Myths and Measurements: From Phrenology to

Anthropometry

HI269

Week 3

Phrenology and the bumpy

path to the embodied

mind…

PhrenologyKey points

• Propounded by Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828), phrenology was based in the idea that the brain had approximately 26 ‘organs’ or ‘mental faculties’, each of which represented a particular trait or propensity (such as intelligence, acquisitiveness, and self-esteem).

• These organs could be perceived and compared via minute measurement of the contours of the skull.

• While Gall believed that the innate organs shrank or grew with use, others argued that they were fixed and determined character.

• Phrenology was enormously popular, and sparked developments including crainiology, but also contemporary ideas of a modular brain with ‘speech centres’ etc.

Craniology/Craniometry

CraniometryKey Points

• Where phrenology measured the skull as a way to measure the mind and personality, craniometry measured skulls to determine the volume of the brain and to identify and rank the ‘races of man’.

• Petrus Camper popularised the idea of the ‘facial angle’: ‘The two extremities of the facial line are from 70 to 80 degrees from the negro to the Grecian antique: make it under 70, and you describe an ourang or an ape.’ (Camper's Works, p. 42, translated by Cogan, 1821.)

• Craniometry became an essential part of physical anthropology, and of scientific racism.

Anthropometry• Literally, ‘the measurement of man’;• Like craniometry, anthropometry was closely

associated with the new discipline of anthropology, and with the idea that measuring the body could reveal data about mental as well as physical aptitudes and traits;

• In parallel, systems of anthropometric measurement were developed to identify individuals and ‘types’ (and thus to allow both reactive and pro-active identification of criminals). Among the most important of these systems was Bertillonage.

Bertillonage as a surveillance system:

Key FeaturesUse of standardization for:

Measurements taken,Mode of measuringMode of notationMode of filing and accessing resultsAbility to locate and SHARE results:‘portait parléAbbreviations designed for use with telegraphy

Segregating the ‘criminal race’

• The context: • Late 19th c. sees

increasing fear of the ‘recidivist criminal’ – and the radicalised poor.

• The problem: how to identify this mobile, urban and wily population?

• c. 1870s, Cesare Lombroso popularises idea of biological, rather than moral criminality – making the identification of potential rather than actual criminals a possibility

Who would be ‘suspect’?

• The mobile poor (‘vagrants’, ‘gypsies’, most immigrant groups)

• Non-whites• ‘degenerates’• Prostitutes• Colonial

populations

Bertillonage in action, NYC

Information and questions for lecture and seminar next week

Fingerprint Chronology Part 1: Britain• 1880s Faulds enlists Darwin, and is put in touch with Galton;

publishes in Nature• 1886-1888 Faulds in touch with Scotland Yard promoting use of

fingerprints in criminal forensics• 1888 Galton and Herschel begin correspondence about

fingerprints• 1892 Galton publishes Fingerprints, British Assoc for

Advancement of Science calls for a better system of identifying criminals (though it had Bertillonage in mind)

• 1894 Troup Committee supports use of fingerprints in theory, but classification too difficult; they go with Bertillon.print combo

• 1900 Belper Committee: Fingerprints ‘absolute impressions taken from the body itself’; recommends trial of ‘the Indian system’

• 1902 First use of fingerprints as trial evidence in UK (Harry Jackson trial)

• 1902 By end of year, 1722 criminals identified by fingerprints• 1909 Fingerprints ruled as acceptable proof of identity even in

isolation – without need for personal recognition of their bearer!

Fingerprint Chronology Part 2: USA• 1883 Attempts to institute prints as id for Chinese migrants/returners: ‘The

thumb marks of Mon Shing, a Chinese laundryman, are more easily recognizable than his face”. Scheme came to nothing when US banned all such migrants from entry/return in 1888

• 1903/1918 Will/William West ‘case’ ‘shows’ flaws of anthropometry• 1906 Army fingerprints recruits• 1924 FBI founded as Identification Division of the Justice Department’s

Bureau of Investigation, under John Edgar Hoover. Hoover immediately promotes idea of ‘domestic surveillance’ of all, not just known criminals.

• 1929 All federal employees fingerprinted• 1932 Lindberg Baby kidnapping: children recognised as group potentially

benefited by fingerprinting• 1935 Social Security Act (assigning unique number for each citizen as

condition of receiving benefits): NO FINGERPRINTS solicited or taken. WHY NOT?

• 1936 Public drives and ‘education’ promoting voluntary fingerprinting for all; ACLU and public opposition

• 1937 Civilian Conservation Corps fingerprinted• 1939 All WPA employees printed• 1940 Alien Registration Act: fingerprinting and registration of all immigrants

14 or older• 1943 Citizens Identification Act FAILS on right to privacy grounds

Fingerprinting and technologyHow have technologies made the biometrics of identification and

surveillance possible?• 1879 Bertillon invents workable filing system for his data• 1897 Henry creates categorization and filing system for fingerprints• 1919 Modus Operandi punch card system and sorting machine created for

California• 1924 IBM founded, based on better card sorting technologies• 1934 FBI gets IBM card sorter (still can’t handle the volume of data produced by

Soc Sec Act a year later)• 1937 IBM horizontal card sorter can sort 420 cars per minute• 1963 Grid classification system introduced for optical recognition of prints;

automated print id system project initiated by FBI and Nat’l Bureau of Standards• 1972 FBI installs first automated scanning system and begins scanning in old

files – by 1980, 14.3 million entered• 1979 Automated searches begin; candidates thus discovered still finally matched

by a human from candidate pool – still done today• Late 1970s AFIS (automated fingerprint identification system: DIGITAL) first

marketed (cost: circa $2-10 million)• 1986: AFIS- type digital systems become standard – but which one? Still trying to

create a single standard, even today.• 1993 OJ Simpson trial draws public attention to ‘DNA fingerprinting’

Reading Questions on Cole• Why (and when) did fingerprints replace

Bertillonage in the US? • What was the point of the Will West

Legend?• What different forces shaped responses to

fingerprints in the US, Argentina, India and Britain?

• Were fingerprints really unmediated, ‘transparent’ marks of identity taken directly from the body? Are they now?

Reading Question for Sengoopta• Why were fingerprints used for civil and

criminal matters in India, but only for criminal identification (and a handful of expelled Aliens) in England?

Thinking Ahead:• What social, political and technological

changes have allowed the introduction of fingerprinting for all asylum seekers under the Asylum and Immigrations Appeals Act of 1993? And the suggestion of biometric ‘smart cards’ for all benefit recipients (inc NHS users)?

Great Websites to explore

• http://ctl.ncsc.dni.us/biomet%20web/BMIndex.html

• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/exhibition/views.html

• And for fun, ‘get your head examined’: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/phrenology/phrenology_frames.html