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 Robert Yerkes (1876-1956) led a team of six other psychologists in creating the famous Alpha and Beta intelligence tests. These tests were administered to more than 1.7 million U.S. Army recruits between1917 and 1918. The test results played a key role in the debates on immigration restriction in 1924. The publicity given to Army tests also influenced American public school officials in the 1920s to adopt IQ testing as a means to assist in the placement of students into ability based learning groups.
As one of the early pioneers in the intelligence testing movement, Yerkes adhered to a strict hereditarian and eugenic interpretation of IQ test results. Along with Carl Brigham and Lewis Terman, Yerkes believed the Army tests revealed fixed, racial differences in natural intelligence. During his professional career Yerkes taught at both Harvard and Yale, was president of the American Psychological Association in 1917, and served on the National Research Council between 1919-1924. Through these positions and his membership in numerous eugenic associations in the 1910s and 1920s Yerkes was able to promote his views on race and intelligence to a wide audience.
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