DOCSLIB.ORG

Morton's Ranking of Races by Cranial Capacity Author(S): Stephen Jay Gould Reviewed Work(S): Source: Science, New Series, Vol

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Morton's Ranking of Races by Cranial Capacity Author(S): Stephen Jay Gould Reviewed Work(S): Source: Science, New Series, Vol Morton's Ranking of Races by Cranial Capacity Author(s): Stephen Jay Gould Reviewed work(s): Source: Science, New Series, Vol. 200, No. 4341 (May 5, 1978), pp. 503-509 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1746562 . Accessed: 12/06/2012 22:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Science. http://www.jstor.org work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds" (4, 5). Morton's work was hailed as a jewel of American science. Jules Marcou re- marked that no zoologist except the great Cuvier had so influenced the thought of America's most illustrious Morton's Ranking of Races scientificimmigrant, Louis Agassiz (5, p. 102).On the occasion of Morton'sdeath, by Cranial Capacity the New York Tribune exclaimed that "probablyno scientific man in America enjoyed a higher reputation among Unconscious manipulationof data scholars throughoutthe world than Dr. may be a scientific norm. Morton" (5, p. 144). Mortondid not achieve his reputation by astute interpretationor ingenuity of Stephen Jay Gould speculation-American science had been plaguedby too high a ratio of theo- ry to data. He won fame because he had finally presented a large body of objec- Nineteenth-century intellectuals dis- would, once and for all, obtain adequate tive fact. He had labored to collect and coursed endlessly on the subject of hu- samples to measure the physical dif- measure, where others had merely spec- man racial differences; their works dis- ferences among races. He began his col- ulated. Oliver Wendell Holmes praised play an enormous excess of speculation lection in 1830(2); it exceeded 1000spec- him for "the severe and cautious charac- based on a paucity of information. In imens when he died in 1851. More than ter" of his work, and for providing"per- pre-DarwinianAmerica, polygenists ar- 600 were sufficientlycomplete for an ac- manent data for all future students of gued for a separate (and unequal) crea- curate account of cranial capacity-the ethnology" (6). Europe's greatest scien- tion of humanraces. Monogenists, plac- most importantphysical measure of all, tific celebrity, Baron Alexander von ing their faith in scripture,traced all hu- since Morton regarded it as a rough in- Humboldt, wrote to Morton in 1844: man diversity to an original Adam and dex of overall intelligence. (The general "Your work is equally remarkablefor Eve, and sought a scientific sanction for correlationof brain size and intelligence the profundity of its anatomical views, the numerical detail of the relations of organic conformation, and the absence Summary. Samuel George Morton,self-styled objective empiricist,amassed the of those poetical reveries which are the world'slargest pre-Darwiniancollection of humanskulls. He measured theircapacity myths of modern physiology" (7). and producedthe results anticipatedin an age when few Caucasians doubted their Morton's preference for data did not innate superiority:whites above Indians,blacks at the bottom. Mortonpublished all prevent him from holding opinions. He his rawdata, and it is shown here that his summarytables are based on a patchwork had a definiteposition and he defendedit of apparentlyunconscious finagling.When his data are properlyreinterpreted, all explicitly and often (8-11). As a promi- races have approximatelyequal capacities. Unconsciousor dimlyperceived finagling nent memberof the polygenist school, he is probablyendemic in science, since scientists are human beings rooted in cultural believed that the majorhuman races had contexts, not automatons directedtoward external truth. been created separately as true species. He argued that blacks and Caucasians were as distinct in ancient Egypt as they black inferiority in a greater degenera- was not widely doubted in Morton's are today. Since humanity, following tion from primeval perfection. Few time.) Morton housed his collection- Moses, was not much more than 1000 Western scientists doubted the intrin- called "the American Golgotha" by his years older than Egypt (15), races did not sically higher status of their own white friends-at the Academy of NaturalSci- have enough time to differentiatefrom a race, but opinion differed on the poten- ences in Philadelphia,where he served common stock; they must have been tial transience or innate permanence of as presidentfrom 1849 until his death. created as we find them today. To the black and Indian inferiority. Some ap- Morton's collection was widely hailed challenge that races interbreed freely proved slavery as the kindest status for as one of the wonders of the scientific and that sterilityin crossing is the proper lower races; others consideredblacks in- world. Louis Agassiz wrote home to his criterion of distinction, Morton replied ferior, but refused to justify slavery motherabout it (3): "Imaginea series of by invokingboth sides of the coin. Many thereby. "Whatever be their degree of 600 skulls, mostly Indian,of all the tribes true species hybridizeand the traditional talents," wrote ThomasJefferson (1), "it who now inhabit or formerly inhabited criterion must be revised (9, 10); off- is no measure of their rights." America. Nothing else like it exists else- springbetween some humanraces (Aus- where. This collection alone is worth a traloidsand Caucasoidsin particular)are journey to America." Mortonwrote at a both rare and deficient in fertility (11). Mortonthe Objectivist time when Americanscience was just be- But different need not mean unequal, ginningits transitionfrom a stepchild of and Mortonneeded a furthercriterion to Samuel George Morton, a prominent Europe to a vigorous enterprise worthy defend the traditionalranking. Here he Philadelphiaphysician, entered the me- of attentionand respect, even in the sci- turned to his skulls, focusing almost ex- lee, determinedto replace idle specula- entific centers of the Old World. Ameri- clusively on cranial capacity. tion with hard fact. He set out to amass ca, Emerson wrote, had "listened too The author is a professor of geology and a member the world's collection of to the muses of .... of the biology and history of science departments at largest skulls, long courtly Europe Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts representingall racialgroups (Fig. 1). He We will walk on our own feet; we will 02138. SCIENCE, VOL. 200, 5 MAY 1978 0036-8075/78/0505-0503$01.75/0Copyright ? 1978AAAS 503 Morton published three major works Morton, the South's leading medical to prevent the exposure of a suspected on the cranial capacity of human races- journal wrote: "We of the South should truth is rare in science. When we do un- the Crania Americana of 1839, a large, consider him as our benefactor, for aid- cover a case, we excommunicate its per- beautifully illustrated volume on Indian ing most materially in giving to the negro petrator, smugly declare that science pu- skulls (12); the Crania Aegyptiaca of [sic] his true position as an inferior race" rifies itself, and get back to work. Such 1844, his study on skulls from Egyptian (16). cases rank high as gossip, but very low in tombs (13); and his summary of the en- telling us anything about the nature of tire Golgotha (623 skulls) in 1849 (14). normal, scientific activity. In fact, their Each of these works contained a sum- On Finagling Data hortatory value in the moralistic tradi- mary table. These tables were frequently tion permits us to avoid the issue; for we reprinted during the 19th century and be- No scientific falsehood is more diffi- can pose our objective ideal against the came a linchpin in anthropometric argu- cult to expunge than textbook dogma transgression and pretend that the vast ments about human racial differences. endlessly repeated in tabular epitome middle ground does not exist. However, Their supposedly objective hierarchies without the original data. Morton's ta- I suspect that unconscious or dimly per- support, in detail, every Teutonic and bles enjoyed this brand of immortality ceived finagling, doctoring, and massag- Anglo-Saxon expectation for the ranking and remained in the literature without se- ing are rampant, endemic, and unavoid- of races: whites on top, blacks on the rious challenge until the entire subject of able in a profession that awards status bottom, and Indians in between; among racial ranking by cranial capacity fell in- and power for clean and unambiguous Caucasians, Western Europeans on top, to disrepute. But Morton, the self-pro- discovery. This is the middle ground of Jews in the middle, and "Hindoos" on claimed objectivist, did supply one rare unappreciated bias and more conscious the bottom. and precious gift to later analysts: he manipulation in the interest of a "truth" The polygenist belief in a separate, published all his primary data with ex- passionately held but inadequately sup- created status for blacks and whites plicit statements on their genesis and ported. might have served as a primary defense manner of manipulation. We can learn Historians have occasionally studied for slavery in America; indeed, many po- exactly how he got from individual skulls this middle ground for insight into the lygenists (not including Morton) used to racial means. genesis of creativity and the social con- their theory to support the South's "pe- I have reanalyzed Morton's data and I straints on scientific activity. We know, culiar institution." But most apologists find that they are a patchwork of as- for example, that it has been occupied by for slavery did not care to pay the price sumption and finagling, controlled, prob- many of our greatest heroes.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Race and Membership in American History: the Eugenics Movement
    Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc. Brookline, Massachusetts Eugenicstextfinal.qxp 11/6/2006 10:05 AM Page 2 For permission to reproduce the following photographs, posters, and charts in this book, grateful acknowledgement is made to the following: Cover: “Mixed Types of Uncivilized Peoples” from Truman State University. (Image #1028 from Cold Spring Harbor Eugenics Archive, http://www.eugenics archive.org/eugenics/). Fitter Family Contest winners, Kansas State Fair, from American Philosophical Society (image #94 at http://www.amphilsoc.org/ library/guides/eugenics.htm). Ellis Island image from the Library of Congress. Petrus Camper’s illustration of “facial angles” from The Works of the Late Professor Camper by Thomas Cogan, M.D., London: Dilly, 1794. Inside: p. 45: The Works of the Late Professor Camper by Thomas Cogan, M.D., London: Dilly, 1794. 51: “Observations on the Size of the Brain in Various Races and Families of Man” by Samuel Morton. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, vol. 4, 1849. 74: The American Philosophical Society. 77: Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, Charles Davenport. New York: Henry Holt &Co., 1911. 99: Special Collections and Preservation Division, Chicago Public Library. 116: The Missouri Historical Society. 119: The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882; John Singer Sargent, American (1856-1925). Oil on canvas; 87 3/8 x 87 5/8 in. (221.9 x 222.6 cm.). Gift of Mary Louisa Boit, Julia Overing Boit, Jane Hubbard Boit, and Florence D. Boit in memory of their father, Edward Darley Boit, 19.124.
    [Show full text]
  • Samuel George Morton Papers LCP.Morton Finding Aid Prepared by Finding Aid Prepared by Megan Atkinson and Christiana Dobrzynski Grippe
    Samuel George Morton papers LCP.Morton Finding aid prepared by Finding aid prepared by Megan Atkinson and Christiana Dobrzynski Grippe. This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit September 22, 2014 Describing Archives: A Content Standard Library Company of Philadelphia Samuel George Morton papers LCP.Morton Table of Contents Summary Information ................................................................................................................................. 3 Biographical/Historical note.......................................................................................................................... 5 Scope and Contents note............................................................................................................................... 7 Administrative Information .........................................................................................................................9 Related Materials ...................................................................................................................................... 10 Controlled Access Headings........................................................................................................................11 Collection Inventory.................................................................................................................................... 13 Series I. Correspondence....................................................................................................................... 13
    [Show full text]
  • 9 the Beautiful Skulls of Schiller and the Georgian Girl Quantitative and Aesthetic Scaling of the Races, 1770–1850
    9 The beautiful skulls of Schiller and the Georgian girl Quantitative and aesthetic scaling of the races, 1770–1850 Robert J. Richards Isak Dinesen, in one of her gothic tales about art and memory, spins a story of a nobleman’s startling recognition of a prostitute he once loved and abandoned. He saw her likeness in the beauty of a young woman’s skull used by an artist friend. After we had discussed his pictures, and art in general, he said that he would show me the prettiest thing that he had in his studio. It was a skull from which he was drawing. He was keen to explain its rare beauty to me. “It is really,” he said, “the skull of a young woman [. .].” The white polished bone shone in the light of the lamp, so pure. And safe. In those few seconds I was taken back to my room [. .] with the silk fringes and the heavy curtains, on a rainy night of fifteen years before. (Dinesen 1991, 106‒107)1 The skulls pictured in Figure 9.1 have also been thought rare beauties and evocative of something more. On the left is the skull of a nameless, young Caucasian female from the Georgian region. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the great anatomist and naturalist, celebrated this skull, prizing it because of “the admirable beauty of its formation” (bewundernswerthen Schönheit seiner Bildung). He made the skull an aesthetic standard, and like the skull in Dinesen’s tale, it too recalled a significant history (Blumenbach 1802, no. 51). She was a young woman captured during the Russo-Turkish war (1787–1792) and died in prison; her dissected skull had been sent to Blumenbach in 1793 (Dougherty and Klatt 2006‒2015, IV, 256‒257).
    [Show full text]
  • And the Hamitic Hypothesis
    religions Article Ancient Egyptians in Black and White: ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ and the Hamitic Hypothesis Justin Michael Reed Department of Biblical Studies, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205, USA; [email protected] Abstract: In this essay, I consider how the racial politics of Ridley Scott’s whitewashing of ancient Egypt in Exodus: Gods and Kings intersects with the Hamitic Hypothesis, a racial theory that asserts Black people’s inherent inferiority to other races and that civilization is the unique possession of the White race. First, I outline the historical development of the Hamitic Hypothesis. Then, I highlight instances in which some of the most respected White intellectuals from the late-seventeenth through the mid-twentieth century deploy the hypothesis in assertions that the ancient Egyptians were a race of dark-skinned Caucasians. By focusing on this detail, I demonstrate that prominent White scholars’ arguments in favor of their racial kinship with ancient Egyptians were frequently burdened with the insecure admission that these ancient Egyptian Caucasians sometimes resembled Negroes in certain respects—most frequently noted being skin color. In the concluding section of this essay, I use Scott’s film to point out that the success of the Hamitic Hypothesis in its racial discourse has transformed a racial perception of the ancient Egyptian from a dark-skinned Caucasian into a White person with appearance akin to Northern European White people. Keywords: Ham; Hamite; Egyptian; Caucasian; race; Genesis 9; Ridley Scott; Charles Copher; Samuel George Morton; James Henry Breasted Citation: Reed, Justin Michael. 2021. Ancient Egyptians in Black and White: ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ and Religions the Hamitic Hypothesis.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hamitic Hypothesis; Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective Author(S): Edith R
    The Hamitic Hypothesis; Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective Author(s): Edith R. Sanders Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1969), pp. 521-532 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179896 . Accessed: 08/05/2014 00:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of African History. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.95.104.66 on Thu, 8 May 2014 00:32:32 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Journal of African History, x, 4 (I969), pp. 521-532 521 Printed in Great Britain THE HAMITIC HYPOTHESIS; ITS ORIGIN AND FUNCTIONS IN TIME PERSPECTIVE1 BY EDITH R. SANDERS THE Hamitic hypothesis is well-known to students of Africa. It states that everything of value ever found in Africa was brought there by the Hamites, allegedlya branchof the Caucasianrace. Seligmanformulates it as follows: Apart from relatively late Semitic influence... the civilizationsof Africa are the civilizations of the
    [Show full text]
  • Race" Brian Siegel
    Furman University Furman University Scholar Exchange Anthropology Publications Anthropology 6-1996 Anthropology and the Science of "Race" Brian Siegel Originally published in Furman Studies, Volume 38 (1996): 1-21. Recommended Citation Siegel, Brian, "Anthropology and the Science of "Race"" (1996). Anthropology Publications. Paper 6. http://scholarexchange.furman.edu/ant-publications/6 This Article (Journal or Newsletter) is made available online by Anthropology, part of the Furman University Scholar Exchange (FUSE). It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology Publications by an authorized FUSE administrator. For terms of use, please refer to the FUSE Institutional Repository Guidelines. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE SCIENCE OF "RACE" Brian Siegel The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity (Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past). "Race" is not a black or white issue in. anthropology, certainly not for the last sixty years. Most anthropologists deny the existence of "biological races," but they all acknowledge the reality of "social races," and the tendency for people to deal with one another in terms of socially and culturally constructed racial categories. Forensic anthropologists, for example, measure bones to identify the race of unidentified skeletons, but their racial attributions are statistical inferences drawn from comparative skeletons of known social races. Such classifications vary across time and space, so American forensic anthropologists are best at identifying the social races recognized in America. And since social races are as often distinguished on the basis of their cultural as physical features, anthropologist Ashley Montagu (1942) has long insisted that races should properly be called "ethnic groups." The racial categories used by the federal Census Bureau are examples of "social races." While often based upon perceived physical differences, such perceptions have changed over time.
    [Show full text]
  • Scientific Racism and the Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation
    Michigan Journal of Race and Law Volume 5 2000 Blood Will Tell: Scientific Racism and the Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation Keith E. Sealing John Marshall Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Law and Race Commons, Legal History Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Keith E. Sealing, Blood Will Tell: Scientific Racism and the Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation, 5 MICH. J. RACE & L. 559 (2000). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol5/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of Race and Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BLOOD WILL TELL: SCIENTIFIC RACISM AND THE LEGAL PROHIBITIONS AGAINST MISCEGENATION Keith E. Sealing* INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 560 I. THE PARADIGM ............................................................................ 565 A. The Conceptual Framework ................................ 565 B. The Legal Argument ........................................................... 569 C. Because The Bible Tells Me So .............................................. 571 D. The Concept of "Race". ...................................................... 574 II.
    [Show full text]
  • Anthropology, History Of
    Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, Vol1 – finals/ 10/4/2007 11:59 Page 93 Anthropology, History of Jefferson, Thomas. 1944. ‘‘Notes on the State of Virginia.’’ In defend that institution from religious abolitionists, who The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by called for the unity of God’s children, and from Enlight- Adrienne Koch and William Peden. New York: Modern enment critics, who called for liberty, fraternity, and American Library. equality of man. During the early colonial experience in Lewis, R. B. 1844. Light and Truth: Collected from the Bible and Ancient and Modern History Containing the Universal History North America, ‘‘race’’ was not a term that was widely of the Colored and Indian Race; from the Creation of the World employed. Notions of difference were often couched in to the Present Time. Boston: Committee of Colored religious terms, and comparisons between ‘‘heathen’’ and Gentlemen. ‘‘Christian,’’ ‘‘saved’’ and ‘‘unsaved,’’ and ‘‘savage’’ and Morton, Samuel. 1844. Crania Aegyptiaca: Or, Observations on ‘‘civilized’’ were used to distinguish African and indige- Egyptian Ethnography Derived from Anatomy, History, and the nous peoples from Europeans. Beginning in 1661 and Monuments. Philadelphia: J. Penington. continuing through the early eighteenth century, ideas Nash, Gary. 1990. Race and Revolution. Madison, WI: Madison about race began to circulate after Virginia and other House. colonies started passing legislation that made it legal to Pennington, James, W. C. 1969 (1841). A Text Book of the enslave African servants and their children. Origins and History of the Colored People. Detroit, MI: Negro History Press. In 1735 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus com- pleted his first edition of Systema Naturae, in which he attempted to differentiate various types of people scientifi- Mia Bay cally.
    [Show full text]
  • Michael Weisberg | University of Pennsylvania
    Remeasuring Man Michael Weisberg | University of Pennsylvania Morton’s Cranial Collection Were Morton′s Measurements Racially Biased? Sexual Dimorphism Samuel George Morton (1799 – 1851) was the greatest American Despite labeling the crania by sex, Morton never computed scientist of the early 19th century. Tanks largely to Stephen Jay Samuel Morton used white peppercorns for the measurements reported in diferent averages for males and females. Gould, Morton’s cranial capacity measurements of diferent races Crania Americana. He was unhappy with these measurements, which he took is now held up as a prime example of and cautionary tale against to be inaccurately small and of high variance. For subsequent work, he scientifc racism. A team of anthropologists recently reevaluated remeasured the original sample using lead shot. If Morton’s errors were due Morton’s work and argued that it was Gould, not Morton, who to the peppercorns alone, the under-measurement should have been the M 86.5 was biased in his analysis. Tey are mistaken. same for each race — but it wasn’t! 83.3 F 77.2 Mean Cranial Capacity Reported in Crania Americana (1839) and Crania Aegyptiaca (1844) 79.0 M 87.5 90 F 75.5 89.53 “[The Caucasian race] is distinguished for 87.00 84 the facility with which it attains the Morton’s Negroid males are larger than his Caucasian males. 83.44 highest intellectual endowments.” 81.97 Human Diversity in Five Races 79.75 — Samuel Morton, 1839 Notable Specimens 78 78.00 Morton’s wanted to apply the methods of natural history to “Plausible scenarios are easy to construct Morton had special interests in Native American Mound human variation.
    [Show full text]
  • Crania Aegyptiaca, by Samuel George Morton File:///E:/MOVIES/Morton, Crania Ægyptiaca, 1844.Htm
    Crania Aegyptiaca, by Samuel George Morton file:///E:/MOVIES/Morton, Crania Ægyptiaca, 1844.htm 10121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344454647484950515253545556575859606162636465666769717375777879808182838485868711123456789 1 of 127 01/07/2004 12:05 a.m. Crania Aegyptiaca, by Samuel George Morton file:///E:/MOVIES/Morton, Crania Ægyptiaca, 1844.htm 2 of 127 01/07/2004 12:05 a.m. Crania Aegyptiaca, by Samuel George Morton file:///E:/MOVIES/Morton, Crania Ægyptiaca, 1844.htm CRANIA ÆGYPTIACA OR, OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY, DERIVED FROM ANATOMY, HISTORY AND THE MONUMENTS. BY SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, M.D., AUTHOR OF “CRANIA AMERICANA;” MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA, ETC. ETC. From the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. IX. PHILADELPHIA: JOHN PENINGTON, CHESTNUT STREET. LONDON: MADDEN & CO., LEADENHALL STREET. 1844. 3 of 127 01/07/2004 12:05 a.m. Crania Aegyptiaca, by Samuel George Morton file:///E:/MOVIES/Morton, Crania Ægyptiaca, 1844.htm WILLIAM S. YOUNG, PRINTER. 4 of 127 01/07/2004 12:05 a.m. Crania Aegyptiaca, by Samuel George Morton file:///E:/MOVIES/Morton, Crania Ægyptiaca, 1844.htm TO GEORGE R. GLIDDON, ESQ., LATE UNITED STATES CONSUL FOR THE CITY OF CAIRO; AUTHOR OF “ANCIENT EGYPT;” &c. &c. &c., THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, AS A MEMENTO OF THE ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP OF THE AUTHOR. Philadelphia, February 23, 1844. 5 of 127 01/07/2004 12:05 a.m. Crania Aegyptiaca, by Samuel George Morton file:///E:/MOVIES/Morton, Crania Ægyptiaca, 1844.htm OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY, DERIVED FROM ANATOMY, HISTORY AND THE MONUMENTS. Read before the American Philosophical Society, in Philadelphia, December 16, 1842, and January 6, and April 6, 1843.
    [Show full text]
  • Varieties of Human Species Human Races and Polygenism in Samuel George Morton’S Crania Americana (1839)
    Varieties of Human Species Human races and polygenism in Samuel George Morton’s Crania Americana (1839) provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk CORE brought to you by Katja Nummelin Pro gradu -tutkielma Yleinen historia Humanistinen tiedekunta Helsingin yliopisto toukokuu 2019 Tiedekunta/Osasto – Fakultet/Sektion – Faculty Laitos – Institution – Department Humanistinen tiedekunta/Filosofian, historian Filosofian, historian, kulttuurin ja taiteiden tutkimuksen laitos ja taiteiden tutkimuksen osasto Tekijä – Författare – Author Katja Nummelin Työn nimi – Arbetets titel – Title Varieties of Human Species: Human races and polygenism in Samuel George Morton’s Crania Americana (1839) Oppiaine – Läroämne – Subject Yleinen historia Työn laji – Arbetets art – Level Aika – Datum – Month and year Sivumäärä– Sidoantal – Number of pages Pro gradu -tutkielma toukokuu 2019 88s. + liitteet Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract Tämä tutkielma tarkastelee ihmisrotujen muodostamista ja kuvauksia sekä polygenesis-teoriaa Amerikkalaisen Samuel George Mortonin varhaista antropologista tutkimusta edustavassa teoksessa Crania Americana (1839). Tutkielman tarkoitus on nostaa esiin Mortonin rotumääritysten ja -kuvausten kulttuurihistoriallista taustaa, joka on aiemmin jäänyt vähälle huomiolle, sillä aiempi tutkimus on keskittynyt Mortonin kallonmittausaineiston analysointiin. Mortonin käsitystä ihmisroduista Crania Americanassa tarkastellaan kolmesta lähtökohdasta: ihmisrotujen muodostaminen, rotujen
    [Show full text]
  • Christianity, Modern Science, and the Perception of Human Difference
    The Religious Pursuit of Race: Christianity, Modern Science, and the Perception of Human Difference The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Keel, Terence. 2012. The Religious Pursuit of Race: Christianity, Modern Science, and the Perception of Human Difference. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:9572089 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! © 2012 -Terence D. Keel All rights reserved. ! Janet Browne Terence D. Keel ! The Religious Pursuit of Race: Christianity, Modern Science, and the Perception of Human Difference ! ! Abstract This dissertation is a work in intellectual history that chronicles racial theories within Western science and medicine. Therein, I address two interrelated questions. Firstly, has Christianity shaped modern scientific perceptions of race? Secondly, is the search for the origin of human life, vis-à-vis theories of race, a purely scientific matter or, a more basic human existential concern? To answer these questions I undertook archival research within the history of European and American racial science, analyzing contemporary scientific work, archival data of primary scientific material, biblical commentaries, literary monthlies, and early maps of the major continents. I argue that Christian ideas about nature, humanity, and history have facilitated modern scientific perceptions of race since the time of the Enlightenment. This is true despite what is believed to be the “Death of Adam” within Western science following the emergence of Darwinian evolution.
    [Show full text]