author

Iva Lowther Peters

1876–1961

A sociologist and researcher, she wrote about women’s work, education, and social attitudes at a time when those subjects were changing quickly. Her books and reports show a practical mind interested in how social rules shape everyday life.

1 Audiobook

Taboo and Genetics

Taboo and Genetics

by Phyllis Blanchard, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses) Knight, Iva Lowther Peters

About the author

Born in 1876, Iva Lowther Peters was an American scholar whose published work focused on sociology, women’s employment, education, and family life. Records connected with her books identify her as holding a Ph.D., and her career appears in surviving library and archive catalogs rather than in a widely documented public biography.

Her known works include The Institutionalized Sex Taboo, The Function of Social Taboo in Education, Social and Vocational Orientation for College Women, and A Study of Employability of Women in Selected Sections of the United States. She also prepared the 1919 government report Agencies for the Sale of Cooked Foods Without Profit and was a co-author of Taboo and Genetics, a study linking biological, psychological, and sociological questions.

Although little biographical detail is easy to confirm, her writing suggests a serious interest in the social position of women and in the ways custom and education influence opportunity. She died in 1961.