Phrenology3

THE “FIRST FAMILY” OF PHRENOLOGY, continued...

Meet the Fowlers

The foremost American popularizers of phrenology were the Fowlers: brothers Orson and Lorenzo and sister Charlotte, all born in Steuben County, New York in the early years of the 19^th century.

Orson Squire Fowler, born in 1809, attended Amherst College where he and his best friend, Henry Ward Beecher, became interested in phrenology as an instrument of individual and social reform. After their graduation in 1834, Beecher went into the ministry. Fowler, however, continued with phrenology and began traveling through New York and New England, lecturing and “reading” heads.

Younger brother Lorenzo Niles Fowler, born in 1811, studied at Amherst Academy but by-passed a college education and joined Orson as an itinerant phrenologist.

By 1835, younger sister Charlotte (born in 1814 and academy-educated) was also promoting phrenology on the lecture circuit.

As this new “science” of the mind grew in popularity, the Fowler family enterprise grew in profitability. The expanded family business established an office and “Phrenological Cabinet” in New York City, where the Fowlers conducted “readings” as well as displaying skulls, and casts and busts of the heads of the famous and infamous for the education and edification of the populace. Charlotte joined her brothers, Orson and Lorenzo, in their New York enterprise in 1837.

The year 1844 saw two important additions to the Fowler enterprise. Sister Charlotte married medical student Samuel R. Wells. A kindred reforming spirit, Wells was not only interested in phrenology, but was also one of the first advocates of an exclusively vegetable diet. The newly expanded family immediately formed the publishing house of Fowler & Wells.

Orson and Lorenzo’s first book, Phrenology proved, illustrated and applied, had been published in 1835. Fowler & Wells rapidly expanded the scope of the family’s phrenological publishing and soon became an empire, churning out quantities of phrenological periodicals, pamphlets and books. Phrenology proved, illustrated and applied continued to be published in many revised editions throughout the 19^th century. The American Phrenological Journal, begun by Orson Fowler in 1838 (Orson was not only the editor but also the main contributor), expanded its circulation under the wing of Fowler & Wells. At the height of its popularity in the 1840s, it was being read by more than 20,000 families each month.

The second addition to the family enterprise in 1844 was Lorenzo’s bride, Lydia Folger Fowler. Born in Nantucket in 1822, Lydia Folger first attended Wheaton Seminary (now Wheaton College) in Norton, Massachusetts, and then taught there. After her marriage to Lorenzo in 1844, Lydia took to the phrenological lecture circuit, as well as writing several books on physiology and phrenology for Fowler & Wells.

Five years after her marriage, Lydia enrolled in Central Medical College of Syracuse and Rochester, New York, receiving her medical degree in 1850. An “Eclectic” and not a mainstream medical school, Central Medical College embraced a wide range of views, emphasizing plant remedies. Lydia Folger Fowler was the second woman, after Elizabeth Blackwell, to receive a medical degree. Appointed to the faculty of the college the following year, she became the first woman professor in an American medical college. After the college closed in 1852, Lydia established a New York medical practice, specializing in the health of women and children, and continued to lecture on phrenology, physiology, hygiene, nutrition, and child rearing.

It is thanks to legendary showman, P.T. Barnum, that we have a description of Lydia on the lecture platform.

P. T. Barnum had opened his” American Museum” in New York City in 1841, offering a mix of education, entertainment and sheer bunkum. In 1855, Barnum began to hold “National Baby Shows.” More than 60,000 visitors paid admission to view the judging of over 140 contestants at the first Baby Show. In order to deflect criticism that he was crassly exploiting family and motherhood, Barnum scheduled a lecture by Dr. Lydia Folger Fowler, hoping to confer social respectability and medical legitimacy on the Baby Show.

The New York Tribune of June 8, 1855, described the lecture – and Lydia Folger Fowler

She was dressed in a very broadly striped silk, which was anything but a bloomer. Her hair was done up in a French twist with curls in front. Her face is pleasant, she has sunny blue eyes and a sweet mouth. She waved an elegantly embroidered handkerchief as she read her lecture. Quite a number of the little exhibited [babies] were present and contributed their full share to the festivities, at times almost drowning her voice, which is scarcely strong enough for a lecturer.

In the 1860s, Lydia and Lorenzo moved to England. Lorenzo manufactured high quality porcelain phrenological busts.

An elaborate symbolical head, as developed by Orson Squire Fowler and Lorenzo Niles Fowler, shows the location of the various character traits found in individuals. Using this chart – and, if resources allowed, one of the fine porcelain phrenological heads manufactured by Lorenzo Fowler – a phrenologist would analyze approximately 36 faculties and conditions to arrive at a character analysis.
From: A new illustrated hand-book of phrenology and physiognomy, for students and examiners. New York: Fowler & Wells, 1894.

Lydia no longer practiced medicine, but she did continue to write and lecture widely – shortly before her death in 1879, she estimated that she had lectured to 200,000 women in America and Europe over a period of more than 30 years.

Phrenology was not the sole interest of the Fowler family.