Testing the Truth of Phrenology: Knowledge Experiments in Antebellum American Cultures of Science and Health

Abstract

In the first half of the nineteenth century, many Americans visited phrenological practitioners. Some clients were true believers, who consulted phrenology to choose an occupation, select a marriage partner and raise children. But, as this article demonstrates, many others consumed phrenology as an ‘experiment’, testing its validity as they engaged its practice. Consumers of ‘practical phrenology’ subjected themselves to examinations often to test the phrenologist and his practice against their own knowledge of themselves. They also tested whether phrenology was true, according to their own beliefs about race and gender. While historians have examined phrenology as a theory of the mind, we know less about its ‘users’ and how gender, race and class structured their engagement. Based on extensive archival research with letters and diaries, memoirs and marginalia, as well as phrenological readings, this study reveals how a continuum of belief existed around phrenology, from total advocacy to absolute denunciation, with lots of room for acceptance and rejection in between. Phrenologists’ notebooks and tools of salesmanship also show how an experimental environment emerged where phrenologists themselves embraced a culture of testing. In an era of what Katherine Pandora has described as ‘epistemological contests’, audiences confronted new museums, performances and theatres of natural knowledge and judged their validity. This was also true for phrenology, which benefited from a culture of contested authority. As this article reveals, curiosity, experimentation and even scepticism among users actually helped keep phrenology alive for decades.

The quest for objectivity and measurements in phrenology’s “bumpy” history.

“…For example, more failures by experts to replicate what the phrenologists were claiming about skull features, organs of mind, and personality traits contributed to phrenology's demise. As noted, amateurs were also conducting experiments to test phrenologists, in some instances to confirm or refute personal, racial, or gender beliefs (see Bittel, 2019). The inquisitive laity sometimes used tricks and disguises, and what they were told was not always in accord with what they knew to be true about themselves and others.…”

“…Additionally, some scholars have begun to look more closely at how phrenology was transmitted from Britain to America to other parts of the world (e.g., Poskett, 2019; Sakalauskaitė-Juodeikienė et al, 2017; Storey, 2020), as well as how it impacted the arts (e.g., Colbert, 1997; Finger & Eling, 2019, pp. 339–336) and reflected gender and racial beliefs (Anderson & Perrin, 2009; Bittel, 2013, 2019; Carson, 2007; Cornel, 2014). Yet how some phrenologists attempted to introduce measuring tools and utilize numbers to provide the doctrine with a stronger, more scientific foundation as the 18th century progressed has drawn surprisingly little attention.…”

Phrenology and the average person, 1840–1940

“…The numbers in phrenology had little connection to the ‘real’ world, but may have confirmed ideas or surprised consumers positively. As Carla Bittel has shown, consumers were not passive receivers of knowledge, but varied from ardent believers to those who went to the phrenologist for a fun night out and took their scores with a healthy dose of scepticism (Bittel, 2019). Yet the charts taught this kind of consumer that there was such a thing as the average head and that it was a positive thing to be among the better-scoring half of this imagined statistical community.…”

“…Those who visited the phrenologist's consulting room for an examination left with a written delineation of character or a standardized chart that was filled in for them. These charts are an interesting but little-studied source for understanding phrenology and its popular appeal (Bittel, 2013(Bittel, , 2019Sokal, 2001). Each contained a list or table of phrenological organs with the client's score indicated on a scale ranging from 'small' to 'large'.…”

Franz Joseph Gall on God and religion: “Dieu et Cerveau, rien que Dieu et cerveau!”

“…125–168, 320–325; Hagner, 2003 ). Importantly, skulls had the advantage of making what he was claiming visible and testable, and hence his organology and its phrenological spawn that much more appealing to professionals and even amateurs wishing to approach nature, including human nature, in an exciting new way (Bittel, 2019 ; Sysling, 2018 , 2021 ).…”