also creates potential nightmares for researchers and policymakers who rely on the data from these and other surveys to understand racial and ethnic disparities in health: When you consider all of the possible combinations, including “other,” there are now 63 multiple-race categories along with the six single-race categories.

Tommi Gaines, a UCLA School of Public Health doctoral student in biostatistics [Currently biostatistician at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine], is tackling the challenges arising from the new collection method. “There have been goals that have been set around understanding why differences exist between races and how we can develop policies to try to eliminate or reduce these differences,” Gaines notes. “If there are disparities found between multiracial populations and a single-race category, how do we accurately reflect what’s going on with the multiracial populations, which capture a broad range of people? It becomes harder to tease out the potential problems that are causing these health differences.”…

…“As long as there continue to be differences between races in regard to health conditions, we need to continue to collect and find ways to make sense of the data so that we better understand why these disparities exist.”

Read the entire article here.

Classification of Race and Ethnicity: Implications for Public Health

Annual Review of Public Health
Volume 24 (May 2003)
pages 83-110
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.24.100901.140927

Vickie M. Mays, Professor of Psychology and Professor of Health Services
University of California, Los Angeles

Ninez A. Ponce, Associate Professor of Public Heath
University of California, Los Angeles

Donna L. Washington, M.D.
Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs
Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System

Susan D. Cochran, Professor of Epidemiology
University of California, Los Angeles

Emerging methods in the measurement of race and ethnicity have important implications for the field of public health. Traditionally, information on race and/or ethnicity has been integral to our understanding of the health issues affecting the U.S. population. We review some of the complexities created by new classification approaches made possible by the inclusion of multiple-race assessment in the U.S. Census and large health surveys. We discuss the importance of these classification decisions in understanding racial/ethnic health and health care access disparities. The trend toward increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the United States will put further pressure on the public health industry to develop consistent and useful approaches to racial/ethnic classifications.

Read or purchase the article here.

Congenital dermoid cyst of the anterior fontanel in mestizo-mulatto children

Child’s Nervous System
Volume 17, Number 6 (2001)
pages 353-355
DOI: 10.1007/s003810000419

Sonia Fermín
Section of Neurosurgery
Hospital Infancy Dr. R. Reid C, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

R. Fernández-Guerra
Section of Neurosurgery
Hospital Infancy Dr. R. Reid C, Santo Domingo,  Dominican Republic

O. López-Camacho
Section of Neurosurgery.
Hospital Infantil Dr. Arturo Grullon, Santiago, Dominican Republic

R. Alvarez
Section of Neurosurgery.
Hospital Infantil Dr. Arturo Grullon, Santiago,  Dominican Republic

Objects: Twenty-seven cases of histologically confirmed congenital dermoid cysts of the anterior fontanel in children are reported. Methods: The age, sex and race of each patient was recorded. Conclusions: Ages ranged between 2 months and 6 years. There was a female predominance, and 77.7% of these patients were children of mixed race. Surgical excision resulted in complete cure without complications or recurrences.

Read the entire article here.

Genetic Linkage of the Dentinogenesis Imperfecta Type III Locus to Chromosome 4q

Journal of Dental Research
Volume 78, Number 6 (June 1999)
pages 1277-1282
DOI: 10.1177/00220345990780061301

M. MacDougall
Department of Pediatric Dentistry
University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

L. G. Jeffords
Department of Pediatric Dentistry,
University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

T. T. Gu
Department of Pediatric Dentistry
University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

C. B. Knight
Department of Pediatric Dentistry
University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

G. Frei
Department of Pediatric Dentistry,
University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

B. E. Reus
Department of Cellular and Structural Biology
University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

B. Otterud
Department of Human Genetics
Eccles Institute of Human Genetics
University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City

M. Leppert
Department of Human Genetics
Eccles Institute of Human Genetics
University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City

R. J. Leach
Department of Cellular and Structural Biology
University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

Dentinogenesis imperfecta type III (DGI-III) is an autosomal-dominant disorder of dentin formation which appears in a tri-racial southern Maryland population known as the “Brandywine isolate”. This disease has suggestive evidence of linkage to the long arm of human chromosome 4 (LOD score of 2.0) in a family presenting with both juvenile periodontitis and DGI-III. The purpose of this study was to screen a family presenting with only DGI-III to determine if this locus was indeed on chromosome 4q. Furthermore, we wanted to determine if DGI-III co-localized with dentinogenesis imperfecta type II (DGI-II), which has been localized to 4q21-q23. Therefore, a large kindred from the Brandywine isolate was identified, oral examination performed, and blood samples collected from 21 family members. DNA from this family was genotyped with 6 highly polymorphic markers that span the DGI-II critical region of chromosome 4q. Analysis of the data yielded a maximum two-point LOD score of 4.87 with a marker for the dentin matrix protein 1 (DMP1) locus, a gene contained in the critical region for DGI-II. Our results demonstrated that the DGI-III locus is on human chromosome 4q21 within a 6.6 cM region that overlaps the DGI-II critical region. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that DGI-II is either an allelic variant of DGI-III or the result of mutations in two tightly linked genes.

Read or purchase the article here.

American Triracial Isolates: Their Status and Pertinence to Genetic Research

Eugenics Quarterly
Volume 4, Issue 4 (December 1957)
pages 187-196
(Curteousy of The Melungeon Heritage Assoication)

Calvin L. Beale (1923-2008)
United States Department of Agriculture

In the 1950 Census of Population, 50,000 American Indians are listed as living in states east of the Mississippi River. These people do not constitute the sole biological legacy of the aboriginal population once found in the East, of course. The remnants of many tribes were removed west of the Mississippi where they retain their tribal identity today. Nor is it uncommon to meet Easterners, thoroughly Caucasian in appearance and racial status, who boast of an Indian ancestor in the dim past. Other intfusio9ns of Indian blood were absorbed into the Negro population, and in this context may also be referred to with pride even if they afford no differential social status.

It is another class of people, however, that engages the attention of this article—a class more numerous than the Indians remaining in the East, more obscure than those in the West, less assured than the white man or the Negro who regards his link of Indian descent as a touch of the heroic or romantic. The reference is to population groups of presumed triracial descent. Such isolates, bequeathed of intermingled Indian, white, and Negro ancestry, are as old as the nation itself and include not less than 77,000 persons. They live today in more than 100 counties of at least 17 Eastern States with settlements ranging in size from less than 50 persons to more than 20,000. Their existence has furnished material for the writings of local historians, folklorists, journalists, and novelists. Occasionally, they have come to the attention of cultural anthropologists, sociologists, and—here and there—a geographer or educator. Attention to the triracial isolates by geneticists is largely confined to the last three years, however. It is the object of this discussion to describe the nature, location, and status of such Indian-white-Negro groups in Eastern States and to indicate the potential interest they hold for the field of human genetics.

Although the precise origin of these groups is unknown in most instances, they seem to have formed through miscegenation between Indians, whites, and Negroes—slave or free—in the Colonial and early Federal periods. In places the offspring of such unions—many of which were illegitimate under the law—tended to marry among themselves. Within a generation or so this practice created a distinctly new racial element in society, living apart from other races. The forces tending to perpetuate such groups, and die strength of these forces, differed from place to place. Some groups subsequently dispersed or were assimilated during the 19th century. Some waxed in numbers; others waned. Most have persisted to the present day. A majority of the triracial isolates originated in the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Their members were among the early pioneers in the Appalachian Plateaus and the Tennessee River Valley. Many left the South and moved to Northern States such as Ohio and…

Read the entire article here.

Mixing Races: From Scientific Racism to Modern Evolutionary Ideas

Johns Hopkins University Press
December 2010
136 pages
14 halftones
Hardback ISBN: 9780801898129
Paperback ISBN: 9780801898136

Paul Lawrence Farber, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Modern Life Sciences, Intellectual History
Oregon State University

This book explores changing American views of race mixing in the twentieth century, showing how new scientific ideas transformed accepted notions of race and how those ideas played out on college campuses in the 1960s.

In the 1930s it was not unusual for medical experts to caution against miscegenation, or race mixing, espousing the common opinion that it would produce biologically dysfunctional offspring. By the 1960s the scientific community roundly refuted this theory. Paul Lawrence Farber traces this revolutionary shift in scientific thought, explaining how developments in modern population biology, genetics, and anthropology proved that opposition to race mixing was a social prejudice with no justification in scientific knowledge.

In the 1960s, this new knowledge helped to change attitudes toward race and discrimination, especially among college students. Their embrace of social integration caused tension on campuses across the country. Students rebelled against administrative interference in their private lives, and university regulations against interracial dating became a flashpoint in the campus revolts that revolutionized American educational institutions.

Farber’s provocative study is a personal one, featuring interviews with mixed-race couples and stories from the author’s student years at the University of Pittsburgh. As such, Mixing Races offers a unique perspective on how contentious debates taking place on college campuses reflected radical shifts in race relations in the larger society.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. A Mixed-Race Couple in the 1960
• 2. Scientific Ideas on Race Mixing
• 3. Challenges to Opinions on race Mixing
• 4. The Modern Synthesis
• 5. The Modern Synthesis Meets Physical Anthropology and Legal Opinion
• 6. University Campuses in the 1960s
• 7. Science, “Race,” and “Race Mixing” Today
• Epilogue
• Suggested Further Reading
• Index