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Arnold L. Gesell conducted a study in a remote Midwest town to see if characteristics were passed down among generations. Including charts and photographs, Gesell gave brief descriptions of each different type of characteristics. The charts were simple, showing little houses that were either left blank or held a circle with a different symbol or letter inside. The blank houses simple meant the family was “normal” while the houses comprised of different symbols or letters stood for the amount of people in the house with an abnormal characteristic. Abnormal characteristics could be the feebleminded, the alcoholics, the insane, the eccentrics, the delinquents, and the suicidal, all of which had a corresponding circle.
As Gesell described the feebleminded, he demonstrated through figures that if a married man and woman were both feebleminded then their children were guaranteed to be feebleminded. However, if only one parent were feebleminded, there is a chance that it could skip a generation. Gesell did this research so he could trace abnormal characteristics in generations, but did he think of the possibility of environment? Did he think that possibly feeblemindedness was passed on not through hereditary, but through the environment the children were brought up in?
The village Gesell studied held 13 saloons, so it was no wonder there were alcoholics. Gesell described there to be only male alcoholics, and no female. In addition to, Gesell no doubly believed that alcoholism was hereditary. However, if it is hereditary how is it possibly that not one of the male’s daughters became alcoholic? Did Gesell already have the preconceived notion that females were not alcoholics, so he completely disregarded any signs of alcoholism in the next generation of females?