Thesis ID: CBB001567292

The Rules of Perception: American Color Science, 1831--1931 (2011)

unapi

Rossi, Michael Paul (Author)


Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT
Jones, David S.


Publication Date: 2011
Edition Details: Advisor: Jones, David S.
Language: English

Although vision was seldom studied in Antebellum America, color and color perception became a critical field of scientific inquiry in the United States during the Gilded Age and progressive era. Through a historical investigation of color science in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I argue that attempts to scientifically measure, define, and regulate color were part of a wider program to construct a more rational, harmonious, and efficient American polity starting from one of the very baseline perceptual components of reality--the experience of color. As part of this program, I argue secondly that color science was as much a matter of prescription as description--that is, color scientists didn't simply endeavor to reveal the facts of perception and apply them to social problems, they wanted to train everyday citizens to see scientifically , and thereby create citizens whose eyes, bodies, and minds were both medically healthy and morally tuned to the needs of the modern American nation. Finally, I argue not simply that perception has a history--i.e. that perceptual practices change over time, and that, for Americans of a century ago, experiences of color sensations were not taken as given but had to be laboriously crafted--but also that this history weighs heavily upon our present day understanding of visual reality, as manifested not least of all in scientific studies of vision, language, and cognition. Employing a close reading of the archival and published sources of a range of actors including physicist Ogden Rood, semiotician Charles Peirce, logician Christine Ladd-Franklin, board game magnate Milton Bradley, and art professor Alfred Munsell, among others, this study reveals the origins of some of the most deeply-rooted conceptions of color in modern American culture. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)

...More

Description Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 73/06, Dec 2012. Proquest Document ID: 931640695.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001567292/

Similar Citations

Article Pesic, Peter; (2013)
Helmholtz, Riemann, and the Sirens: Sound, Color, and the “Problem of Space” (/isis/citation/CBB001320409/)

Book Michael Rossi; (2019)
The Republic of Color: Science, Perception, and the Making of Modern America (/isis/citation/CBB532177952/)

Thesis Ramalingam, Chitra; (2009)
A Science of Appearances: Vision, Visualization and Experimental Physics in Victorian England (/isis/citation/CBB001560660/)

Thesis Andrew B. Ross; (2017)
A Natural History of the Eye: Shared Vision in Early American Natural History, 1784-1839 (/isis/citation/CBB004756092/)

Article Claudia Cristalli; (2022)
Unconscious inferences in perception in early experimental psychology: From Wundt to Peirce (/isis/citation/CBB469224210/)

Book Peter John Brownlee; (2018)
The Commerce of Vision: Optical Culture and Perception in Antebellum America (/isis/citation/CBB577723132/)

Article Simon, Anne; (2007)
Histoire de l'optique et recherche littéraire: Le rayon visuel chez Proust (/isis/citation/CBB000954350/)

Book Patrick Ellis; (2021)
Aeroscopics: Media of the Bird's-Eye View (/isis/citation/CBB381115541/)

Book A. Joan Saab; (2020)
Objects of Vision: Making Sense of What We See (/isis/citation/CBB772588105/)

Book Wade, Nicholas J.; (2005)
Perception and Illusion: Historical Perspectives (/isis/citation/CBB000500286/)

Article Benjafield, John G.; (2010)
The Golden Section and American Psychology, 1892--1938 (/isis/citation/CBB000932859/)

Article Nicholas Gaskill; (2017)
The Articulate Eye: Color-Music, the Color Sense, and the Language of Abstraction (/isis/citation/CBB204426688/)

Article Atkins, Richard Kenneth; (2006)
Restructuring the Sciences: Peirce's Categories and His Classifications of the Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB001023423/)

Chapter Baker, Victor R.; (2009)
Charles S. Peirce and the “Light of Nature” (/isis/citation/CBB001021051/)

Authors & Contributors
Patrick Ellis
Gaskill, Nicholas
A. Joan Saab
Cristalli, Claudia
Ross, Andrew B.
John J. Stuhr
Concepts
Visual perception
Senses and sensation; perception
Vision
Color
Psychology
Visual representation; visual communication
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
Modern
16th century
Places
United States
Toronto (Ontario)
England
Edinburgh
Leipzig (Germany)
Germany
Institutions
University of Toronto
University of Edinburgh
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment