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Samuel George Morton
"[Morton] had a hypothesis to test: that a ranking of races could be established objectively by physical characteristics of the brain, particularly by its size."1
-- Stephen Jay Gould
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Facing History Resources
• Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement (Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc., Brookline, Massachusetts) 2002, Chapter 3, "Evolution, 'Progress,' and Eugenics."
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Print and Video Resources
• The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism by Allan Chase (Alfred A. Knopf, New York) 1976.
• The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny by George M. Fredrickson (Harper and Row, New York) 1985.
• The Mismeasure of Man, 2nd Edition by Stephen Jay Gould (W.W. Norton & Company, New York) 1996.
• Crania Americana by Samuel George Morton (John Penningon) 1839.
• In the White Man's Image (Video: 58 Min. PBS Video, Alexandria, VA) 1991. (Available for loan to Facing History and Ourselves teachers. Contact your regional office.)
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Web Resources
• Cold Spring Harbor: American Eugenics Image Archive
(http://vector.cshl.org/eugenics/)
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Brain Size and Intelligence
Decades before Francis Galton would define eugenics, scientist and physician Samuel George Morton was producing some important research studies that would add legitimacy to Galton's hypotheses. Morton, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, held two medical degrees and served as president of the Academy of Natural Sciences. According to the New York Tribune, "Probably no scientific man in America enjoyed a higher reputation among scholars throughout the world."2
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Morton's America: Early to Mid-1800s |
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Like many scientists of his day, Morton believed that there is a correlation between intelligence and brain size. He therefore tried to rank the races according to skull size. Between 1820 and his death in 1851, Morton collected over 1,000 human skulls from around the world. *After measuring these skulls he concluded that whites have larger skulls than other races and are therefore "superior." He was not sure if blacks were a separate race or a separate species, but he did insist that people of African descent are different from and inferior to whites. Morton's theory of Polygenesis--that the races of the world do not share a common origin (see video clip, below)--created a rationale for the possibility of viewing people of color as a different species altogether. Although some of his hypotheses were racist and based on conjecture, his reputation nevertheless brought legitimacy to his ideas.
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Morton's Theory of Polygenesis |
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*Did Morton use sound scientific practice when measuring skulls? Watch a simulated reenactment of Morton's experiments.Crania Americana In Crania Americana, published in 1839, Morton suggests how physical differences can become markers that predict a group’s intelligence, personality traits, even morality. Click here to read excerpts from Crania Americana.
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Very Real Consequences
Morton’s ranking of the "races" had very real consequences. His reputation and his influence over academic scientists, for example, led to a generation of students who were taught Morton's theories. After meeting Morton and viewing his skull collection, Louis Agassiz, a noted biologist who joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1846, taught his students that Africans are a separate species. In evaluating Agassiz’s career, anthropologist Lee D. Baker observes: "Agassiz’s legacy is not only the statues, schools, streets, and museums in Cambridge [Massachusetts] emblazoned with his name but also the bevy of students who were under his tutelage at Harvard University. He trained virtually all of the prominent U.S. professors of natural history during the second half of the nineteenth century."3
Morton’s rankings also shaped the way many politicians, journalists, and ministers viewed two of the most pressing social and political issues of the day: the expulsion of Native Americans from their ancestral lands and the expansion of slavery. Between 1816 and 1850, over 100,000 Indians from 28 tribes were forced from their homes east of the Mississippi to western lands that white Americans considered useless. At the same time, about 3.5 million African Americans were held in bondage. Their enslavement prompted a heated debate between slaveowners and an international community of abolitionists, opponents to slavery. Morton’s writings played a part in both debates by promoting the idea that the Constitution does not apply to Native Americans or Africans because they are not the sorts of people for whom the document was written. His theory of polygenesis provided the moral and intellectual rationale for the debates by calling into question the very humanity of Native Americans or Africans.
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