A goldmine of information is S. Stigler's book on the history of statistics
particularly the chapter on Edgeworth and the latter's comments on 
Quetelismus.
I believe that in the social sciences the uses of CLT go through Quetelet and
Galton and were applied to the distribution of incomes. Proto-fascists like
Otto Aman and Victor Lapouge (the latter less so) made use of the bell curve,
the beretto di poliziotto in FY Edgeworth's phrase, but in  a ver crude way to
explain distribution of income. Amman for example was using graphics to
superimpose income and "ability" distributions. Pareto's notion of the
distribution of incomes , influenced by Amman, is, well, a Pareto 
distribution,
but at times he expressed the idea that the left part of a Gaussian
distribution was not there because below a certain level, persons fell off the
cliff, so to speak. You may even wish to consult Pigou's comments on Pareto
distribution in his Economics of welfare (the Pigou paradox).

Nicholas J. Theocarakis