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Thesis ID: CBB001567292

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

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT
Jones, David S.
Publication date: 2011
Language: English

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

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Senses and sensation; perception Visual perception Color Vision Cognition 19th century 20th century, early United States Rood‏, Ogden Nicholas Peirce, Charles Sanders Franklin, Christine Ladd

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.)

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

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