2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

HSS Abstracts
European “theoretical” tradition in timber physics extolled by Bovey’s nemesis,
B. E. Fernow (1851-1923), the Prussian-trained chief of the U.S. Division of
Forestry a “progressive” evolutionary tradition in plant phylogeny extended by
McGill’s American-born and -trained professor of botany, D.P. Penhallow (1854-
1910) and a “reductionist” evolutionary revisionism introduced by Penhallow’s
mirror image, E. C. Jeffrey (1866-1952), Harvard University’s Canadian-born
and -trained plant morphologist. In shifting patterns reminiscent of Goethe’s
Elective Affinities, the resulting exchanges and interchanges among
representatives of these various perspectives highlight the historical relationship
between science and nation as highly utilitarian, and contingent upon the broader
context of its time.
Leila Zenderland California State University, Fullerton
Of Mice, Men, and Mercy Killing:
Steinbeck’s Novel and the Euthanasia Debate
John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel, Of Mice and Men, tells a tale of two murders. In
the first, a mentally retarded farmhand named Lennie, a child-like man who
likes to pet soft objects, accidentally strangles a woman. In the second, this
man’s closest friend and protector, George, trying to spare Lennie from a lynch
mob, shoots him in the back of the head—a murder committed out of love, the
story suggests, a mercy killing. An immediate bestseller, by 1939 this story
had also been transformed into an acclaimed Broadway play and a successful
Hollywood film. In the following years, it has remained immensely popular
more than six decades later, this novel is one of the most frequently taught
literary texts in American high schools. This paper will reconsider Steinbeck’s
popular story in light of several scientific, social, and political controversies
of the 1930s. In particular, it will focus on the ways that the fictional murders
committed by Lennie and George raised questions about three broad concerns
that had increasingly captured the attention of both psychological scientists
and the general public: the meaning of mental retardation, the nature of criminal
responsibility, and the morality of mercy killing. This paper will explore the
complex interconnections between psychological theories and popular beliefs
by reexamining this influential work of fiction produced by John Steinbeck, a
naturalist novelist whose writing simultaneously reflected scientific curiosity
and contemporary political concerns. It will also analyze this story’s messages
within the more specific context of the 1930s euthanasia debate—a debate
that increasingly came to link ideas about mental retardation with the question
of mercy killing.
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