Arensberg,Kimball and de Valera: A story of sex and censorship

Harvard Irish Study (1930–1936)

Family and Community in Ireland (Harvard University Press, 1940, 1968) by Conrad Maynadier Arensberg and Solon Toothaker Kimball is one of the most influential social science texts in Irish rural sociology and anthropology (Byrne et al., 2015). ¹ The Harvard Irish Study (1930–1936) was composed of three strands, physical anthropology, archaeology and social anthropology. Family and Community in Ireland was the first social scientific research utilizing contemporary theory (structural functionalism) and research methods (ethnography, qualitative interviews and secondary data) to take place in Ireland or indeed, Europe (Carew, 2018; Donnan, 2017; Wilson and Donnan, 2006). ² The background to the social anthropological research, the personalities involved, and the impact of this work are fully explored by Byrne et al. (2001, 2015). Here we focus on the curious case of chapter 11, Familism and Sex, the adverse reaction of then Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera to this chapter and how Harvard University Press (HUP) responded to de Valera’s advice to reconsider publication.

Both Byrne (2017: 54) and Daly (2006: 82–83) noted that de Valera received a copy of the manuscript of Family and Community in Ireland from HUP in late 1939, with an invitation to write an endorsement of the book, based on de Valera’s knowledge and support for the work of the Harvard Irish Study. Rather than supplying the requested endorsement, de Valera advised HUP to ‘reconsider publication’ of the book, as chapter 11 ‘will cause considerable misunderstanding and resentment’. ³ Consequently, modifications were made to chapter 11, by the authors. In 1943, PS Ó Muireadhaigh, private secretary to de Valera noted that the ‘most objectionable parts of chapter 11’ were removed, when he compared the proofs with the published edition of Family and Community in Ireland. ⁴ Ó Muireadhaigh then destroyed the proofs, and hence it was not possible to identify the ‘objectionable parts’ or why they caused de Valera such offence. However, a copy of the proofs has survived in the Solon T Kimball papers archived in the Newberry Library in Chicago. ⁵ Various correspondences relating de Valera and HUP have also been made available to the authors. This permits us, to outline how HUP responded to de Valera’s advice, to examine the text of the proofs that gave rise to such offence, and to present the excised texts in part.

‘… the book is practically all printed’ ⁶

On 14 August 1939, Dumas Malone, director of HUP, acknowledged receipt of the manuscript of Family and Community in Ireland from Earnest Hooton, the Director of the Harvard Irish Study. ⁷ Having reviewed the script, Malone informed Arensberg that HUP were happy to publish the work, subject to the authors waiving royalties on the first 1500 copies. In his letter to Arensberg, Malone noted that ‘Hooton has several ideas about promotion which may be effective.’ ⁸ One of these ideas was the invitation from Hooton to the Irish ‘Prime Minister’, Éamon de Valera to write a ‘few words by way of introduction’, should the publication meet with his ‘approval’. ⁹ Hooton suggested that de Valera might refer the about-to-be-published text to an Irish scholar for ‘careful reading’, adding that a declaration of interest by the Prime Minister of Eire ‘would insure an enormous circle of reader’s in this country’.

De Valera was familiar with the work of the Harvard Irish Study, having met with William Lloyd Warner in July 1932. ¹⁰ Warner, as Irish Director, had overall responsibility for the three strands of the study. He had discussed the project with de Valera to secure his support. Warner described de Valera as a ‘very fine man who is intelligent and grasped what I was talking about immediately’. ¹¹ Warner, on de Valera’s request, sent him a memorandum explaining the purpose of the Harvard Study.

The proposed research in County Clare by Harvard University will study the socio-economic life of the people and will excavate and survey several archaeological sites. We are particularly concerned with the study of market areas, the relation of farm holdings to market areas and family life, the interplay of social relations between town and county, and in general the total economic structure and life of the town of Ennis and the county. The study is exactly the same kind of research that is being conducted by a part of this same research team in the town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. ¹²

‘…Considerable misunderstanding and resentment’

In a note dated 23 January 1940, de Valera’s private secretary PS Ó Muireadhaigh recorded that the proofs had arrived and he ‘informed the Taoiseach of their receipt on the 10th instant.’ ¹⁹ De Valera then ‘took portion of the pages with a view to reading them himself.’ The pages selected (226–231) of the proofs were a quasi-addendum to chapter 11, entitled Familism and Sex. They contained two life history interviews on marriage – from a countrywoman and countryman. The pages included a ‘story of a famous prank, still recited with great hilarity … a classic example of the treatment of the theme of an old man’s marriage’. ²⁰ Ó Muireadhaigh asked de Valera ‘if he had completed their reading but he had not’. When he informed de Valera ‘of the receipt of the letter from Dumas Malone, Mr. Walshe, Secretary, Department of External Affairs entered the room. The Taoiseach asked him to have a look over the pages which he, the Taoiseach, had withdrawn’. ²¹ If Joseph Walshe did look over the pages and offered advice to de Valera, it is not on record. A week later, Malone received the following cablegram signed by de Valera:

Readers to whom I have submitted book unanimously report adversely. Feel that publication, particularly of Chapter 11, will cause considerable misunderstanding and resentment. Strongly advise reconsideration of publication. ²²

The fact that there is nothing on file to indicate that Walshe communicated his views on the proofs to de Valera may not be unusual in the context of their professional relationship, and Walshe’s attitude to official documents. Keogh (1990: 59) has described Walshe’s ‘administrative style’ as ‘secretive in the extreme’ and that he had no compunction in destroying official documents, if in the best interest of the State. De Valera forged a strong bond with Walshe and ‘admired his dedication, his indefatigable application, his patriotism, his strong Catholicism and his single-minded commitment to the service of the Irish state’ (1990: 73; see also Kennedy, 2003). As a consequence of the cablegram from de Valera, as we describe in detail below, not only did Arensberg delete pages 226–231, he also made cuts to other parts of chapter 11, some more extensive than others. These cuts mentioned ‘sex’, although it would appear that neither Walshe nor de Valera ever read the entire text of the chapter. Evidence suggests that any reading was limited to the case studies, addenda to the chapter and it is not clear if de Valera ever read the case studies himself. De Valera depended on the views of Walshe to restrict the American publication of Family and Community in Ireland.

On learning about de Valera’s cablegram advising reconsideration of publication of Family and Community in Ireland, the young anthropologist Conrad Arensberg was clearly upset. In his letter to Malone, Arensberg describes the situation as a ‘debacle’. ²⁴ Arensberg was opposed to the idea of an ‘official imprimatur’ for an anthropological and scholarly text. A couple of months later, in a letter to Warner, Arensberg was somewhat more sanguine about the incident.

The matter is confidential, but is also laughable. Hooton sent the book to Ireland for an official government imprimatur. After a long time, when the book was already rolling off the presses, they cabled: Chapter XI (that of the one on sex!) objectionable and liking to cause ill-feeling here. Ha! International incident. That stopped the presses and got the Harvard Press running around furiously getting bigwigs to read the thing. ²⁵

‘Scrap … rewrite … go to hell’

On establishing that chapter 11, Familism and Sex, had ‘particularly offended’ de Valera and his ‘readers’, Arensberg suggested three courses of action to Malone.

One: a complete scraping of the Chapter. Two: a complete rewrite of the chapter, to be submitted for final approval to some such Catholic reader as Fr. Ahern of Boston College. Three: to realize that the chapter may be open to misinterpretation and let it stand, telling em to go to hell. ²⁶

Arensberg had to consider adaptations for the everyday reader while knowing that for some readers at least, a Catholic frame of reference is the filter for understanding social life. Arensberg’s letter to Malone provides us with important clues to his approach to rewriting chapter 11. The exclusion of the chapter in its entirety is briefly considered but the warrant to do so is not clear to Arensberg. Accordingly, avoiding offence or offending the sensitivities of potential Irish readers may be attempted by an alteration in tone or expression of content. But this was not an argument for excising the entire chapter. In a moment of professional self-reflection, Arensberg admits ‘failure’ to Malone; a failure to understand the ‘sacred’ and pervasive aspect of Irish Catholic culture, a failure of writing ‘with sufficient universality’ and a failure to anticipate the reception to the chapter as written in the page proofs. Arensberg admitted that Catholics in New England might construe his Protestantism as a factor that might adversely affect the reception of the text.

The chapter thus written is thus open to the criticism that it is written by a Protestant who does not “understand” (i.e. feel and accept) the Catholic point of view and thus by implication criticizes and distorts or misrepresents it. Since the subject is a sacred one, any inference of this kind makes a non-Catholic and objective handling of it doubly offensive. I admit not having written the Chapter for Catholic and Irish consumption and should have anticipated such reception for it.

‘It is quite impossible … to exclude the word sex entirely’ ³³

De Valera’s request to reconsider publication of Family and Community in Ireland raised reputational and professional issues for Malone as HUP publisher. Concerned about the ‘dignity of the Press and the University’, possible public relations and political impact of proceeding with publication, Malone sought the opinion of Henry Lee Shattuck. Shattuck was a Faculty member, University Treasurer, advisor to University President, James B Conant, member of Boston City Council, and active in the Irish-American community. ³⁴ Shattuck had also endowed the first ever Chair of Celtic Languages and Literature in Harvard in 1940. ³⁵ Malone’s choice of Shattuck, on the advice of Conant, as primary referee exacerbated the controversy and opened up the decision-making process (to publish or not) to a wider audience, none of whom were anthropologists, some of whom had vested interests. Aware of the consequences of de Valera's involvement in the publication process, Malone advised Shattuck that there were ‘courtesies’ to be observed and an obligation to ‘save de Valera’s face at home’; but not publishing the book ‘would amount to an embarrassing retreat in the face of hostile comment’. ³⁶ Shattuck was unequivocal in his reply to Malone; ‘all or practically all of chapter 11 should be omitted’. ³⁷ As the ethnography referred to ‘living people in a civilized community’, to be read or discussed by ‘thousands of individuals’, publication was a matter of great concern. Sentences taken out of context ‘might be used to inflame passions. Every sentence and paragraph should therefore be scrutinized, with this in mind’. Shattuck pointed out that that any offence caused by the anthropological account could not be defended in the same way as an objection to a fictional story which might enjoy greater liberties. ³⁸ Shattuck wrote that ‘If the book dealt with the home life of bees, or South Sea Islanders, no harm would be done. They would never know of it’. But written in English and published in the US, available to the Irish, friends and relatives, ‘great care should be taken to avoid misunderstandings and hurt feelings’. As a Republican politician, Shattuck did not want to alienate Irish-American voters. ³⁹ Shattuck advised the omission of ‘practically all’ of chapter 11 and further modifications of the entire text. Nothing should harm the Irish reputation for ‘church going’ or ‘chastity’, in particular. Unlike Walshe or de Valera, Shattuck had read the text in its entirety. His suggestions were consistent with removing mention of sexual activity but also raised issues concerning race and religion – particularly Irish ‘chastity’. Shattuck advises that ‘nothing should be said to break down this reputation’. Arensberg took some, but not all of Shattuck’s recommendations on board and defended his decisions to Malone.

The only page that could give offence at all I believe is on page 137 when I use the vulgar phrase “bounce a boot off her”. On pp.90-91 there is no implication of unchastity whatsoever. Page 312 and 3 summarizes the chapter on sex. If the whole chapter goes out, then so should this paragraph. Otherwise it is as harmless as a mother goose story. It actually reinforces the Irish ideal of chastity.

Shattuck’s recommendations are referred by Malone to an unidentified reader but a person who has some familiarity with Arensberg’s Irish Countryman and scholarship in Sociology, such as Gunnar Myrdal’s study of Swedish rates of illegitimacy. ⁴¹ This reader approved of Arensberg’s revisions of the text so far and disagreed that chapter 11 should be omitted entirely. Certain passages he found ‘that are not really necessary to the discussion are in doubtful taste' and warned that as Shattuck ‘seems to feel that the very words “sex” and “sexual” are to be avoided, he doubtless would not be satisfied’ with the new version. The unidentified referee was entirely correct in this prediction. Malone sends Shattuck the revised chapter, which ‘is a highly complimentary treatment’ of the Irish’ noting that Arensberg ‘… has made many excisions and has added a good deal of new material’. ⁴² Nonetheless, seven pages in the revised version continued to offend with ‘objectionable passages’. For Shattuck, no comment should be made ‘under Harvard auspices’ on ‘the contemporary sexual behavior of this sensitive people’, many of whom who live in the vicinity of Boston. He recommended that ‘The question should be treated in the same way as if a similar study were made of the people of South Boston or East Boston’. ⁴³ Shattuck’s approval was not forthcoming. ⁴⁴ Roger I Lee was next to read the new version of the text, together with Shattuck’s memoranda. ⁴⁵ Malone informed Lee that chapter 11 was the ‘crucial chapter’ and ‘distinctly friendly to the Irish’. He asked for Lee’s opinion on the ‘general tone’. ⁴⁶ Lee responded the next day, having found the book ‘rather dull’ overall. ‘I confess that I find nothing salacious and nothing derogatory of the Irish. I don't quite see what it is all about’. In correspondence with Kimball, on 30 April 1940, Arensberg reflects on the experience:

The crisis has passed. The syndics of the Harvard Press have met on the question of our book and have passed it. I have submitted a revised version of the chapter on sex, which everybody including myself agrees makes the same points and others of even more interest and does away with the objections against that chapter. The only other concession to prudery of the public was to subsist more ordinary language (i.e. marriage taboo) for the anthropological term “incest”, a word which particularly upset Irish readers. The book is now being printed up and will appear as soon after May 1 as is possible. Thanks for your support in the matter. It gave me a bad moment or two but now it is all over to the satisfaction, I think, of everyone concerned. The Harvard Press is nicked a little in having a more expensive book on their hands than perhaps they bargained for, but what of that; they are rich anyway. ⁴⁷

‘It is awfully hard to tell the truth about anything today, particularly about the Irish’ ⁴⁸

In rewriting the chapter, Arensberg’s approach is two-fold, combining a ‘scissors’ approach and adding new writing. He marked up the page proofs, indicating where excisions could be made. Whole paragraphs and in some cases continuous pages were cut from the typescript in this manner. For example, as noted above, the addendum to the chapter was completely excised and replaced by an extended analysis of familistic norms, sexual behaviour and the class structure of rural communities, in terms familiar to contemporary readers. Beginning on page 197 of the published text, 11 excisions are made by Arensberg from the proofs. Cuts vary in length from 801 words to a sentence. ⁴⁹ The content of each of the excisions concern the sexual attitudes, knowledge, actions and practices of men and women, young and old, married and single. Country people’s reports of the comparison of animal to human procreation, the effectiveness of religious and social censure on illegitimacy, the nature of celibacy and unmarried women’s sexual desire, the telling of sexual, humorous stories and references to a prior time of a more lenient atmosphere to courtship and sexual relations were excised. Each excision brings attention to what remains, the paragraphs proceeding or following. On occasion, a fragment of the sentiments expressed, the prevailing attitudes or an echo of the tone of the excision can be heard. For example, the report of a small farmer, comparing one woman’s child bearing to another’s (and related in their company) is not excluded. Regard and disregard for womanhood based on the capacity to reproduce and breast-feed children is expressed in the published words of an older man. ‘They shouldn’t allow a woman like that to breed because a man should always keep his wife in the milk’ (207).

In the first cut, the most extensive, the word sex occurs 12 times. These stories and informants' ideals of feminine beauty based on ‘big bones, breadth of hip, and robust, fecund strength', prompted the anthropologists' observation of the sex act as ‘a rough and tumble trial of strength and potency in which a woman should “be well able for the men”', but this too was excised. Male and female ignorance of women’s reproductive cycle was also omitted as was a woman’s story of her fright when she had her first period. She had to explain the sex act to her husband, ‘how it was done’. ‘My man didn’t know about it. He thought to breed as a cow’. Arensberg removed references such as ‘Joking about the “hardening” of a young wife’ and men’s stories of ‘“knocking good nights” or “gets” out of one’s woman’. Having observed what they regarded as ‘old-fashioned sex ideology’ concerning sexual relations between men and women, the anthropologists opined that adjustments to the ‘violence of love’ were soon made. Admitting that their evidence was meager, they nonetheless claimed ‘there seemed to be little necessity for sympathizing with the “brutalized” women of this old-fashioned sex ideology’. This is an odd ‘apologia’, considering the accounts presented, but this too was omitted.

The eleventh cut consisted of two personal histories, the verbatim accounts of a countrywoman and countryman (reproduced here in Appendix 1). The anthropologists’ rationale for presenting the case histories in the first instance was as exemplars of the different impositions placed on women and men by familism:

Let the following personal histories of a small farm man and a small farm woman stand for the experience and attitudes of many of their fellows. They are not necessarily typical histories, but they illustrate well the orientation of sexual impulse and sexual behavior which the custom of small farm familistic life enforces.

The ‘trouble with sex’

The page proofs were subject to two phases of criticism, first by Irish and then American readers. The Irish reader(s) of the proofs encountered personal histories presented as told and without the disguise of anthropological analysis. Malone, as HUP publisher, requested that the text be read by nominated American readers, who acted as censors. Additional layers of censorship and self-censorship by Arensberg were then applied to the page proofs. The differences between the excised and the published material are distinctive. In the revised chapter, the more overt references to sex are sublimated to academic language and anthropological analysis. A more formal analysis of sex, marriage and social status, their ‘emotional and social importance’ is substituted (214). ⁵⁰ Arensberg points to the paradox that lies at the heart of this family system that will bring about its eventual demise. ‘The institution of the family condemns a large proportion of its members to celibacy and long-preserved virginity’ (213). If a marriage partner of suitable status cannot be found, celibacy, emigration and elopement result in the decline of families from a locality – ‘they died out of it’ (216).

Switching from the particularities of local accounts to generating more universal and general statements, Arensberg supplements the qualitative histories and observations based on ‘one small parish and its neighbors’ with census data. He presents further evidence of the deleterious consequences of long-term population decline, late marriage, celibacy and the high male sex ratio of the rural west. Ireland is distinctive in having the ‘highest percentage of unmarried men and women in the world’ (221). This is contrasted with the emigration of sons and daughters of small farmers who seize the opportunities of education, employment and the possibility of new relationships in towns and cities, at home and abroad. Arensberg argues that class mobility, a democratizing social order combined with the persistence of familistic values in which ‘the fierce centering of family ambition in the occupational status of its members’, work to accelerate the demographic decline of rural Ireland. Arensberg considers what the future will bring and how an Irish administration will respond to these trends, ‘rooted as they are in the social order of the countryside and of the nation’ (222). Is he more aware now that the study of the small farm family and economy will be more widely read and scrutinized by government officials, policy makers and country people than previously anticipated?

Though familism offers ‘strong resistance to slow assault’, Arensberg predicts the inevitability of rural transformation and social change (223). Government industrialization and labour policies bring the ‘forces of urbanism, such as wage payment, individual recompense and a job rather than a part in group life’ into rural areas (223). He argues that a solution ‘beyond the reach of ordinary measures’ is necessary (222) in order to avoid further rural decline. He is critical in his evaluation of the Irish government’s depth of knowledge and capacity to work with the strengths and vulnerabilities of rural communities. ‘Neither the years of the establishment of the Free State up to 1932 nor the years of depression, economic war, and the experimental programs of the de Valera regime since then have affected these trends’ (221). In concluding chapter 11, the conjunction of de Valera’s ambition for prosperity in rural Ireland with the obligations of the small farmer ‘of the familist tradition’ to provide jobs for his children at home is pointed. The force of the conclusion is that this misalliance is an insufficient basis for policies for the future development of rural Ireland. Crucially, Arensberg takes the opportunity to make a case for social anthropology and the benefits of a perspective and knowledge system that attempts to understand the complexity of social life, free from the ideologies of politics, religion or nationhood. In this critique of government policy, Arensberg reclaims authorship of the text.

In his discussion of the sexual repression thesis that sought to explain high rates of celibacy in Ireland, Guinnane (1997: 222) noted that Arensberg and Kimball clearly rejected this thesis, with their description of open and bawdy conversations and storytelling about sexual conquests, felicities, and failures. The original chapter 11 of Family and Community in Ireland contained a greater level of detail to support their thesis that discussions of sex were framed by ‘hearty, casual, and sometimes ribald attitudes which make their appearance in banter, joke, and repartee between speakers of different sex’ ([1940] 1968: 206). It also supports Augusteijn’s contention that the Ireland of the 1930s ‘was not just the insular self-obsessed and culturally barren society it has been often portrayed as’ (1999: 7). Despite these observations on sexual jocularity, the content of the excised texts also show that knowledge of reproductive and sexual functions was limited. Sexual pleasure appeared to be wholly the domain of men and without any consideration of the consequences for women’s childbearing, sexual health or indeed women’s own sexual pleasure. More broadly, Arensberg was particularly prescient in his analysis of the familistic system, and although this system prevailed, particularly in the west of Ireland until the 1960s, it was ultimately fatally undermined by the contradictions of the patterns of inheritance, marriage, celibacy and emigration so accurately described in Family and Community in Ireland (see Hannan and Commins, 1992). ⁵¹ Family and Community in Ireland was not criticized for the fieldwork methodologies or its structural-functionalist theoretical framing at the time of first publication. Critical scholarly scrutiny of the validity of the ethnography would take place 30 years later. ⁵²

Conclusion

The experience of the publication ‘crisis’ left a lasting impression on Arensberg. He did not persist with further publication plans based on the voluminous records of their combined fieldwork in Ireland, though a second and third volume were planned and partially drafted. The events of World War 2 altered plans for further work on Ireland. In his letter to Kimball in late 1940, it is clear that Arensberg’s attention is elsewhere:

I say frankly that I think we had better bury the Irish book – no one is interested and no one would read it – and there are so many other things we must do now. There’s a war on, and I don’t think Ireland or anthropology are worth a hoot just now … Please don’t hang on to the Irish book for any notion that I think you ought. If we can get something else out of our years more than we have got already, and without its interrupting our present lives, let’s do so, but if we cannot, we are ten years older now, and Ireland was long ago. ⁵³

The methodologies of ethnography, rooted in first-hand observation and participant accounts, combined with analytical understanding, offered a counter-narrative to the narrative of church and state. Visiting anthropologists would continue to investigate and publish ethnographies of Irish sexuality in the next decades, following themes of sexual repression and desire, celibacy and puritanism, unmarried pregnancies and prostitution. In 1987, Irish sociologist Tom Inglis published Moral Monopoly, his influential study on religiosity and the control of Irish sexuality by the Catholic Church. Sex and religion were no longer taboo as subjects for researchers and writers. Edna O’Brien, Kate O’Brien, Brian Moore and John McGahren understood that biography, fictionalized, was another mode for stories of ordinary, diverse, passionate sexualities to be written and read, despite the risk of banning by the moral authorities of the public and censorship board. ⁵⁸ Critically, the restrictions imposed on an academic text in 1940 were not only a constraint on freedom of expression, but also a rejection of ‘facts’ as revealed by the methodologies and analyses of ethnographic inquiry. De Valera supported the idea of the ‘scientific study of the socio-economic life of the Irish people’, but when readers were presented with ‘the objective truth through careful collection of the facts’, those uncomfortable accounts could not be fully or publically revealed in 1940 in Ireland and America. Though de Valera was primarily responsible for initiating the acts of censorship, the historiography has revealed that this responsibility is more correctly distributed across a range of institutions and persons to include the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, the Director of HUP, nominated US readers and Conrad Arensberg himself.

The archival material illuminates the micro-operations of vested interests on academic writing, on religion, sex, class and culture in Irish society. In this historiography of the impact of diverse Irish and American interests on an academic publication, further investigation is now warranted for understanding Irish society and culture in the 1930s and 1940s. The investigation into all of the excised content, related archival material for planned but abandoned volumes, anthropological constructions of Irish sexualities, religion and class will contribute in some part to this historical research.