Alfred Kinsey - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Kinsey was born on June 23, 1894, in Hoboken, New Jersey, the son of Sarah Ann (née Charles) and Alfred Seguine Kinsey. Kinsey was the eldest of three children. His mother received little formal education; his father was a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Kinsey's parents were poor for most of his childhood, often unable to afford proper medical care. This may have led to a young Kinsey receiving inadequate treatment for a variety of diseases including rickets, rheumatic fever, and typhoid fever. His health records indicate that Kinsey received suboptimal exposure to sunlight (often the cause of rickets, before milk and other foods were fortified with vitamin D) and lived in unsanitary conditions for at least part of his childhood. Rickets led to a curvature of the spine, which resulted in a slight stoop that prevented Kinsey from being drafted in 1917 for World War I.

Kinsey's parents were devout Christians. His father was known as one of the most devout members of the local Methodist church. Most of Kinsey's social interactions were with other members of the church, often as a silent observer, while his parents discussed religion. Kinsey's father imposed strict rules on the household, including mandating Sunday as a day of prayer (and little else).

At a young age, Kinsey showed great interest in nature and camping. He worked and camped with the local YMCA throughout his early years. He enjoyed these activities to such an extent that he intended to work professionally for the YMCA after completing his education. Kinsey's senior undergraduate thesis for psychology, a dissertation on the group dynamics of young boys, echoed this interest. He joined the Boy Scouts when a troop was formed in his community. His parents strongly supported this (and joined as well) because the Boy Scouts was an organization that was based on the principles of Christianity. Kinsey worked his way up through the Scouting ranks to earn Eagle Scout in 1913, making him one of the earliest Eagle Scouts. Despite earlier disease having weakened his heart, Kinsey followed an intense sequence of difficult hikes and camping expeditions throughout his early life.

In high school, Kinsey was a quiet but hard-working student. While attending Columbia High School, he devoted his energy to academic work and playing the piano. At one time, Kinsey had hoped to become a concert pianist, but decided to concentrate on his scientific pursuits instead. Kinsey's ability to spend immense amounts of time deeply focused on study was a trait that would serve him well in college and during his professional career. He seems not to have formed strong social relationships during high school, but earned respect for his academic ability. While there, Kinsey became interested in biology, botany and zoology. Kinsey was later to claim that his high school biology teacher, Natalie Roeth, was the most important influence on his decision to become a scientist. Kinsey approached his father with plans to study botany at college. His father demanded that he study engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology instead. Kinsey was unhappy at Stevens, and later remarked that his time there was one of the most wasteful periods of his life.

Regardless, he resumed his commitment to study. At Stevens, he primarily took courses related to English and engineering, but was unable to satisfy his interest in biology. At the end of two years at Stevens, Kinsey gathered the courage to confront his father about his interest in biology and his intent to continue studying at Bowdoin College in Maine.

In the fall of 1914, Kinsey entered Bowdoin College, where he studied entomology under Manton Copeland, and was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, in whose house he lived for much of his time at college. In 1916 Kinsey was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa society and graduated magna cum laude, with degrees in biology and psychology. He continued his graduate studies at Harvard University's Bussey Institute, which had one of the most highly regarded biology programs in the United States. It was there that Kinsey studied applied biology under William Morton Wheeler, a scientist who made outstanding contributions to entomology. Under Wheeler, Kinsey worked almost completely autonomously, which suited both men quite well.

Kinsey chose to do his doctoral thesis on gall wasps, and began zealously collecting samples of the species. He traveled widely and took 26 detailed measurements of hundreds of thousands of gall wasps; his methodology was itself an important contribution to entomology as a science. Kinsey was granted a Sc.D. degree in 1919 by Harvard University, and published several papers in 1920 under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, introducing the gall wasp to the scientific community and describing its phylogeny. Of the more than 18 million insects in the museum's collection, some 5 million are gall wasps collected by Kinsey.

Kinsey wrote a widely used high-school textbook, An Introduction to Biology, which was published in October 1926. The book endorsed evolution and unified, at the introductory level, the previously separate fields of zoology and botany. Kinsey also co-wrote Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America with Merritt Lyndon Fernald, published in 1943. The original draft of the book was written in 1919–1920, while Kinsey was still a doctoral student at the Bussey Institute and Fernald was working at the Arnold Arboretum.