Benjamin Spock: Pediatrician and Anti-War Activist

BENJAMIN MCLANE SPOCK (1903–1998) became a national celebrity after the publication of his classic parenting guide, The Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care, in 1946.¹ By the time of his death at the age of 94 years, the book, reprinted as Baby and Child Care, had been translated into 42 languages and had sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.² Along with being a pediatrician and author, Spock was a vocal opponent of war and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, committed to securing a healthy future for the young patients he saw in his practice.

Spock was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on May 2, 1903, to Mildred Louisa Stoughton and Benjamin Ives Spock, a lawyer. The family was quite wealthy, and the younger Spock attended private school for most of his elementary education.³ He graduated from Yale University in 1925 and enrolled in the university's medical school, where he met Swarthmore graduate Jane Cheney. The couple married in 1927. Spock received his MD from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1929, graduating first in his class. He accepted an internship at Presbyterian Hospital in New York, New York, after which he completed a residency in pediatrics at the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital from 1931 to 1932, and another in psychiatry at New York Hospital from 1932 to 1933. In his free time, Spock studied at the New York Psychoanalytical Institute. He set up a pediatrics practice in 1933, which he ran until 1944; he taught at Cornell University Medical College during this time. He was also on the staff of New York Hospital and served as a consultant on pediatrics to the New York City Department of Health and the Institute of Personality Development.⁴

In 1944, Spock joined the Medical Corps of the US Naval Reserve as a psychiatrist, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander by the time of his discharge two years later. During this time he wrote his bestselling book, originally titled The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. In 1947, he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to teach psychiatry at the University of Minnesota. He then moved to Pennsylvania to become a professor of child development at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1955, he accepted a new position at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1960, Spock announced his support for John F. Kennedy's presidential bid. Two years later, amid mounting concern over President Kennedy's decision to resume nuclear testing, he appeared in a full-page advertisement in the New York Times by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) denouncing nuclear weapons. He joined the organization's national board and became co-chairman in 1963. Spock opposed the Vietnam War and in 1964 endorsed Lyndon B. Johnson's candidacy on the basis of assurances that if he became president, he would not escalate the conflict.⁵ When President Johnson reneged after taking office, Spock intensified his antiwar activities.

Spock's increasingly radical stance alienated colleagues in SANE and led him to resign from the organization in 1967 to pursue a more activist agenda. He retired from academia the same year, although he continued to publish, issuing revised editions of his most famous book for many years. Spock became co-chairman of the National Conference for a New Politics, a coalition of left-wing groups, and was one of the first public figures to march in an antiwar demonstration with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Spock's high public profile and support for the draft-resistance movement drew scrutiny from the administration, and in 1968 he was indicted for conspiracy to aid and abet violation of the Selective Service Act. He was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison and a $5000 fine, although the US Court of Appeals overturned the verdict in 1969.⁶ As part of his ongoing efforts to end the Vietnam War, Spock ran for president as a member of the People's Party in 1972 on a platform of disarmament, free university education and health care, and the legalization of abortion and marijuana. He made it on to the ballot in 10 states and won nearly 80 000 votes overall. In 1970, he published Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior, excerpted here.⁷

In 1975, Spock and his wife divorced, and in 1976 he married Mary Morgan, a feminist activist 40 years his junior. The couple traveled and worked together for the next 20 years. Spock continued to campaign for peace, speaking out against US involvement in Nicaragua in the 1980s and nuclear proliferation. In his honor, SANE named their headquarters the Ben Spock Center for Peace.⁵