The Orphans of Davenport

by Marilyn Brookwood

  Sherman and Key identified factors that influenced the children’s intelligence test scores: the distance of their hollows from the main road; the amount of time they spent in school; and, notably, the ages when they were tested. They found significantly lower IQ scores in older children, suggesting that the longer children lived in deprived environments, the greater their losses. As a contrast, the authors studied a nearby town located on a paved road that had a developed economy, better schools, and significantly higher school attendance. The town’s children had average intelligence test scores, while the hollows’ children’s mean intelligence scores were well below average.44

  While these reports had not yet come to the attention of the public, they were well known at the Iowa station and provided intellectual context and research support for what the Iowans had begun to suspect: deprived environments and limited education impeded the development of children’s intelligence. Then, in 1933, Frank N. Freeman, also at the University of Chicago, directly challenged the core claim of IQ tests, that intelligence was constant and did not change. In the proceedings of an important child development conference, Freeman wrote that the concept of unmodifiable IQ had little science behind it and had arisen from “hasty and uncritical interpretations” of intelligence tests and from psychology’s “uncritical” acceptance of Mendelian development.45

  While the several 1930s accounts that supported the role of environment came from researchers at Chicago, those psychologists were not members of a cohesive enterprise sharing an intellectual quest. By contrast, under Stoddard’s leadership and with financial resources provided by the Spellman grants, the Iowa station’s psychologists—Baldwin, Stoddard, Skeels, Wellman, and, after 1936, Skodak—developed an integrated vision that made the decade from 1928 to 1939 a critical investigatory period during which they pursued clues no matter how unreasonable they seemed at the time.46

  This highly productive phase of the station’s work had begun in 1928 with Bird Baldwin’s report that outcomes of children’s educational experiences varied, depending on school environments. Then followed Wellman’s 1932 discovery that preschool children’s intelligence test scores advanced with the amount of time spent in school, a report that challenged traditional beliefs among educators and the public. In 1934, Wellman published follow-up studies of her nursery school research. That same year she and Stoddard published their monograph Child Psychology, in which they wrote, “Perhaps there are few environments for younger children . . . as stimulating . . . as a modern nursery school.” At the time that concept had little to support it, but it would not be long before Skeels’s Woodward and Glenwood studies would drive those nascent ideas further.

  The Davenport orphans—three boys and eight girls—who arrived at Glenwood during the fall of 1936 entered a shining world that replaced Davenport’s bleak, unstimulating wards and overwhelmed inattentive matrons with sociable inmates, attendants, and staff delighted to have them. Each day they awoke to new experiences—ordinary in the lives of children raised in families, but unknown to these children. They learned how to use play materials like paint, crayons, and glue. They sang nursery rhymes, listened to stories, played games, tossed balls, ran races. And importantly, with the women’s help they became toilet trained.

  Children who owned no personal belongings, who had been dressed in threadbare institutional clothing overdue for washing, received colorful outfits made just for them by ward residents—and also received clothing warm enough for outdoor play during Iowa’s harsh winters. The women also used their small allowances to purchase gifts of toys and picture books for the children. Each morning the women and children sang in chapel. As soon as the very youngest of the transferred children could walk, they began preschool, and those who were older attended the more formal kindergarten. Their new lives included excursions to parks and other sites, learning to dance at school dances, and with rapt attention following the twists and turns of movie plots.

  For indoor play the residence had a spacious living room, and its outdoor areas had slides, sandboxes, and swings, equipment so foreign that it might have been dropped directly from outer space. The Glenwood matron responsible for planning activities singled out individual children for private hours alone with her, the first occasions in their lives when they had the complete attention of a caring adult. Further, interactions with teachers, matrons, staff, and adult inmates brought language stimulation and social development through “invitations” for reciprocal conversations and emotional responsiveness. All of these adults took pleasure in the children’s accomplishments, and the women competed to show them off. They became stars in the women’s lives and in their own.47

  But who were these children exposed to this treasury of experience? Each child Skeels transferred had a history of severe early neglect, abuse, and deprivation that for many seemed even more extreme than the experiences of BD and CD. Skeels wondered whether Glenwood’s environment could possibly replicate the intelligence changes that the Woodward experience had provided for the two girls. Would the intelligence of even one child revive? If the children thrived, how much gain would be possible? What timing of new experiences might be optimal? If a child’s intelligence increased, would it remain stable in the future? Would the differences between Glenwood’s wards and Woodward’s influence outcomes? And, Skeels wondered, what if nothing changed?

  One of the first children transferred, case 7, began life with virtually everything against her. Illegitimate, she was born to a 22-year-old mother who reported that she had completed eighth grade, and who had syphilis and gonorrhea. Despite being two months premature, case 7 had received no incubator care.48 When she was admitted to Davenport at 9 months, she had no teeth due to nutritional deprivation; she suffered from an acute ear infection and other health concerns and could not sit up or achieve expected infant milestones. Worse still, like BD’s and CD’s initial assessments, her 32 IQ was at the “imbecile” level. By the time she was transferred to Glenwood at 18 months, her intelligence score was 65 but her development matched that of a 10-month-old baby.49

  At Glenwood, case 7 lived with women who had the highest mental ages, between 9 and 12 years. Because of her frailty, a ward attendant took individual care of her, especially at night, and the women residents lavished attention on her. Three months after she arrived, she began kindergarten, quickly moving from half to full day. Four months later her teacher reported, “She is alert, independent, amusing. Tries almost all of the group activities.” In three more months, case 7’s IQ score tested at 104, the middle of the normal range. During one year at Glenwood, when illnesses and hospitalizations of institutional children were commonplace, case 7 remained robustly healthy. The next month, when she was 2½, she was adopted. From October 1936, when Skeels began his study, to October 1937, when case 7 arrived to live with her new family, her IQ had risen 39 points. At the study’s conclusion, three years later, case 7’s intelligence was 115, in the superior range.

  Another child, case 4, was illegitimate and may have been born prematurely (hospital records are unclear). Her 19-year-old mother, who had an IQ score of 55, lived in a small home with her parents and her nine siblings. The identity of the baby’s father was not known. Admitted to Davenport at 3 weeks, case 4 had symptoms of syphilis and was briefly hospitalized, but based on milestone evaluation, aside from health concerns she appeared to be a normal infant. After she had lived at Davenport for a little over a year, her IQ score tested at 73, below the average range. When case 4 was 15 months old, Skeels transferred her to Glenwood, where she lived with women who had high mental ages. At first she could only tolerate the half-day kindergarten program, but gradually she gained stamina, and her teacher wrote, “A very promising child. Seems to have average intelligence for her age. Takes simple directions, enters into practically all games and rhythms and tries whether she can do them or not. Good disposition.” At about 2 years of age, when her IQ test score was 100, case 4 was adopted. Over the course of Skeels’s study, he
r IQ test score had risen 27 points. Her adoptive mother had also been adopted and perhaps had special insight into her daughter’s needs. Skeels tested the child’s intelligence again when she was about 4½. It was 116, in the superior range.50

  Yet another child, case 9, was one of two children in the experimental group who did not achieve average-range intelligence. Skeels recorded the sad early life of an infant brought to the emergency room after sucking on the torn nipple of a baby bottle that her parents had mended with tire cement. Both alcoholics, the parents were imprisoned for neglect. At the hospital their baby required treatment for syphilis, and when she was well, Davenport admitted her. At 8 months, her IQ score was 61, in the range of morons. At 10 months, she did not speak, but had begun to stand alone. At 1 year, Skeels moved her to Glenwood, where she lived on a ward with the brightest women. Although one woman took a special interest in her, Skeels reported that she did not receive the individualized care enjoyed by some of the other children.

  When case 9 was almost 3 years old, she began to put two-word sentences together, something children of average intelligence do at age 2 or earlier. She attended half-day kindergarten and her IQ test score rose to 80, in the low average range. But unlike most of the experimental group children, at that point this child’s progress halted. Because Skeels’s study ended, case 9 had to be returned to Davenport, where she received almost no attention or stimulation and her IQ score began to decline.

  When she was 5 years old, problems with case 9’s vision became obvious, and with proper ophthalmic testing, the first such examination in her record, it was discovered that she was blind in her right eye and had only moderate vision in her left. Lenses did not correct this. At age 6, with an IQ score of 71, she remained in preschool. A few months later her IQ had fallen to 63, then 61. Skeels suspected that the syphilis she had contracted from her mother during her birth had not been adequately treated and might have progressed. It is also possible that the tire cement chemicals caused neurological damage that impaired her intellectual development. Despite her visual limitations, at one point case 9 experienced a 19-point IQ test score increase. Nonetheless, Skeels returned her to Glenwood as a long-term resident.51

  Case 10 in Skeels’s study experienced more IQ test score instability than any other of Skeels’s subjects. When he arrived at Davenport at 8 months of age, he seemed a normal baby but by age 2 his IQ score was 72. Skeels then moved him to Glenwood, where during his first two years he lived with the lowest-functioning women. Skeels reported that he wasn’t a child whom adults found engaging and no one took much interest in him. But when case 10 was about 2½ and began kindergarten, his IQ quickly rose 16 points to 88, in the low-average range. When he was 3 years old, his teacher described him as a “sweet looking child with a somewhat different disposition. Affectionate.” About then, case 10 was transferred to a ward with the brightest women, one of whom showed great interest in him, and where an attendant also provided much attention. His teacher reported, “He has many more friends,” and an “improving disposition, likes to be the leader, but likes to show off. Affectionate.”

  Early in his childhood, case 10 had suffered repeated ear infections and at age 4, after a brief hospitalization for treatment, his IQ score declined to 79. At this point the study ended and case 10 was returned to Davenport, where he entered its new, highly stimulative preschool program, part of another Skeels investigation. When his IQ was tested five months later, it had jumped to 96, a solidly average score. When he turned 5 he was adopted, but for unspecified reasons, two months later he was returned to Davenport. Two weeks after that another family adopted him, and this adoption succeeded. When this boy was about 6 years old, Skeels again tested his intelligence, and now found his IQ was 92. Although during his Glenwood stay case 10’s IQ had gained 7 points, during his post-Glenwood period his score advanced 13 points.52

  Almost all of Skeels’s Glenwood children had entered Davenport during infancy. One child, however, had a significantly different chronology. Case 13, whose mother Skeels described as feebleminded and psychotic, and whose father was employed, entered Davenport at just over 2 years of age. She weighed under 18 pounds and could not sit or stand. Her medical examination revealed “arrested” hydrocephalus (an accumulation of fluid in the skull) that may have been responsible for her inadequate physical and mental development. After three months she learned to hold her own baby bottle, but Skeels described her as “just another hopeless case.”

  Because of this child’s multiple developmental and medical issues, Skeels did not at first transfer her to Glenwood’s experimental group, but when she reached about 3 years, had an IQ of 36, remained too weak to walk, and was not toilet trained, he decided to place her in Glenwood’s hospital ward. After 6 months she could walk and became toilet trained, and Skeels moved her to a ward with the lowest-level women. There, a staff member took a special interest in her, taking her on short trips and visits to town. After about a year, her IQ tested at 70. By age 6 it reached 74, and at age 7 it rose to 81, just into the normal range. Skeels then transferred case 13 back to Davenport, and she was adopted. During four years at Glenwood, her IQ had advanced 45 points. After the study, when case 13 had turned 10, Skeels tested her again and found that her IQ score had now reached 94.53

  Among the Davenport children moved to Glenwood was case 11, Viola Hoffman’s son, Wendell. When he entered Davenport at 1 year of age, Wendell had normal intelligence; but by the time he turned 2, his intelligence test score had declined to 75, and Skeels included him in the group placed at Glenwood. There, Wendell lived on a ward with the lowest-functioning women—their mental ages were from 5 to 8 years. Although he remained on that ward for eighteen months and began kindergarten, no one woman took a special interest in him. Still, the kindergarten teacher found him “the most promising of the children from Davenport . . . says many words, dislikes being scolded and is repentant.” Yet after more than a year, Wendell’s intelligence score, now 78, had barely moved. Perhaps for this reason, officials transferred Wendell to a ward where he lived with women whose mental ages were higher, from 7 to 10 years. Here everyone made a fuss over him, and a woman named Mary “adopted” him. Wendell bonded with her, and as an adult he still remembered her “colorful dresses different from Davenport’s drabness, her long red hair and that she loved to sing.”54 (Because as an adult Wendell spoke publicly about his life, the author was able to interview him.)

  Wendell’s Glenwood teacher found him “alert,” reporting that he “thoroughly enjoys [the] entire school program.” After about eight more months, Wendell’s intelligence rose further, to 82. Although his IQ test score rose modestly, Wendell’s teacher tells of his profound awakening: “Remarkable development in energy, stability, and personality . . . has a very good memory and enjoys stories, converses freely and asks intelligent questions. Prognosis appears more promising for the first time.” She noted as well, “Wendell was changed to a ward of brighter girls.”55

  Around the time that Wendell turned 4, his stay at Glenwood became even livelier when in the evenings he left his ward to explore the grand institution’s back rooms. He reminisced:

  There was a lot to explore, and no one interfered with my meandering. I met a misshapen child—they called him ‘Monster’—he hadn’t come from the Davenport Home. His face was distorted and he was ugly, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew his way through hallways and into rooms where no one ever went. Together we explored the place. And there was a boy who couldn’t talk, they called him ‘Grunt.’ The staff thought he was deaf, but he wasn’t. I met him one night coming through a broken wall. Somehow, we could communicate.56

  (Although Skeels did not describe this phenomenon, institutional staff throughout America regularly bestowed offensive nicknames on institutionalized children.57)

  As Wendell continued his evening rambles, he met another, much older resident, Mayo Buckner. Buckner had lived at Glenwood since 1898, when his mother dropped him off, telling the director th
at her 8-year-old son—who, she said, “could sing before he could talk,” and on key—had many odd mannerisms. She also said that he had a fine memory. Her family doctor agreed that Mayo needed special care, but at the time IQ tests were unknown in the United States and admissions decisions were made “by the eye.” When admitted to Glenwood, Mayo was assessed as “a medium-grade imbecile.”58

  Buckner probably benefited from lessons in instrumentation provided by Glenwood’s music program. Eventually, he taught himself to score music for a twenty-five-piece orchestra and participated in the town of Glenwood’s community music events. In the 1950s, a new superintendent tested Buckner’s IQ and found that although he had been raised in the limited environment of an institution, his intelligence test score was 120, in the very superior range. It’s fair to wonder what Buckner’s life might have been if he had grown up in an understanding family and received musical training. Asked as an adult how he saw himself, Buckner replied, “I always thought I was normal.”59 In his 60s Buckner was given the opportunity to leave Glenwood, but, aware that he lacked the skills to build an independent life, he chose to remain.

  Wendell attempted to play music with Buckner, by then a sweet-natured man of 47, who, farmer style, dressed in bib overalls and played the violin, flute, and six other instruments by ear. Pretending to hold a stick, Wendell would move his fingers up and down as he saw Buckner do. “I thought he was playing a narrow tree branch,” Wendell remembered, “and asked him to teach me how to make music come out of one of those.”60

  On evenings when Wendell heard the whistle of a railroad train, he ran to a window or sat outside on a favorite tree stump to catch sight of the cars as they passed close by. “Maybe it was going to Omaha, or Chicago,” he remembered, “and in beautiful dining cars, with white linen on the tables, I saw families eating together on their way somewhere.” Wistfully he recalled, “I wished that I were sitting there in one of those golden-lit cars.”61