Introduction

When Darwin published the Origin Americans were preoccupied with slavery, the future of their nation, and the likelihood of war: indeed, the Civil War may have impeded the reception of Darwinism during the 1860s. By this time, however, the United States was experiencing many of the social and political problems besetting Britain, in addition to the divisive issue of slavery, which made race a more immediate domestic concern and one, moreover, that was to be constantly fuelled by successive waves of immigration. This provided a fertile context for ‘scientific’ approaches to and resolutions of these problems, and Darwinism was soon enlisted to these ends, as is evident from Brace's writings on race and class.

Thanks to the efforts of Darwin's supporters, Darwinism had become well established by the 1870s, although not all American scientists were prepared to endorse natural selection fully, and neo-Lamarckism remained influential throughout the century. The position of the distinguished palaeontologist Edward Drinker Cope (1840–97) exemplifies both the continued hold of Lamarck on American naturalists and the powerful fascination exercised by Darwinism. Cope conceded that natural selection performed a culling action upon organic variations but insisted it was unable to account for the variations themselves. These he explained as the consequence of growth forces which increasingly came under the control of ‘intelligent choice’ as one ascended the animal scale. Despite this refusal to grant natural selection a wider role, Cope was profoundly affected by Darwinism. Prior to the publication of the Ascent he had signalled his hostility to natural selection as a cause of progress while simultaneously perceiving the relevance of Darwinism to human evolution.