Editing Carleton S. Coon (section)

== Debate on race ==
[[File:Carleton Putnam (1901-1998) in 1939.jpg|thumb|right| [[Carleton Putnam]] (1901–1998). Coon corresponded with Putnam about his book ''Race and Reason'' (1961), a defence of [[Racial segregation in the United States|racial segregation]] and [[white supremacy]], and resigned from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists when it passed a motion condemning it.]]
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and changing social attitudes challenged racial theories like Coon's that had been used by segregationists to justify discrimination and depriving people of civil rights. In 1961, Coon's cousin<ref name="Dickey">{{cite book |last1=Dickey |first1=Colin |title=The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained |date=2020 |publisher=Viking |location=New York |isbn=978-0-525-55757-9 |page=119 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zri-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA119 |language=en}}</ref> [[Carleton Putnam]], wrote ''Race and Reason: A Yankee View'', arguing a scientific basis for [[white supremacy]] and the continuation of [[racial segregation in the United States]]. After the book was made required reading for high school students in Louisiana,  the [[American Association of Physical Anthropologists]] (AAPA) passed a resolution condemning it. Coon, who had corresponded with Putnam about the book as he was writing it, and chaired the meeting of the AAPA in which the resolution was passed,{{Sfn|Jackson|2001}} resigned in protest, criticizing the resolution as scientifically irresponsible{{Sfn|Shipman|1994|p=200}} and a violation of free speech.<ref>''Academic American Encyclopedia'' (vol. 5, p. 271). Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Incorporated (1995).</ref> Later, he claimed to have asked how many of those present at the meeting had read the book, and that only one hand was raised.{{Sfn|Jackson|2001}}

Coon published ''The Origin of Races'' in 1962. In its "Introduction", he described the book as part of the outcome of his project he conceived (in light of his work on ''The Races of Europe'') around the end of 1956, for a work to be titled along the lines of ''Races of the World''. He said that since 1959 he had proceeded with the intention to follow ''The Origin of Races'' with a sequel, so the two would jointly fulfill the goals of the original project.<ref name="OoR-Int">Carleton S. Coon, ''The Origin of Races'', Knopf, 1962, p. vii</ref> (He indeed published ''The Living Races of Man'' in 1965.) The book asserted that the human species divided into five races before it had evolved into ''Homo sapiens''.  Further, he suggested that the races evolved into ''Homo sapiens'' at different times. It was not well received.<ref name="Schmeck">{{cite news |title=Carleton S. Coon Is Dead at 76: Pioneer in Social Anthropology |author=Harold M. Schmeck Jr. |newspaper=New York Times |date=June 6, 1981 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/06/obituaries/carleton-s-coon-is-dead-at-76-pioneer-in-social-anthropology.html }}</ref>  The field of anthropology was moving rapidly from theories of race typology, and ''The Origin of Races'' was widely castigated by his peers in anthropology as supporting racist ideas with outmoded theory and notions which had long since been repudiated by modern science. One of his harshest critics, [[Theodore Dobzhansky]], scorned it as providing "grist for racist mills".{{Sfn|Shipman|1994|p=207}}

{{Quote box
| quote = <poem>
Geneticist Dobzhansky's shot
His bolt and really gone to pot.
Things which now pass above his pate
Cause him to fume and fulminate
In ways unacademical
And anything but oecumenical.
Querulous cracks with venom spattered
Tell of an ethos sadly shattered.
</poem>
| source = Poem written by Coon around 1963{{Sfn|Jackson|2001|p=247}}
}}

The dispute that followed the publication of ''The Origin of Races'' was personal as well as academic. Coon had known [[Ashley Montagu]] and Dobzhansky for decades and the three men often corresponded and wrote positive reviews of each other's work before 1962. Their vociferous criticism of ''Origins'' severed their friendship and affected Coon on a personal and emotional level.<ref name=":6" /> In a letter to Dobzhansky shortly after its publication, Coon advised him that he considered his critiques [[defamatory]] and had consulted a lawyer, writing: "Why have you done this? When are you going to stop?"<ref name=":6" /> Washburn was a fellow student of Earnest Hooton at Harvard, and Coon saw his subsequent repudiation of biological race as an "oedipal" betrayal of their mentor. Garn, Coon's former student and coauthor of ''Races'', helped draft the AAPA motion condemning Putnam, which also disappointed Coon.<ref name=":6" /> Coon stopped referencing Montagu and then Washburn in his work after they each publicly rejected the concept of race.{{Sfn|Goodman|Hammonds|2000|p=31}} Nevertheless, historian Peter Sachs Collopy has noted that Coon was able to maintain cordial relationships with many of those he had disagreements with, rooted in his belief in the importance of academic [[collegiality]].<ref name=":6" />

Although some of these interpersonal conflicts faded over time—Coon wrote that he had "buried the now-rusty hatchet" with Dobzhansky in a letter to him in 1975—the animosity between Coon and Montagu was severe and lasting. Before 1962, the two were on friendly terms, but represented rival schools of anthropology (Coon studied under Hooton at Harvard; Montagu under Boas at Columbia), and Coon privately disdained his work.<ref name=":6" /> After the publication of ''Origins'', they engaged in a lengthy correspondence, published in ''Current Anthropology'', that "consisted almost entirely of bickering over minutiae, name calling, and sarcasm".<ref name=":6" /> Privately, Coon suspected Montagu (a target of [[McCarthyism]]) of [[Communism|communist]] sympathies and of turning Dobzhansky and others against him.<ref name=":6" /> As late as 1977, he was quoted as saying to a colleague, "You had Ashley Montagu in your office? And you didn't shoot him?"{{Sfn|Shipman|1994|pp=283–284}} The enmity was reciprocated; in a 1974 letter to [[Stephen Jay Gould]], Montagu wrote, "Coon… is a racist and an antisemite, as I know well, so when you describe Coon's letter to the editor of ''Natural History'' as 'amusing' I understand exactly what you mean—but it is so in exactly the same sense as ''Mein Kampf'' was 'amusing'."<ref name=":6" />

Coon continued to write and defend his work until his death, publishing two volumes of memoirs in 1980 and 1981.<ref name="SmIns">[http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/guide/_c3.htm ''National Anthropological Archives'', "Coon, Carleton Stevens (1904–1981), Papers"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060401021454/http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/guide/_c3.htm |date=April 1, 2006 }}</ref>