Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America by Rachel E. Walker (review)

Reviewed by: Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America by Rachel E. Walker Robert Murray (bio) Keywords Physiognomy, Phrenology, Racism, White supremacy Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America. By Rachel E. Walker. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022. Pp. 288. Cloth, 45. 00. ) For years, I have unconsciously started every new book with a quick glance at the author's photo that most monographs include on the back flap of the dust jacket. As Rachel E. Walker's Beauty and the Brain shows, what I previously interpreted as innate curiosity of an author's visage may actually reflect the ways in which the thinking of the early republic continues to shape the present. If physiognomic ruminations are no longer the norm for reviews of academic works, readers familiar with the early End Page 153 republic's obsession with craniums, countenances, and Aquiline noses can still observe the author's forehead and eyes for evidence of her intellect and research dynamo. Beauty and the Brain explores the history of physiognomy—the study of faces—and phrenology—the study of the skull's external features. Walker reminds us that rather than dismissing these as "pseudoscience, " we should remember that physiognomy and phrenology were legitimate scientific pursuits in the early nineteenth century and certainly not thought of as quack theories. Not only were they widely accepted as "sciences" in the early republic, but physiognomy and phrenology were also incredibly popular sciences, benefitting from the expansion of print culture and a low bar to admission. No college degrees, laboratories, or professional credentials were required; one could become a practicing phrenologist in one's own parlor after purchasing a pamphlet or observing a traveling lecturer. These sciences became so steeped in the popular culture of the early republic that physiognomic and phrenological terms slipped into the vernacular and, in fact, remain with us to this day: "highbrow, " "lowbrow, " "propensity for crime. " Dare I also note that our continued use of author's photos is reminiscent of the numerous nineteenth-century frontispiece portraits that readers would scan to determine the intellect and worthiness of the author before diving into the book. The first two chapters detail the origins of physiognomy and phrenology, respectively. While people had been studying faces for millennia, it was Swiss cleric Johann Kaspar Lavater's Physiognomiche Fragmente, published between 1775 and 1778, that promised that it could be done scientifically. While Lavater claimed scientific certainty could be attained through physiognomy, there were few definitive principles. Instead, physiognomists relied on generalized concepts—the most widely accepted being that a large forehead revealed a great intellect. Although beginning with Lavater's conclusions, German physicians Franz Josef Gall and Johann Gaspar Spurzheim sought a more empirical method to reveal human character. The two developed phrenology as a result, starting with the premise that all human cognition occurred in the brain and that the brain must imprint on the skull. Both European sciences found ready audiences in the United States, where they offered anxious citizens of the early republic a means to justify existing social hierarchies through the veneer of scientific determinism by revealing the intrinsic superiority of certain individuals (almost universally elite white men) through their exceptional external features. Here, Beauty and the Brain departs from the oft-tread history of physiognomy and phrenology that presupposes the End Page 154 prying eyes and probing fingers belonged to white men who used these sciences to affirm white supremacy and the patriarchy before ultimately evolving into scientific racism and biological essentialism. Over the next four chapters, Walker details a cavalcade of feminists, suffragists, abolitionists, social reformers, and people of color who imaginatively used these sciences to challenge rather than reinforce the social hierarchies of the early republic. Why did so many marginalized peoples turn to two scientific methods that deemed them lesser? Physiognomy and phrenology were certainly accessible to these groups and immersed within popular culture, making them practically inescapable. Even more important for Walker, these sciences contained contradictions and ambiguities that fostered malleable interpretations. If some elite white men could point to deficiencies of the foreheads of women and people of color, generally, exceptions. . .