George Amos Dorsey

They call an anthropologist to the stand as their expert.

Dr. George Dorsey is not exactly a Dr. Temperance Bones Brennan from the TV show Bones.

He's not equipped with all the know-how of a modern forensic anthropologist, but he is one of the first people to earn a PhD in anthropology from Harvard.

and he's made quite a name for himself.

And it's hopeless to think of civilizing them or of keeping them in order, except by the arm of the law.

Anthropologist George Dorsey, working for the Chicago Tribune in 1910, concluded that Italians were, again I quote, "...of questionable value from a mental, moral, or physical standpoint." Which, I've heard that about me, and, well, in my case I may agree, but as a general stereotype of all Italians, that seemed a little much.

"...of questionable value from a mental, moral, or physical standpoint." Come on, mental and moral I buy it if I think about me, but physical? I'm a glorious physical specimen, what are they talking about? In 1914, Edward Ross, president of the American Sociological Association and professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, argued Italians were addicted to gambling, had never done an honest day of work in their lives, and born criminals.

In an Harvard economics professor, Robert Forster, in 1919, concluded that Italians valued leisure over work.