Understanding Richard Washburn Child’s Authoritarian Personality: From Theodor Adorno to the Histories of Gender and Emotion

The personality of Richard Washburn Child, who was the US ambassador to Italy from 1921 to 1924, bears a close resemblance to the potential fascist described by Theodor Adorno et al. in The Authoritarian Personality. Instead of the psychoanalytical explanations favored in the 1950 study, this article uses theories developed by historians of gender and emotions to understand Child’s personality. It shows how Child’s “emotional community” (which was populated by social elites but also informed by mass culture) fostered his aggressive masculinity, chauvinism, hyper-ambition, and a lack of self-criticism. These personality traits in turn lent themselves to Child’s support of Mussolini and Italian fascism. This research suggests that the authoritarian personality type is neither ahistorical nor an indelible feature of modernity, but a product of specific enabling communities.