The Fifties

by David Halberstam

Though he continued to sign himself on letters “Alfred Kinsey, professor of zoology,” his days as a mere professor were behind him. His name was suddenly a household word; everyone knew of him as the sex doctor. There was a famous Peter Arno cartoon in The New Yorker showing a woman reading the report and asking her husband with a horrified expression, “Is there a Mrs. Kinsey?” Within ten days of the book’s release, the publisher had to order a sixth printing, making a phenomenal 185,000 copies in print. To the astonishment of everyone, particularly Kinsey, the book roared up the best-seller lists, a fact somewhat embarrassing to The New York Times, which at first neither accepted advertising for Kinsey’s book nor reviewed it. The early critical response was good. The first reviews saw his samples adequate, his scientific judgments modest, his tone serious. Polls taken of ordinary Americans showed that not only did they agree with his evidence, but they believed such studies were helpful.