Samuel George Morton
Encyclopedia
Samuel George Morton was an American
physician
and natural scientist. Morton, reared a Quaker but became Episcopalian in midlife, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania
in 1820. After earning an advanced degree from Edinburgh University in Scotland, he began practice at Philadelphia in 1824. From 1839 to 1843, he was the professor of anatomy
at the University of Pennsylvania.
Morton was a productive writer of books on various subjects from 1823 to 1851. He wrote Geological Observations in 1828, and both Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States and Illustrations of Pulmonary Consumption in 1834. His first medical essay, on the user of cornine in intermittent fever, in 1825 was published in the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences. His bibliography includes Hybridity in Animals and Plants (1847), Additional Observation on Hybridity (1851), and An Illustrated System of Human Anatomy (1849).
, a school of thought in antebellum American science that claimed the difference between humans was one of species
rather than variety
and is seen by some as the origin of scientific racism
.
Morton argued against the single creation story of the Bible (monogenism) and instead supported a theory of multiple racial creations (polygenism
). Morton claimed the Bible supported polygenism, and within working in a biblical framework his theory held that each race had been created separately and each was given specific, irrevocable characteristics.
After inspecting three mummies from ancient Egyptian catacombs, Morton concluded that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago. Since the Bible indicated that Noah's Ark
had washed up on Mount Ararat
, only a thousand years ago before this, Morton claimed that Noah's sons could not possibly account for every race on earth. According to Morton's theory of polygenesis, races have been separate since the start.
Morton claimed that he could define the intellectual ability of a race by the skull
capacity. A large volume meant a large brain
and high intellectual capacity, and a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. He was reputed to hold the largest collection of skulls, on which he based his research. He claimed that each race had a separate origin, and that a descending order of intelligence could be discerned that placed White people
at the pinnacle and Negroes at the lowest point, with various other race groups in between. Morton had many skulls from ancient Egypt, and concluded that the ancient Egyptians were not African, but were White. His results were published in three volumes between 1839 and 1849: the Crania Americana, An Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America and Crania Aegyptiaca.
Morton's theories were very popular in his day, and he was a highly respected physician and scientist. The anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička
called Morton "the father of American physical anthropology". Crispin Bates has noted that Morton's "systematic justification" for the separation of races, along with the work of Louis Agassiz
, was also used by those who favoured slavery in the US, with the Charleston Medical Journal noting at his death that "We of the South should consider him as our benefactor for aiding most materially in giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race."
Morton's followers, particularly Josiah C. Nott
and George Gliddon
in their monumental tribute to Morton's work, Types of Mankind (1854), carried Morton's ideas further and backed up his findings which supported the notion of polygenism – the premise that the different races were separately created by God. The publication of Charles Darwin's
On The Origin of Species in 1859 changed the nature of the scholarly debate and, according to Bates,
In a 1978 paper and later in The Mismeasure of Man
(1981), Stephen J. Gould asserted that Morton had selectively reported data, manipulated sample compositions, made analytical errors, and mismeasured skulls in order to support his prejudicial views on intelligence differences
between different populations. A new paper, "The Mismeasure of Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and Bias" six anthropologists
agree that there was bias—but that the bias came from Gould, who failed to examine, let alone remeasure, the crania to determine Morton's level of accuracy. Two separate studies, one conducted in 1988 and the other in 2011, show that Morton's work was accurate.
Historical construction of race
Brain size and intelligence
Eugenics
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and natural scientist. Morton, reared a Quaker but became Episcopalian in midlife, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
in 1820. After earning an advanced degree from Edinburgh University in Scotland, he began practice at Philadelphia in 1824. From 1839 to 1843, he was the professor of anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
at the University of Pennsylvania.
Morton was a productive writer of books on various subjects from 1823 to 1851. He wrote Geological Observations in 1828, and both Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States and Illustrations of Pulmonary Consumption in 1834. His first medical essay, on the user of cornine in intermittent fever, in 1825 was published in the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences. His bibliography includes Hybridity in Animals and Plants (1847), Additional Observation on Hybridity (1851), and An Illustrated System of Human Anatomy (1849).
"American School" ethnography
Samuel George Morton is often thought of as the originator of "American School" ethnographyEthnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, a school of thought in antebellum American science that claimed the difference between humans was one of species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
rather than variety
Variety (biology)
In botanical nomenclature, variety is a taxonomic rank below that of species: as such, it gets a three-part infraspecific name....
and is seen by some as the origin of scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
.
Morton argued against the single creation story of the Bible (monogenism) and instead supported a theory of multiple racial creations (polygenism
Polygenism
Polygenism is a theory of human origins positing that the human races are of different lineages . This is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity.- Origins :...
). Morton claimed the Bible supported polygenism, and within working in a biblical framework his theory held that each race had been created separately and each was given specific, irrevocable characteristics.
After inspecting three mummies from ancient Egyptian catacombs, Morton concluded that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago. Since the Bible indicated that Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
had washed up on Mount Ararat
Mount Ararat
Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey. It has two peaks: Greater Ararat and Lesser Ararat .The Ararat massif is about in diameter...
, only a thousand years ago before this, Morton claimed that Noah's sons could not possibly account for every race on earth. According to Morton's theory of polygenesis, races have been separate since the start.
Morton claimed that he could define the intellectual ability of a race by the skull
Human skull
The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...
capacity. A large volume meant a large brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...
and high intellectual capacity, and a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. He was reputed to hold the largest collection of skulls, on which he based his research. He claimed that each race had a separate origin, and that a descending order of intelligence could be discerned that placed White people
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
at the pinnacle and Negroes at the lowest point, with various other race groups in between. Morton had many skulls from ancient Egypt, and concluded that the ancient Egyptians were not African, but were White. His results were published in three volumes between 1839 and 1849: the Crania Americana, An Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America and Crania Aegyptiaca.
Morton's theories were very popular in his day, and he was a highly respected physician and scientist. The anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička
Aleš Hrdlicka
Aleš Hrdlička or Ales Hrdlicka was a Czech anthropologist who lived in the United States after his family had moved there in 1881...
called Morton "the father of American physical anthropology". Crispin Bates has noted that Morton's "systematic justification" for the separation of races, along with the work of Louis Agassiz
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
, was also used by those who favoured slavery in the US, with the Charleston Medical Journal noting at his death that "We of the South should consider him as our benefactor for aiding most materially in giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race."
Craniometry
Morton claimed in his Crania Americana that the Caucasians had the biggest brains, averaging 87 cubic inches (1,426 cc), Indians were in the middle with an average of 82 cubic inches (1,344 cc) and Negroes had the smallest brains with an average of 78 cubic inches (1,278 cc). Morton believed that the skulls of each race were so different that a wise creator from the beginning had created each race and positioned them in separate homelands to dwell in.Morton's followers, particularly Josiah C. Nott
Josiah C. Nott
Josiah Clark Nott was an American physician and surgeon. He was also an author of surgical, yellow fever, and race theories.-Biography:...
and George Gliddon
George Gliddon
George Robins Gliddon was an English-born American Egyptologist. He was born in Devonshire, England. His father, a merchant, was United States consul at Alexandria where Gliddon was taken at an early age....
in their monumental tribute to Morton's work, Types of Mankind (1854), carried Morton's ideas further and backed up his findings which supported the notion of polygenism – the premise that the different races were separately created by God. The publication of Charles Darwin's
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
On The Origin of Species in 1859 changed the nature of the scholarly debate and, according to Bates,
In a 1978 paper and later in The Mismeasure of Man
The Mismeasure of Man
The Mismeasure of Man , by Stephen Jay Gould, is a history and critique of the statistical methods and cultural motivations underlying biological determinism, the belief that “the social and economic differences between human groups — primarily races, classes, and sexes — arise from inherited,...
(1981), Stephen J. Gould asserted that Morton had selectively reported data, manipulated sample compositions, made analytical errors, and mismeasured skulls in order to support his prejudicial views on intelligence differences
Race and intelligence
The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of intelligence testing in the early 20th century...
between different populations. A new paper, "The Mismeasure of Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and Bias" six anthropologists
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
agree that there was bias—but that the bias came from Gould, who failed to examine, let alone remeasure, the crania to determine Morton's level of accuracy. Two separate studies, one conducted in 1988 and the other in 2011, show that Morton's work was accurate.
Classification of races in Crania Americana
In Crania Americana Morton divides humankind primarily into four races with the following characteristics:Europeans
"The Caucasian Race is characterized by a naturally fair skin, susceptible of every tint; hair fine, long and curling, and of various colors. The skull is large and oval, and its anterior portion full and elevated. The face is small in proportion to the head, of an oval form, with well-proportioned features. ... This race is distinguished for the facility with which it attains the highest intellectual endowments. ... The spontaneous fertility of [the Caucasus] has rendered it the hive of many nations, which extending their migrations in every direction, have peopled the finest portions of the earth, and given birth to its fairest inhabitants."Asians
"This great division of the human species is characterized by a sallow or olive colored skin, which appears to be drawn tight over the bones of the face; long black straight hair, and thin beard. The nose is broad, and short; the eyes are small, black, and obliquely placed, and the eyebrows are arched and linear; the lips are turned, the cheek bones broad and flat. ... In their intellectual character the Mongolians are ingenious, imitative, and highly susceptible of cultivation [i.e. learning]. ... So versatile are their feelings and actions, that they have been compared to the monkey race, whose attention is perpetually changing from one object to another."Native Americans
"The American Race is marked by a brown complexion; long, black, lank hair; and deficient beard. The eyes are black and deep set, the brow low, the cheekbones high, the nose large and aquiline, the mouth large, and the lips tumid [swollen] and compressed. In their mental character the Americans are averse to cultivation, and slow in acquiring knowledge; restless, revengeful, and fond of war, and wholly destitute of maritime adventure. They are crafty, sensual, ungrateful, obstinate and unfeeling, and much of their affection for their children may be traced to purely selfish motives. They devour the most disgusting [foods] uncooked and uncleaned, and seem to have no idea beyond providing for the present moment. ... Their mental faculties, from infancy to old age, present a continued childhood. ... [Indians] are not only averse to the restraints of education, but for the most part are incapable of a continued process of reasoning on abstract subjects."Africans
"Characterized by a black complexion, and black, woolly hair; the eyes are large and prominent, the nose broad and flat, the lips thick, and the mouth wide; the head is long and narrow, the forehead low, the cheekbones prominent, the jaws protruding, and the chin small. In disposition the Negro is joyous, flexible, and indolent; while the many nations which compose this race present a singular diversity of intellectual character, of which the far extreme is the lowest grade of humanity. ... The moral and intellectual character of the Africans is widely different in different nations. The Negroes are proverbially fond of their amusements, in which they engage with great exuberance of spirit; and a day of toil is with them no bar to a night of revelry. Like most other barbarous nations their institutions are not infrequently characterized by superstition and cruelty. They appear to be fond of warlike enterprises, and are not deficient in personal courage; but, once overcome, they yield to their destiny, and accommodate themselves with amazing facility to every change of circumstance. The Negroes have little invention, but strong powers of imitation, so that they readily acquire mechanic arts. They have a great talent for music, and all their external senses are remarkably acute."Works
- Crania Americana; or, A Comparative View of the Skulls of Various Aboriginal Nations of North and South America: To which is Prefixed An Essay on the Varieties of the Human Species. Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1839.
- Crania Aegyptiaca; or, Observations on Egyptian ethnography, derived from anatomy, history, and the monuments. Philadelphia: J. Penington, 1844.
See also
- AnthropometryAnthropometryAnthropometry refers to the measurement of the human individual...
- Craniometry
- DrapetomaniaDrapetomaniaDrapetomania was a supposed mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused black slaves to flee captivity. Today, drapetomania is considered an example of pseudoscience, and part of the edifice of scientific racism...
- Hamitic hypothesis
- Institute for the Study of Academic RacismInstitute for the Study of Academic RacismThe Institute for the Study of Academic Racism is an organization that monitors "changing intellectual trends in academic racism, biological determinism, and eugenics." ISAR states that in this capacity it "acts as a resource service for students, academics, journalists, legislators and civil...
- John Hanning SpekeJohn Hanning SpekeJohn Hanning Speke was an officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa and who is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile.-Life:...
- Paul BrocaPaul BrocaPierre Paul Broca was a French physician, surgeon, anatomist, and anthropologist. He was born in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that has been named after him. Broca’s Area is responsible for articulated language...
- Paul TopinardPaul TopinardPaul Topinard was a French physician and anthropologist who was a student of Paul Broca and whose views influenced the methodology adopted by Herbert Hope Risley in his ethnographic surveys of the people of India...
- PsychometricsPsychometricsPsychometrics is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, personality traits, and educational measurement...
- Race (historical definitions)Race (historical definitions)Historical race concepts have varied across cultures and over time, and have been controversial for social, political and scientific reasons. Until the 19th century, race was thought by many to constitute an immutable and distinct type or species which shared particular racial characteristics, such...
- Race and intelligenceRace and intelligenceThe connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of intelligence testing in the early 20th century...
- Sociocultural evolutionSociocultural evolutionSociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time...
External links
Samuel George Morton- Samuel George Morton Papers http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/m/mortonsg.htm
Historical construction of race
- The Historical Construction of Racial Identity http://canada.metropolis.net/EVENTS/ethnocultural/publications/historical.pdf
- American Theories of Polygenesis http://www.thoemmes.com/science/polygenesis_intro.htm
Brain size and intelligence
- Charles MurrayCharles Murray (author)Charles Alan Murray is an American libertarian political scientist, author, columnist, and pundit working as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC...
, The Inequality Taboo (September 2005) - Brain Size and Intelligence
- Why size mattered for Einstein
- Brain Size and Intelligence
- Brain Size and Intelligence
- Scientists Measure the Accuracy of a Racism Claim, New York Times, June 13, 2011.
Eugenics
- "Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Virginia, Eugenics, and Buck v. Bell" (USA)
- Archive (USA)
- "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit) (Germany, USA)
- "Sterilization Law in Germany" (includes text of 1933 German law in appendix)