Insights from the Collections
The Consortium’s collections provide many opportunities to learn more about the history of phrenology and nineteenth-century popular medicine.
Our cross-institutional search tool allows researchers to investigate materials across multiple institutions from a single interface. With more than 4.4 million catalog records of rare books and manuscripts, the Consortium’s search hub offers scholars and the public the ability to identify and locate relevant materials.
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Some archival materials related to this topic include:
Samuel George Morton papers, American Philosophical Society
George Combe Correspondence, College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Phrenological Examination Notes collections, College of Physicians of Philadelphia
William H. Helfand Collection of Proprietary Medicine Pamphlets, Library Company of Philadelphia
See also recent work from our fellows:
Kathrinne Duffy, Doctrine of the Skull: Phrenology and Popular Knowledge in Antebellum America
Paul Wolff Mitchell, Human Remainders: The Lost Century of the Samuel George Morton Collection
Brandon Zimmerman, An Empire of Skulls: The History of The Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection and Scientific Collecting Practices in 19th Century Philadelphia