Scientific Racism: Phrenology, Its Utility & Legacy.

Orson and Lorenzo Fowler were the pre-eminent spokesmen for phrenology in the U.S. during the 1830s and 40s. They zealously promoted phrenology as a practical tool for self-improvement. The advertisement above featured in the 1850 guide to Barnum's American Museum directs people to their nearby establishment, The Phrenological Cabinet, which combined a publishing house, mail-order business, and museum, the latter featuring human and animal skulls, and casts from the heads of "the most distinguished men that ever lived."

As I read the source, the line "It teaches us for what profession BY NATURE we are best qualified, and in what pursuit we will be most successful" seemed to simultaneously define both the utility of Phrenology and the danger of such "science." This science justified condemning Blacks to fieldwork and menial labor well into the 20th century.

Now React, Post-Millennial Scientific Racism:

As we study the post-Reconstruction era, I think that it is important to consider the growing role that "science" and "technology" played in the dehumanization of Blacks and general stereotyping of "undesirables" at the beginning of the last century. It is critical to note the role that science and technology continues to play in the dehumanization and "othering" of Blacks. After examining the advertisement above and reading the articles below, I want to hear you react: Describe the role that you see "science" and "technology" playing in these works. Use evidence to support your assertions. How do you respond to the post-millennial articles that examine deep seated racism and conceptions of Black female beauty?" 

1. Subliminal Experiments Uncover Deep-Seated Racism (2008)
2. Psychology Today: ‘Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?’ (2011)

Further Reading (More on Phrenology):

• Phrenology Archive, City University of New York (CUNY)
• Phrenology, The Mismeasure of Man (Gould, 1984). 

Tracing African American Heritage

ANN ARBOR, Mich., July 10, 2009 - ProQuest announces the first digital library resource dedicated to the unique needs of African American genealogical research. Available fall 2009, ProQuest® African American Heritage is a groundbreaking new resource that provides key genealogical and historical records specific to tracing the lives of African Americans. The resource goes further to set itself apart by including a critical set of research and social networking tools that address the common genealogy need for research guidance, personal assistance, and mentoring.

Genealogical research for African Americans can be more challenging than other genealogical inquiries as a consequence of slavery and the changing legal status of African Americans. Records made prior to the Civil Rights era were segregated and are difficult to find, and oral histories passed down from generation to generation may be incomplete or inaccurate. Chris Cowan, vice president of publishing for ProQuest, notes that “With limited local resources and no dedicated electronic library resources for African American family history research, libraries have found it challenging to meet the unique needs of their users. Now, ProQuest African American Heritage helps to fill that gap by bringing together genealogical and historical resources critical to researching African American heritage back into the 18th century and helps people put together missing pieces of their past. ”

ProQuest African American Heritage is designed to provide a comprehensive and useful guide for researchers by presenting relevant and unique content as well as providing insights and suggestions on how to further their searching. It contains information vital to African American genealogical research, including U.S. federal census, freedman and slave records, birth, marriage, and death records, church records, court and legal records, genealogies and family histories.

In addition, ProQuest African American Heritage incorporates social networking, reference books, and other digital how-to tools from two key partners: AfriGeneas and Genealogical Publishing Company. AfriGeneas, the oldest and best-known African American family history site, provides social networking to connect people to a community of researchers, expert advice, moderated forums, chats, mailing lists, surname registry, and more devoted to African American genealogy and history. For over 50 years, Genealogical Publishing Company has been publishing authoritative genealogical and family history books that are widely respected by amateur and professional genealogy researchers alike. ProQuest African American Heritage will contain several selected titles from Genealogical Publishing Company, including, including a special online edition of Black Genesis. Black Genesis is an exhaustive guide that makes locating resources pertaining to slaves and free blacks easier. Written by Dr. James M. Rose and Dr. Alice Eichholz, this essential reference work features an extensive compilation of African American resources for all fifty states, Canada and the West Indies. With these resources, ProQuest African American Heritage provides connections to important assistance and mentoring from experienced African-American genealogists, which greatly increases the researchers’ success.

ProQuest African American Heritage is the latest addition to the company’s suite of genealogy resources, which include Heritage Quest® Online, Ancestry® Library Edition, Historic Map Works Library Edition™, ProQuest® Historical Newspapers, ProQuest® Obituaries, Digital Sanborn® Maps, UMI® Heritage Quest® in microform, and UMI® Genealogy and Local History in microform.

For more information visit http://www.proquest.com/en-US/promos/aah/aah.shtml

Before the the Mayflower (Per.3 & Per. 7)

L. Bennett examines African/European interaction before and at the beginning of the slave trade. Let's use him to examine our newest essential question: How do Europeans justify the enslavement of Blacks?

1. What interesting facts does Bennett find?
2. How do Black and White rulers interact?
3. How do Blacks and Whites of lower classes interact?
4. How are Indentured servants treated?
5. What environmental factors encourage Africans to engage in large scale human
trafficking?
6. Why do Blacks begin to be viewed as inferior? When does it happen.

Africa: "The Dark Continent" (The Debate Continues)

I thought that the information below would interest my African American History classes given our recent exploration of Ancient African civilization...

Africa was deemed “The Dark Continent” (most likely used in print for the first time by US journalist and explorer Henry Stanley – of “Dr. Livingstone I presume?” fame - in his Africa account “Through the Dark Continent”) due to the fact that it remained a mystery to Europeans for so long. While most of the world had been under European control for quite some time Africa held out until the final decades of the 19th century, when it was carved up and parceled out to the main European powers in the Berlin Conference. But even after Africa had been divvied up, in reality the majority of the continent remained largely unexplored. It was not exploited until later when various factors collided enabling Europeans to begin a systematic exploitation of Africa’s vast resources.

The fact that Africa was last to be colonized also meant that it was the last to gain independence as European imperialists wanted to hang on to their African colonies long enough to get a return on the investments they had put into their various economic ventures. Most of the countries in Africa have undergone decolonization in the latter half of the 20th century. This explains in part why there are so many conflicts going on in Africa today. It is not an easy task to form an independent nation. Every country has a difficult time in its formative years. Consider the US: it was practically bankrupt after the Revolutionary War, had a number of violent rebellions and was basically a group of largely independent states unified in a lose federation in its infancy. It was still trying to solidify its nationhood 90 years after it had begun its fight for independence. The US Civil War almost ripped the US apart. Instead the results of the war actually helped to strengthen the power of the federal government over the independent states and the US forged ahead as a powerful unified country. Most African nations are undergoing this process of nation building. And they face other challenges relevant to their specific traditions and historical development. The dominant political organization in most of Africa is based on tribal affiliations. The model of a nation state - a European creation - does not apply well to such a political system. So the fact that Africa was colonized and thus decolonized last explains in part why there is so much turmoil in the continent today.

But why was Africa colonized last? Compared to all the other parts of the world taken over by Europe, Africa is geographically the closest! Why then did they wait so long to get into Africa? The answer lies in the land itself. Africa is bordered by some of the harshest deserts on earth, the Sahara in the north, Namib and Kalahari in the south. The Great Rift Valley in the east creates some of the most spectacular landscapes on earth, many of which are impenetrable. Extensive rain forest and jungle cover much of the Equatorial zone. The interior of Africa is a large plateau so the continent’s rivers tend to be fast moving as they seek the coast creating many impassable rapids and waterfalls. Sand deposits in the slow moving areas of the rivers downstream from the rapids create underwater hazards for any boat that is not flat bottomed or does not have a shallow berth. Africa has a tremendous variety of fascinating yet horrific diseases that have a very impressive track record of evolving with great efficiency to form resistance to human vaccines and other treatments. Because of these situations Europeans had an incredibly difficult time penetrating into the interior of Africa and thus fully exploiting its resources until they had the technology of the 20th century at hand.

The use of the term "Dark Continent" remains an issue into the modern day. As recently as 2008 National Public Radio (NPR) had to formally apologize for using the derogatory and archaic term in its news broadcast.

The Black Community and the Importance of Christianity

I thought that this clip would be useful for some of the recent conversations that we've had in African American history.

Analyze the clip below of Mahalia Jackson's rendition of "How I Got Over" and list the ways in which religion (Christianity) is important in the Black community based on the lyrics she sings. What is its purpose? I argue that the story doesn't change much from slave times through the civil rights era.

Pay special attention to the clapping patterns that Jackson uses as she sings this spiritual; they are characteristic of West African traditional music stylings. Not a surprise since we know that the majority of enslaved Africans originated from Western Africa:




Lyrics:

How I got over
How did I make it over
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

How I made it over
Going on over all these years
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

Tell Me how we got over 'LORD'
Had a mighty hard time coming on over
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did we make it over

Tell me how we got over 'LORD'
I've been falling and rising all these years
But you know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

But, soon as I can see JESUS
The man that died for me
Man that bled and suffered
and he hung on Calvary

And I want to thank him for how he brought me
And I want to thank GOD for how he taught me
Oh thank my GOD how he kept me
I'm gonna thank him 'cause he never left me

Then I'm gonna thank GOD for 'ole time religion
and I'm gonna thank GOD for giving me a vision
One day I'm gonna join the heavenly choir
I'm gonna sing and never get tired

And then I'm gonna sing somewhere 'round GODS alter
And I'm gonna shout all my troubles over
You know I've gotta thank GOD and thank him for being
so good to me. 'LORD YEAH'

How I made it over 'LORD' I had to cry in the midnight hour
coming on over, but you know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

Tell me how I made it over 'LORD GOD LORD'
Falling and rising all these years
you know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

I'm gonna wear a diamond garment
In that new Jerusalem, I'm gonna walk the streets of gold
It's the homeland of the soul
I'm gonna view the host in white
They've been traveling day and night
Coming up from every nation
They're on their way to the great Cognation
Coming from the north, south, east, and west
On their way to a land of rest
and their gonna join the heavenly choir
You know we're gonna sing and never get tired
and then we're gonna sing somewere 'round GODS alter
and then we're gonna shout all our troubles over
You know we gotta thank GOD and thank him for being
so good to me

You know I come to thank GOD this evening, I come to
thank him this evening, You know all night long
GOD kept his angels watching over me
and early this morning, early this morning
GOD told his angel GOD said 'touch her in my name'
God said 'touch her in my name'
I 'rose this morning, I 'rose this morning
I 'rose this morning, I feel like shouting
I feel like shouting, I feel like shouting
I feel like shouting, I feel like shouting
I feel like shouting, I feel like shouting
I just gotta thank GOD, I just gotta thank GOD
I just gotta thank GOD, I just gotta thank him
Thank GOD for being so good, GODS been good to me

Race and Rascim created with Black Slavery

The topic of African enslavement has come up in both my World and African American history classes at this point. For many of us today, it is difficult for us to imagine a world untouched by the modern conception of race with which we live and through which our most recent ancestors struggled.

The clip below I think sheds a little more light on the topic of Black and White racial harmony before the explosion of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade during the mid-eighteenth century. Many argue that it is not until well after the introduction Black slavery in the Americas that a history of racial inferiorization begins:



More information on the shift from racial harmony to racial separation:

News Flash: Assignments posted on the WEB!

It took some work, but I heeded your feedback and added an assignments section the World and African American History websites.

From now on, students can check for assignments on the website instead of having to either physically be in class or directly contact me. Be sure to check it frequently especially if you have an extended absence.

My hope is that this will help further streamline communication in class.

Before the Mayflower Analysis (Per. 3 & 7)

L. Bennett examines African/European interaction before and at the beginning of the slave trade.

1. What does Bennet find?
2. How do Black and White rulers interact?
3. How do Blacks and Whites of lower classes interact?
4. How are Indentured servants treated?
5. What environmental factors encourage Africans to engage in large scale human
trafficking?
6. Why do Blacks begin to be viewed as inferior? When does it happen.

Free Black History in Philadelphia

Did you know that at one time Philadelphia had the largest free black population in the United States? Philly is a central part of the history of African Americans and I love taking advantage of the primary resources and artifacts of the the city to learn more about the role that blacks played in nation's development.

Thank you to those of you who accompanied me on this years first African American history trip to Mother Bethel's Richard Allen Museum and the Black Founders exhibit at the Library Company of Philadelphia. I would love to hear your thoughts on the trip itself and your learnings from it. Richard Allen's story and the exhibits we saw at the Library Company tell only a small part of the history of blacks in this city.

What questions has this trip left unanswered or created for you? What are some other trips I should set up or how could this one have been improved?