Defining the Organism in the Welfare State: The Politics of Individuality in American Culture, 1890–1950

Abstract

'Throughout the late 19th and early decades of the 20th century, individuality could mean everything from the unity and order in behavior of protoplasm, to hereditary constitution, to something in between. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, consonant with the entrenchment of the modern synthesis and molecular biology, a definition of the individual had narrowed to mean a Àòunique, genetically homogeneous, entity.' Intermingled with early-20th century definitions of individuality are a set of keywords such as community, cooperation, freedom, and the common good that were utilized by biologists, but whose etymological roots were derived from political discourse. Exploring the precise etymology by which current definitions of the individual came to fruition and how a web of political, social, and scientific interrelations have bolstered and supported its meaning are the tasks of this essay.'