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- Title
National types: The transatlantic publication and reception of Crania Americana (1839).
- Authors
Poskett, James
- Abstract
Samuel George Morton’s Crania Americana (1839) is most often read as a foundational work for the ‘American school’ of nineteenth-century ethnography. In this article, I challenge such a reading by demonstrating how transatlantic connections shaped both the publication and the reception of Morton’s atlas. In this lavish folio volume, complete with over seventy lithographic plates, Morton divides mankind into five races on the basis of skull configuration. However, to date, there have been no histories which consider the relevance of Morton’s extensive correspondence with physicians, naturalists, and phrenologists in Europe. Furthermore, there have been no studies which consider how Morton managed the reception of Crania Americana across the Atlantic Ocean. This article resituates American ethnology within this transatlantic world, drawing on archival collections in both Britain and the United States. More broadly, it demonstrates how the history of the book can be developed as we move beyond national contexts.
- Subjects
EDINBURGH (Scotland); CRANIA Americana (Book); MORTON, Samuel George, 1799-1851; PUBLICATIONS; ETHNOLOGY; HISTORY of the book; CRANIOMETRY; PRICHARD, James Cowles; ATLASES -- History; PUBLIC opinion; PHRENOLOGY; BRITISH Association for the Advancement of Science; NINETEENTH century; INTERNATIONAL cooperation; HISTORY; SOCIETIES; POLITICAL attitudes
- Publication
History of Science, 2015, Vol 53, Issue 3, p264
- ISSN
0073-2753
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/0073275315580955