"In ways unacademical": The reception of Carleton S. Coon's The origin of races

This paper examines the controversy surrounding anthropologist Carleton S. Coon's 1962 book, The Origin of Races. Coon maintained that the human sspec ies was divided into five races before it had evolved into Homo sapiens and that the races evolved into sapiens at different times. Coon's thesis was used by segregationists in the United States as proof that African American s were ``junior'' to white Americans and hence unfit for full participation in American society. The paper examines the interactions among Coon, segre gationist Carleton Putnam, geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, and anthropolo gist Sherwood Washburn. The paper concludes that Coon actively aided the se gregationist cause in violation of his own standards for scientific objecti vity.