Dugdale, Richard L.: The Jukes

G. Roger Jarjoura

Richard L. Dugdale was a successful businessman in New York City in the era just after the Civil War. He also took a strong interest in sociology and Social Darwinism, and he was a member of the executive committee of the New York Prison Association from 1868 until his death, at age 42, in 1883. In July 1874, Dugdale was asked by the Prison Association to visit 13 of the county jails in New York on a “tour of inspection” (Dugdale, 1910, p. 7). In one of the counties, he discovered six people in jail from one extended family. In conducting further inquiries in the local community, he determined that these six people belonged to a family that could be traced back generations to the period prior to 1750. This family, which Dugdale disguised with the name “Jukes,” had basically lived in one area and “were so despised by the ...

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