Article ID: CBB001253064

Woman, Know Thyself: Producing and Using Phrenological Knowledge in 19th-Century America (2013)

unapi

Bittel, Carla (Author)


Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Volume: 55, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 104-130


Publication Date: 2013
Edition Details: Part of a special issue “Beyond the Academy: Histories of Gender and Knowledge”
Language: English

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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Reviewed By

Essay Review Maria Elvira Callapez; Vanessa Silva (2014) 'Beyond the Academy – Histories of Gender and Knowledge'. Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology (pp. 166-172). unapi

Included in

Article Oertzen, Christine von; Rentetzi, Maria; Watkins, Elizabeth S. (2013) Finding Science in Surprising Places: Gender and the Geography of Scientific Knowledge. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 73-80). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001253064/

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Authors & Contributors
Farris, Kimberly Paige
Cornel, Tabea
Zottoli, Steven J.
Richards, Eliza
Zachmann, Karin
Vandermassen, Griet
Concepts
Science and gender
Women in science
Gender identity
Social class
Political activists and activism
Phrenology
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
17th century
21st century
Places
United States
Germany
France
Great Britain
Sweden
Japan
Institutions
Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory
Women's Engineering Society
United States. Patent Office
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