The Savage in the House

Fisher, Lydia

doi:10.1353/arq.2008.0005

Cited by 12 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…On domestication and technology, see Silverstone and Hirsch (). On domestication in literature, centered on race science, see Fisher ().…”

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confidence: 99%

Woman, Know Thyself: Producing and Using Phrenological Knowledge in 19th-Century America

Bittel

2013

Centaurus

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This article explores the production and consumption of phrenological knowledge for and by middle‐class women in the USA during the early and middle decades of the 19th century. At a time when science itself had few boundaries, women became readers, consumers, proselytizers and practitioners of this knowledge system, outside of a scientific academy. This paper argues that phrenological beliefs about sex differences enabled and encouraged women to be users. Phrenology allowed women to negotiate gender and by encouraging followers to ‘know thyself,’ phrenology blurred the lines of expertise, creating a fluid interplay between users and producers of knowledge. This article then shows how categories of women users–practitioners, consumers and feminists–implemented or rejected elements of phrenology as they sought to affirm or amend prescribed gender roles. As the industrial economy seemed to divide public and private, production and consumption, masculine and feminine, phrenology allowed women and men to stand within and between these binaries. At the same time, some women used phrenology to classify themselves and others in a socio‐natural hierarchy and further engrained scientific racism in American culture.

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“…On domestication and technology, see Silverstone and Hirsch (). On domestication in literature, centered on race science, see Fisher ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%