Benjamin Spock

Pediatrician

  • Born: May 2, 1903
  • Birthplace: New Haven, Connecticut
  • Died: March 15, 1998
  • Place of death: La Jolla, California

American pediatrician

Through his advocacy, publications, and activities related to child care and developmental psychology, Spock sought to advise parents on matters and issues previously ignored by mainstream pediatric medicine. As a social activist, he called for socialized medicine, an end to U.S. military police action abroad, and nuclear disarmament.

Areas of achievement Psychiatry and psychology, medicine, peace advocacy

Early Life

Benjamin Spock was the oldest of six children of Benjamin Ives Spock, a conservative Connecticut railroad lawyer, and Mildred Louise Stoughton, a native of Vermont. As a child, he attended Hamden Hall and Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. On graduation from Phillips Academy, Spock entered Yale College, where he majored in English and minored in history. A very tall young man (six feet four inches) with an athletic build and broad shoulders, Spock was a member of the Yale crew that won a gold medal in the 1924 Olympics held in Paris. He went on to study at the Yale Medical School for two years before transferring to the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, receiving his medical degree in 1929. He interned at Presbyterian Hospital in New York, was a pediatrics resident at the New York Nursery and Child’s Hospital, and spent ten months as a psychiatry resident at New York Hospital. The first individual ever to train professionally in both pediatrics and psychoanalysis, he also received training at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute from 1933 to 1938. He later attributed much of his professional success to the psychoanalytic training he received during the 1930’s.

Spock began his medical career in 1933 as a pediatrician in New York City. The first few years of his practice were not easy. The Depression made collection of payment for services extremely difficult. The three to five dollars he charged for office visits, about average for the time, was difficult for most people to afford, especially considering that about one in four Americans was unemployed. He received few patients from referrals during those early years and barely paid his expenses. His eventual success as a physician, despite the overwhelming difficulties, was partly because of his extensive knowledge of medicine and partly because of his unique bedside manner. He wore a business suit instead of the typical white doctor’s coat, an effort to make patients feel more at ease. He continued to make house calls long after most in the profession had discontinued the practice. He supplemented his income during those early years as an instructor of pediatrics at Cornell Medical College, an assistant attending physician at New York Hospital, the part-time school doctor at the Brearley School, and a consultant for the New York City Health Department. His relaxed, conversational lecture style put listeners at ease while garnering increasing respect in the medical community.

Life’s Work

In 1943, Spock began writing The Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care, the book that would eventually make him the best-known doctor in America. He spent three years dictating it to his first wife, Jane Davenport Cheney, whom he had married in 1927. She typed as he spoke, and she edited the text. Spock was drafted into the Navy in 1944 and worked as a psychiatrist in military hospitals on both the East and West Coasts, but he continued to write. More than half of his tenure in the military was at the U.S. Naval Hospital, St. Alban’s, in Queens, New York. The assignment allowed him to live with his family in Manhattan and continue working on the book. He left the Navy in 1946, the same year The Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care was published.

The Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care advocated previously controversial methods of child care. Spock stressed the psychological state of being in child development and progressive childhood guidance at every stage of development. For example, Spock wrote that it was not necessary for mothers to stick to rigid feeding schedules for their babies and that it was unnatural for a mother to have to wait for an established feeding time while her baby cried. Such statements contradicted conventional medical practice. The accompanying illustrations, by Dorothea Fox, complemented the text and comforted the reader.

After quitting his New York practice in 1947, Spock joined with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he also served as associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. He later went on to serve for four years as professor of child development at the University of Pittsburgh and twelve years at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He wrote articles and books about child care and child development during the 1950’s and frequently spoke at professional conferences.

Spock first became openly involved in presidential politics in 1952 when he endorsed Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. He later supported John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson before becoming disenchanted with the two major political parties. Disturbed by President Kennedy’s 1962 announcement that the United States had to resume nuclear testing to stay ahead of the Soviet Union, he emerged as a vocal opponent of nuclear testing. He served as the primary spokesperson for the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, warning of the possible risks of radiation exposure. He went on to become cochair of the committee from 1962 to 1967. It was also during the early 1960’s that Spock became an outspoken antiwar activist, an opponent of the draft, and a critic of the United States’ involvement in Southeast Asia.

An advocate of civil disobedience for just causes, Spock was arrested at numerous protest demonstrations, the first time in 1967. One year later a Boston court convicted him, along with four others, of conspiracy to counsel, aid, and abet evasion of the draft. He and all but one of the so-called Boston Five were found guilty, sentenced to two years in prison, and fined $5,000. The decision, however, was later reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for lack of ample evidence.

Spock was the 1972 presidential nominee for the People’s Party, a coalition of radical left-wing organizations from ten states. The People’s Party platform called for an end to the military draft, nuclear disarmament, the elimination of property and sales taxes, and the immediate withdrawal of U.S. military personnel from foreign countries. Spock’s campaign proved to be a dismal failure. His name was only on the ballot in ten states and he received less than eighty thousand votes. In 1976 he was the People’s Party candidate for vice president with similar results. That same year he divorced his first wife, Jane.

In 1976, Spock married Mary Morgan, a native of Arkansas. Spock and Morgan coauthored his 1989 autobiography, entitled Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing Up with the Century. In the final chapters of the book, Spock discussed, at length, his views on death and dying, including the role of doctors in assisted suicide. He also commented on the hospice movement sweeping through the United States. Spock attributed his longevity to good genes inherited from his mother, diet, and meditation. Always the social activist, he continued his criticism of the United States government for spending “trillions of dollars on arms” while eliminating programs to help the poor, the elderly, and children.

By the mid-1990’s Spock’s health began to decline considerably. He was diagnosed with pneumonia six times during the final year of his life. By the time of his death in 1998, The Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care had sold more than forty million copies worldwide.

Significance

Spock’s well-received book gave parents much more information than any previous publication on child care and sold 750,000 copies in its first year. During the following six years, the book sold more than four million copies and was eventually translated into forty-two languages. Pocket Books, which had originally convinced Spock to write the book, published it in paperback as The Pocket Book of Baby and Child Care. At three dollars per copy, the original hardcover edition was considered expensive for a young family, but the twenty-five-cent paperback version was easily affordable and in great demand. Later editions were also titled Baby and Child Care, as well as Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care. By the mid-1950’s, the popularity of Spock’s work was such that it was often referenced on popular prime-time television programs such as I Love Lucy.

Although very much involved in the social activism of the day, Spock never neglected to revise his book over the years. The fourth edition, published in 1976, was revised in an effort to eliminate the sexist language so prevalent in his earlier editions. The move was a response by Spock to quell increasing criticism from Gloria Steinem and other feminist leaders. The fifth and sixth editions, which appeared in 1985 and 1992 respectively, were coauthored with Michael B. Rothenberg, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of Washington’s medical school. The fortieth anniversary edition (1985) included a completely updated medical-pediatric section written by Rothenberg. The seventh edition, by Spock and Boston pediatrician Steven J. Parker, was published in 1995. Over the years Spock was the author or a coauthor of thirteen other books (including two autobiographies) and numerous magazine articles. He wrote columns for some of the most widely circulated magazines in the United States, including Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Parenting.

Bibliography

Bloom, Lynn Z. Dr. Spock: Biography of a Conservative Radical. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972. Contains detailed information about the early career of the noted child-care expert. Published just as Spock began his run for the presidency and his subsequent divorce. Much of his later social activism is not included.

Hulbert, Ann. Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Hulbert examines how American parents and children were studied in the twentieth century and how Spock and others spawned a mini-industry of parenting experts.

Maier, Thomas. Dr. Spock: An American Life. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998. Comprehensive biography, analyzing the significance of Spock’s child-care guide and placing his ideas about child rearing within the context of social and medical history.

Michalek, Irene R. When Mercy Seasons Justice: The Spock Trial. Boston: Branden, 1972. Offers interesting insight into the social activism of the 1960’s and 1970’s as well as the government response to such activities.

Morgan, Mary, and Benjamin Spock. Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing Up with the Century. 1985. Reprint. New York: Pantheon, 1994. Spock’s autobiography, coauthored with his wife, offers interesting insight into his career and personal life. Acknowledgments and preface written by Mary Morgan. The text is complemented by personal family photographs as well as those from other sources.

Spock, Benjamin M. The Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1946. Any of the numerous editions of the now-famous book are worthy of review. Readers should be sure to note the evolution of thought by the author toward child rearing as reflected in each subsequent edition.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior. New York: McCall, 1970. Often referred to as the author’s spiritual autobiography, this is a hodgepodge of thought on the problems faced by modern society.

1941-1970: November 15, 1957: Cousins Founds SANE.

1971-2000: October 6-November 8, 1972: Trail of Broken Treaties.