How te be oneself uitgegeven door Fowler & Wells Co auteur: R. Dimsdale StockerFrenologieOver de uitgevers: Fowler & Wells Co
Phrenology continued to flourish after
Spurzheim's death, though it began to lose any connection to the scientific
and anatomical research of Franz Joseph Gall, turning instead to the personality
and perfectibility of mankind and the application of phrenology to society.
Among the most influential leaders of the movement in America during the 19th
century were two brothers, Orson Squire Fowler (1809-1887) and Lorenzo Niles
Fowler (1811-1896), and their business associate, Samuel Roberts Wells (1820-1875).
The Fowler brothers began as itinerant phrenologists,
lecturing and reading heads throughout New England. After a brief practice in
Washington, O. S. Fowler went to Philadelphia in 1838 and opened an office called
the Phrenological Museum where he began publication of the American Phrenological
Journal. The business moved to New York City in 1842, where the two brothers,
their sister, Charlotte, and Lorenzo Fowler's wife, Lydia, became notable phrenologists,
and the Phrenological Cabinet, displaying casts, skulls, charts, and other artifacts
of the movement, became a popular fixture in the city. Branches of the Cabinet
subsequently opened in Boston, at 142 Washington Street, and in Philadelphia.
In 1843, Charlotte Fowler married a medical student, Samuel Roberts Wells, who
then entered into partnership with his brothers-in-law, forming the publishing
house of Fowler and Wells. The firm produced hundreds of titles and editions
and, literally, thousands of copies of phrenological texts, and also sold charts,
sets of cranial casts, and the famous symbolical heads. In addition to their
mercantile ventures, the Fowlers were educators, training an army of phrenologists
and supplying them with the tools of their trade.The Fowlers promoted their business with the pithy slogan "Know thyself," implying that the self-knowledge derived from phrenology could lead to perfectibility through the development of the faculties. The brothers examined a wide variety of famous individuals of the day—including Walt Whitman, John Greenleaf Whittier, Clara Barton, and Mark Twain. The Fowlers' popular manual, The Illustrated Self-Instructor, claimed, "Self-knowledge, by teaching the laws and conditions of life and health, becomes the most efficacious means of prolonging the former and increasing the latter…. It also shows us our natural talents, capabilities, virtues, vices, strong and weak points… and develops the laws and conditions of human and personal virtue and moral perfection, as well as of vice, and how to avoid it. It is, therefore, the quintessence of all knowledge." Bron: THE FOWLER BROTHERS |
Frenologie: How te be oneself uitgegeven door Fowler & Wells Co auteur: R. Dimsdale Stocker
By Bo | 10:26:00