Samuel Jackson Holmes

Samuel Jackson Holmes (March 7, 1868 – March 5, 1964 ) was an American zoologist and eugenicist. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1912 to 1938. He was a genetics researcher who studied animal behavior, heredity, and evolution. Over the course of his career he migrated from studying animals to humans, taking the behaviors and traits learned in the former and looking for them in the latter.

Education and career Holmes attended Chaffey College in Ontario, California, and obtained his Bachelor of Science (1893) and Master of Science (1895) from the University of California, Berkeley. His biological research at Berkeley earned him a fellowship to the University of Chicago in 1895, where he received his Ph.D in 1897.

After teaching at San Diego High School for the academic year 1897–1898, In 1900, he published his book titled Synopsis of California Stalk-Eyed Crustacea. In 1906, he published the Biology of the Frog where he wrote "It indeed seems, as is often remarked, that the frog is especially designed as a subject for biological research."

Eugenics In 1909, during his tenure at Berkeley, Holmes taught a course titled The Factors of the Evolution of Man. After leaving Berkeley, Holmes served as president of The Society for Biodemography and Social Biology, formerly known as the American Eugenics Society, from 1938–1940.

Holmes was a vocal proponent of eugenics, particularly in reference to immigration to the United States from Mexico and parts of Asia. In 1925, at a major conference on race relations along the Pacific Coast at Stanford University, Holmes told an audience of social scientists and public officials that, "the Mexican problem is by far the greatest race problem which confronts the people of California at the present time. .. We are in a considerable amount of trouble before we see the amicable adjustment of the whole Mexican situation. The Mexican problem urgently needs to be studied very thoroughly." His later work advocated for the sterilization of citizens and immigrants who might diminish the genetic quality of America. He was one of the original incorporators of the Human Betterment Foundation.

In his book Life and Morals, Holmes claimed that morals had a natural origin but, Darwinian evolution "does not logically compel me to adopt any one standard of conduct rather than another." His last book titled, The Ethics of Enmity, was never published. He moved to California with his family at the age of 15. She was a student at the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with the class of 1905.

They had five children: Samuel Jackson Holmes, Jr. — (February 23, 1912 – November 27, 1973 ) Avis Celia Holmes — (later Olsen; September 20, 1914 – September 20, 1999

Their grandson, Joseph Edward Holmes, Jr., is a landscape photographer in Kensington, California.