Climbing Our Family Tree:
The untimely birth of Children’s books about evolution, 1920-1955
Abstract:
Evolution was largely removed from high school textbooks in the period between the
Scopes trial and the launch of Sputnik. Yet, this period saw the first children’s books
about evolution. By exploring these children’s books and historical documents about their
authors and publishers I demonstrate that the cultural history of evolutionary theory in
American history is much more complex than has previously been noted. While the
Scopes trial did mark a significant change in coverage of evolution in high school
textbooks, it also marked the birth of literature for elementary age students about the
subject. This study articulates a framework for the relationship between textbooks and
general children’s literature about science in the period as a means to initiate a discussion
among historians about the place of both textbooks and children’s literature in
educational history.
While the historical trajectory of evolution in science education has received
considerable attention in the literature, most of that attention has been focused on
textbooks. As Edward Larson notes in his book Trial and Error after the Scopes trial
“Existing restrictions and fears of further controversy led commercial publishers to deemphasize evolution in their high school textbooks.”1 Larson clearly demonstrates this
trend in textbooks. However, a different trend emerges when one looks to another genera
of didactic literature.
Instead of squelching the promotion of children’s books about evolution the
Scopes trial may well have encouraged the development of them. The Children’s Catalog,
an exhaustive reference for school librarians, makes no mention of evolution as a topic of
children’s books in both the inaugural 1909 and supplementary 1918 editions. 2 Instead,
the first listing of books on evolution comes in 1925, after the Scopes trial. The 1925
1
Larson, Edward. Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985. p. 84.
2
Potter, Marion and Bacon, Corinne. Children's Catalogue, HW Wilson Company 1909, 1918,
1925.
children’s catalogue lists Adam Whyte’s book The Wonder World We Live In, as suitable
reading material for students from the fifth to eighth grade. While the catalogues authors
caution that “the radicalism of the chapters on ethics and religion will be found
objectionable by some parent and teachers”, they still recommend the book for young
readers. Evolution had found its way into children’s literature.3
Subsequently many children’s books on evolution were recommended in the
following years. While textbooks remained squeamish about the topic until after Sputnik,
children’s books engaged the topic with fervor. This paper traces the history of these
books and their authors in an attempt to better understand the place of evolution in the
history of American science and education. By better understanding this relationship in
this situation I hope that historians of education might consider the history of children’s
books alongside textbooks as a means to better triangulate the full range of views
expressed views available in a given period. In this vein the paper deals with three issues.
First I offer samples of the content of these texts, then a background on some of the
authors. With those set in place it is possible to reconceived the historical the place of
evolution in the history of American education.
The Content:
The Scopes trial had brought to light the key differences between evolutionary
theory and a school of American Christian thinking. While one could cite a long list of
philosophical disagreements the most salient themes will offer the best means of
comparison. Gerald Skoog’s analysis of textbooks found that “The most sensitive
evolutionary topics, including the origin of life and the evolution of man, rarely appeared
3
Potter, Marion and Bacon, Corinne. Children's Catalogue, HW Wilson Company, 1925. p190.
at all. Less than half of the texts even used the word “evolution”.4 The origin of life, the
age of the earth and the origin of man all appear prominently in the children’s books.
Consider the following passages from Maxwell Reed’s 1929 children’s book The Earth
for Sam, published by the major children’s book publisher Harcourt Brace. Reed’s book
concludes “We saw life become a cell, then a group of cells. In turn there have appeared
before us the fish, the amphibian, the reptile, and the mammal.” He goes on to address
man, “Finally from among the mammals there appeared the primates and from among the
primates the European white primates who founded the British Empire and the United
States of America.”5 On both issues, the age of the earth and the descent of man,
children’s books were more outspoken than textbooks. These two topics are also
highlighted in many of the accompanying illustrations. While the period is conservative
in concern for evolution in textbooks it is a much less conservative face in children’s
books.
4
Skoog, Gerald. "Topic of Evolution in Secondary School Biology Textbooks: 1900-1977."
Science Education 63(1979): pp.623-624 and 627
5
Reed, William Maxwell. The Earth for Sam: The Story of Mountains, Rivers, Dinosaurs and Men.
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921. p.378. The two pictures can be found on pages
288 and 377 respectively.
If American’s were worried about high school students studying evolution, why
would major publishers, often the same textbook publishers shrinking back from the
subject, prepare books about the topics for an even younger and more impressionable
audience? I contend that the answer lies in the different nature of the texts. The textbook
embodies a form of official knowledge. It is supposed to represent a form of cultural
common ground. In theory, the book is for all students. In contrast a children’s book for
younger children might sit on the shelf unread, the only way someone reads it is if they
are interested enough in the topic to pick it off the shelf. I would argue that it becomes a
form of voluntary knowledge, as opposed to the official knowledge of the textbook.
So thinking back on the central questions, the central tropes, the birth of these
children’s evolution books adds a different tension to the history of evolutionary theory
as a cultural object in American culture. Instead of the science community retreating after
Scopes they aimed their sights at even younger individuals. As I will detail in the next
section, scientists were heavily involved in the production of these books.
The Authors:
Just who were the authors and publishers that wrote and distributed these books
and what were their motives? The first question is much easier to answer but also offers
insight into the second. For the most part, scientists, in particular, biologists and
paleontologists wrote the books.
For example, Edwin H. Colbert, an eminent vertebrate paleontologist, and in his
time as curator of the American museum of Natural History, published many works about
his research on dinosaurs. An early proponent of continental drift he made major
contributions to science in the twentieth century. For this paper one of his less wellknown books is of primary interest. In 1945 Colbert wrote a children’s book on
dinosaurs. In it he both accepted evolution as foundational and noted. “Dinosaurs are
extremely old when compared with the earliest human remains. But they are relatively
late in the 2-billion year history of the earth.”6 In his autobiography Colbert reflects on
his life’s work and returns to The Dinosaur Book as a hallmark of the popularity of
dinosaurs.
As he remembers, he was asked to write a book to supplement the museum’s
dinosaur exhibits. The book was originally published by the museum to accompany a
6
Colbert, Edwin. The Dinosaur Book. New York: McGraw Hill, 1945. p. 5
dinosaur exhibit but was later published by McGraw Hill.7 As he explains, he wrote the
book to fill a yearning of young children to learn about dinosaurs. Along with those
dinosaurs came a scientific perspective on an old and evolving earth. Many of the books
that deal explicitly with evolution in the period are these dinosaur books, the popularity
of the dinosaurs gave paleontologists a powerful platform to offer evolutionary thinking
to children.
Colbert is in many ways typical of a series of paleontologists and biologists who
worked extensively on these books. Of the other books written by journalists and
children’s book writers almost all acknowledge the assistance of scientists in editing.
This involvement from the scientific community, demonstrates that on some level,
scientists understood the value of these books.8 Instead of disengaging from these
discussions, members of the biological science community collaborated on books for
young people on the topic of evolution.
Rethinking the Context:
In the period after the Scopes trial evolution was largely ignored by high school
textbooks. However, textbook companies like McGraw Hill and Harcourt and Brace,
which had removed references to evolution in their textbooks published for a high school
audience had begun to publish books for a younger audience about the subject. Historians
have interpreted the lack of coverage of evolution in textbooks as a withdrawal from the
controversy in education. However, the publication of these children’s books would seem
7
Colbert, Edwin. Digging Into the Past: An Autobiography. New York: Dember Books, 1989. p.
429.
8
For examples of children’s evolution books written by scientists in the period also see Alex
Novikoff’s , Climbing our Family Tree. For example’s of children’s books written by children’s
authors see Adam Whyte’s The Wonder World We Live In, Ray Baker’s So That’s Man, and
William Reed’s Animals on the March.
to counter this claim. Instead, in light of these children’s books it would be reasonable to
conclude that because of the different natures of these two literary genres the Scopes trial
had very different effects.
It is well worth considering the historiographic frame around children’s books and
textbooks as views into America’s pedagogical past. I would suggest that textbooks are
inherently tilted toward political correctness, which makes them a much more
conservative medium, while because children’s books can be marketed to smaller niche
groups, like parents and librarians, they can encompass a broader range of perspectives.
Because Historians considering the place of evolution in the history of American
education have focused on textbooks they have missed the complexes of this history.
Instead of Scopes forcing education to become much more conservative, the trial had a
polarizing effect. Simultaneously forcing the conservative medium of textbooks to cut out
evolution and in parallel creating enough public interest in the topic to substantiate a new
genera of children’s books focused around the topic of evolution.
Works Cited
Baker, Ray. So That’s Man. Chicago: Reilly and Lee, 1949.
Colbert, Edwin. Digging Into the Past: An Autobiography. New York: Dember Books,
1989.
Colbert, Edwin. The Dinosaur Book. New York: McGraw Hill, 1945.
Larson, Edward. Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1985.
Reed, William Maxwell. Animals on the March. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company March 1937
Reed, William Maxwell. The Earth for Sam: The Story of Mountains, Rivers, Dinosaurs
and Men. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921.
Novikoff, Alex. Climbing our Family Tree. New York: International Publishers, 1945
Potter, Marion and Bacon, Corinne. Children's Catalogue, HW Wilson Company 1909,
1918, 1925.
Schrecker, Ellen. Stalking the Academic Communist: Intellectual Freedom and the Firing
of Alex Novikoff, Burlington, VT: University Press of Vermont, 1989
Skoog, Gerald. "Topic of Evolution in Secondary School Biology Textbooks: 19001977." Science Education 63(1979): 621-40.
Whyte, Adam. The Wonder World We Live In. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1921.