This article evaluates the historiography of late nineteenth-century sciences of race. A key aspect of this historiography is the idea that sciences of race were designed specifically to justify preexisting ideas about race. This aspect is defined as the ‘derivative explanation of scientific racism’. I critique this explanation by focusing on one specific science of race, craniometry, and using one particular craniometrist, Dr. J.C. de Man (1818–1909), as a case study. I argue, first, that historians of the derivative explanation cause confusion because they apply current racial language in their characterization of craniometry of the past; second, that they overlook the emerging ideal of objectivity in science; third, that they tend to reduce social motivations for practicing science to being racial by definition.
Historians usually maintain that late nineteenth-century sciences of race, including craniometry, were ‘ethnocentric or simply racist practice[s].’
After a brief historiographical review in which I illustrate the derivative explanation of scientific racism, I will present three criticisms of this type of historiography by examining one particular science of race – craniometry – and focusing on one particular craniometrist: Dr. Johannes Cornelis de Man (1818–1909), a physician and scientist who operated in Middelburg, in the province of Zeeland, the Netherlands. Using De Man’s publications and correspondence to reconstruct the scientific context in which he operated, I will suggest that historians of the derivative explanation of scientific racism tend to make three conceptual mistakes. First, these historians tend to apply current racial language in their characterization of craniometry, causing a confusion between different historical meanings. Second, these historians tend to overlook the fact that scientists of the late nineteenth century were guided by ideals of objectivity; this notion contradicts the idea that craniometry was designed specifically to confirm a priori conclusions, which would imply a conscious sacrifice of the pursuit of objectivity. Third, these historians tend to assume that social motivations that encouraged craniometrists to practice their science were by definition about establishing or preserving certain race relations in society; this is a generalization because it overlooks other social motivations, such as nationalism.
The particular science of race examined in this study, craniometry, emerged as a sub-discipline of physical anthropology in the second half of the nineteenth century, but had its roots in a variety of earlier scientific theories and practices. The practice of measuring skulls emerged first in the works of anatomists such as Peter Camper (1722–1789) and later Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840). In the same period as Camper, Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) published his works of systematic physiognomy, which was later further elaborated by Carl Gustav Carus (1789–1869). Physiognomy was originally concerned with faces, but later incorporated the whole skull; it aimed to demonstrate that unequal levels of intelligence in individuals were due to different facial or cranial formations. Another influence on later craniometry was phrenology, which was founded by Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) and further elaborated upon by his follower Johann Caspar Spurzheim (1776–1832). Like physiognomy, phrenology propagated the idea that there was a relationship between bodily features and psychological attributes, but it extended this theory with the idea that the form of the skull is indicative of the strength of the underlying organs in the brain. Unlike physiognomy, phrenology became concerned with races, especially in the United States, although it remained focused on individuals. At the same time, historians started to adopt the idea of race as an essential causal factor in history, thereby popularizing the notion of historical races.
Cranial measuring as it was later embraced by physical anthropologists started with the publication
Following Retzius, the practice of measuring skulls was widely adopted by anthropologists later in the century, such as Paul Broca (1824–1880), Franz Pruner (1808–1882), and George Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936). In the second half of the nineteenth century, physical anthropology came to be articulated increasingly as a distinct discipline throughout Europe. The project of physical anthropology was to capture human differences in numbers; the extensive recording of skull measurements into elaborate data sets became an important tool in this project.
One actor in the emerging field was Dr. Johannes Cornelis de Man, who considered his discipline to be, indeed, a subfield of anthropology.
Photograph of Dr. Johannes Cornelis de Man around the end of the nineteenth century. (Source: Zeeuws Archief, Zeeuws Genootschap,
In addition to his medical activities, De Man also actively conducted research and published in a wide range of fields, including medical topography, pharmaceutics, teratology, paleontology, the history of Zeeland, and anthropology. He became a member of the Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen (Zeeland Society of Arts and Sciences) in 1845, and was its chairman between 1895 and 1900. Much of his work was published in the official journal of the Zeeuwsch Genootschap (
De Man married Neeltje Elisabeth Kamerman in 1849, and they had three children: a son named Johannes Govertus de Man, who later became a biologist, a daughter named Antoinette de Man, and another daughter named Maria de Man, who would later become active in the Zeeuws Genootschap as curator and numismatist. De Man was not affiliated with a religious denomination, and took an agnostic position towards questions about religion.
Anderson and Perrin introduce a distinction between two approaches to explaining scientific racism in nineteenth-century craniometry. First, it is possible to approach the practice as
Among derivative approaches to explaining scientific racism, Anderson and Perrin discern a ‘familiar claim that nineteenth-century racial craniometry was designed to biologise longstanding aesthetic prejudices about variations in human physical appearance.’
These derivative explanations
Drawing upon Anderson and Perrin, I will refer to this historiographical tendency as the
The first criticism of historians who defend a derivative explanation of scientific racism is that they tend to cause confusion between different historical meanings by applying current racial terminology to the nineteenth century. In science, the idea of race, which I define simply as the idea of how human beings could possibly be divided into groups, has evolved since De Man’s time. The idea of race informs racial language. As a result of the evolution of the idea of race, therefore, scientific racial language has also evolved. In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to reconstruct the difference between a current and a nineteenth-century idea of race. Furthermore, I will give examples of how this idea informed, and still informs, racial language.
In the nineteenth century, the idea of race was broader and less well-defined than today. First, the idea of race was not defined strictly in terms of the biological. K. Anthony Appiah has argued that, by the end of the nineteenth century, most Western scientists had the belief that ‘we could divide human beings into a small number of groups, called “races”, in such a way that the members of these groups shared certain fundamental, heritable, physical, moral, intellectual, and cultural characteristics with each other that they did not share with members of any other race.’
De Man’s publications reflect this idea of racialism in that craniometrical research was usually combined with inquiries into culture – history and archaeology – in order to identify the racial origin of a skull or set of skulls.
Second, racial divisions, in the nineteenth century, did not have clear boundaries. Racial characteristics were often described as dispositions or tendencies, and were not necessarily observable in every individual of a race.
The fact that the idea of race, in De Man’s time, was rather loose – broad and without clear boundaries –, informs the racial language of the time. De Man, for example, used several words that subtly differed in meaning to approach the idea of a racial category. Usually, when considering the idea of race especially as defined by skull size, he used ‘type’, whereas ‘stam’ (tribe) was often used for a broader category that incorporated aspects of culture as well.
In its current meaning, race is an idea with an inherently negative connotation referring to a socially-constructed division of human beings into well-defined categories based solely on biological differences. We no longer tend to incorporate culture into our definition of race and now refer to a division of human categories based on both culture and physical features as ‘ethnicity’. Race has become a strictly biological idea. Audrey Smedley and Brian D. Smedley, for instance, have defined racialized science, that is, science that makes use of the concept of race, as seeking to ‘explain human population differences in health, intelligence, education, and wealth as the consequence of immutable, biologically based differences between “racial” groups.’
Photograph of a human skull owned by De Man. (Source: Zeeuws Archief, Archief 26: Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen inv.no. 11, no. 340).
This biological conception of race, moreover, has become highly controversial, as, over the course of the twentieth century, it became commonplace among sociologists and other scholars and scientists to regard the biological conception of race as a social construction – a change that was the result of research in both the natural and social sciences, including history, as well as political realities.
The current idea of race as a dangerous, socially-constructed biological ‘reality’ translates into racial language as well. Consider, for instance, the widespread use of the word ‘racism’ as a pejorative by historians.
[…] a belief that the members of different racial or ethnic groups possess specific characteristics, abilities, or qualities, which can be compared and evaluated. Hence: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against people of other racial or ethnic groups (or, more widely, of other nationalities), esp. based on such beliefs.
In this definition, the meaning of racism is informed by a current idea of race, because it adopts the idea that for someone to be racist, that person must have the belief that different racial groups possess specific characteristics. The words ‘prejudice’, ‘discrimination’, and ‘antagonism’ reflect the negative connotation that the underlying, current idea of race has acquired. The word ‘racism’ is thus a good example of current racial language.
In short, craniometrists had a
Awareness of historical ideas and meanings is important, because it will caution historians of craniometry against applying current racial language, such as the word ‘racism’, to De Man’s time, which inevitably exposes historians to what Quentin Skinner refers to as ‘the perpetual danger […] that our expectations about what someone must be saying or doing will themselves determine that we understand the agent to be doing something which he would not – or even could not himself have accepted as an account of what he was doing.’
The second criticism of historians who defend a derivative explanation of scientific racism is that they tend to overlook that scientists of the late nineteenth century were guided by a specific ideal of objectivity. Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison have established that, by the mid-nineteenth century, a new epistemological project began to emerge: mechanical objectivity, or ‘the insistent drive to repress the willful intervention of the artist-author, and to put in its stead a set of procedures that would, as it were, move nature to the page through a strict protocol, if not automatically.’
In considering objectivity in relation to De Man’s publications, I will point to the presence of two aspects of mechanical objectivity. First, I will consider the methodological aspect, referred to by Daston and Galison as ‘the mechanical’, reconstructing the way in which De Man used a mechanized procedure in order to realize mechanical objectivity. Second, I will consider the ethical aspect, referred to by Daston and Galison as ‘the restrained’, showing that De Man makes normative remarks in his publications that suggest that he was operating within the moral economy of mechanical objectivity.
One methodological way in which scientists attempted to realize mechanical objectivity was by mechanizing scientific procedures.
The objective of this publication was to further knowledge about the history of habitation in Zeeland by combining craniometrical research with findings of other historians and archaeologists. In the craniometrical section of the publication, De Man combined the data of measurements that had been previously conducted by himself and five other craniometrists with the data of new research. The previous measurements concerned sets of skulls that had been excavated at nine different locations in Zeeland. To this, De Man added the data of his recent measurements of two other sets of skulls: fourteen skulls that had been recently obtained in Nieuwelande, as well as six skulls that had been derived from an old cemetery in Arnemuiden.
De Man collected data about the ‘Cephalic Index’ (CI) of these skulls. This index had been formulated by Retzius in 1842. It measured the ‘ratio of the breadth of the skull to its length, expressed as a percentage.’
But mechanical objectivity was not only concerned with a method designed to ensure accuracy; it was also concerned with morality. According to Daston and Galison, objectivity became moralized in the sense that the ‘all-too-human scientists must, as a matter of duty, restrain themselves from imposing their hopes, expectations, generalizations, aesthetics, even ordinary language on the image of nature.’
Impartiality by no means implied value neutrality on the part of the historian. On the contrary, the aim of historical impartiality was to reach sound conclusions about moral matters as they were played out in the wars and political conflicts of the past, much as the aim of judicial impartiality was to reach a just verdict in legal matters as presented in criminal and civil cases.
In De Man’s case, however, it seems likely that his ideal of ‘onpartijdigheid’ (impartiality) reflects an underlying ideal of objectivity rather than the kind of impartiality that Daston defines, because he expressed the ideal outside the context of a debate about a moral or political matter. Here, the ideal of ‘onpartijdigheid’ seems, in fact, to be a striking example of the kind of asceticism that nineteenth-century objectivity preached.
In addition to expressing a general value of self-restraint as a scientific virtue, De Man appears to have a moral expectation of more specific standards for scientific research, aimed at ensuring objectivity. For instance, he expected other craniometrists to always enclose the statistics they used to justify their claims in their publications. In ‘Boekaankondiging J. Sasse Az.’, a short introduction to and review of Johan Sasse’s 1891 dissertation
These normative statements reflect values one might associate with the ‘restrained’: De Man moralizes methodology outspokenly. Combined with the presence of the ‘mechanical’ – the mechanizing of procedure by means of quantification –, it is evident that De Man was guided by an ideal of objectivity.
The derivative explanation regards craniometry as a science that was designed specifically to confirm a priori conclusions regarding race. This notion, however, is contradictory to the presence of the guide point and moral economy of scientific objectivity among craniometrists, in which imposing one’s own will onto nature was a vice. It is evident that scientists that strived to be objective were not necessarily successful in eliminating bias completely. Nevertheless, one cannot aim to repress the scientific self with all its prejudices while at the same time
The third criticism of historians who defend the derivative explanation of scientific racism relates to what motivated craniometrists to practice craniometry. Derivative scholars often formulate their assertions in such a way that they imply that craniometrists were guided primarily by a social motivation, namely either establishing or preserving certain race relations in their society. According to Patrick Wolfe, for instance, ‘a hodgepodge of scientific theories was used to bolster racial discrimination [in the nineteenth century].’
Reconstructing what motivated De Man to practice craniometry, however, suggests that this is an overgeneralization. While his publications do suggest that De Man had a social motivation for practicing craniometry, this motivation does not relate to race relations. It seems more likely that De Man was primarily guided by a nationalist principle: a drive to bring science in the Netherlands up to the standards of the international scientific community.
By the end of the nineteenth century, craniometry had become a well-established method for physical anthropological research in many countries, having emerged earlier in the century with the works of Retzius, whose methods for measuring skulls in order to justify racial classification schemes were adopted and developed by many European and American anthropologists over the course of the second half of the century.
There are some ethnologists in the Netherlands, but small is their number and even smaller the appreciation that they receive in the motherland. It is peculiar, how also in this regard the Netherlands fall behind in comparison to other countries. While here the most civilized people are completely unfamiliar with the large difference between skulls mutually, and one will ask you with comic surprise what difference it makes whether one skull is one centimeter longer or shorter than the other, in other countries, ethnology is taught at many universities by an especially appointed teacher – elsewhere, great flourishing societies for the study of anthropology (the study of human races) are being founded and research is conducted regarding hair color and the eyes of school children
While there was little craniometrical activity in the Netherlands, the scientific community in which De Man was embedded stretched far beyond the Dutch borders. De Man had gained his first international experience between 1841 and 1842, during his medical studies at Leiden University, when he stayed in Vienna and Paris for study purposes.
Notably, De Man corresponded extensively with the American economist and craniometrist William Z. Ripley (1867–1941) of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, who has now become a notorious example of alleged scientific racism. Ripley is known specifically as the author of
1897 letter (presumably) send by William Z. Ripley to De Man, in which De Man is requested to send a list of his anthropological publications to Ripley at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in Boston. (Source: Zeeuws Archief, Archief 26: Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen inv.no. 11, no. 340).
De Man also corresponded with the British ethnologist John Beddoe (1826–1911) about both craniometrical and personal matters. In a letter from 1898, for instance, Beddoe expresses his condolences to De Man for the death of his wife.
It seems that, in light of his cosmopolitan orientation, De Man became aware that Dutch anthropology was behind on international developments. De Man expressed his sentiment of dissatisfaction with the state of Dutch anthropology in his review of Sasse’s dissertation:
We hope that [Sasse] will let this field of science flourish, and this is desirable because, in our country and concerning our own population, so little is being done in anthropology, of which craniology is only an area.
De Man’s own publications suggest that his primary motivation for practicing craniometry was merely to establish that field in the Netherlands. In ‘Bijdrage tot de kennis van den schedelvorm in Walcheren’, for example, De Man writes:
Should I dare to take another step in craniological research, and give the little that I have, it is only in order to show no indifference towards a field of science, that is practiced in all countries, and will perhaps once solve the deviations in human tribes. What I do now, is thus simply an attempt to demonstrate that, in this field, there is something to be done in the Netherlands as well, as long as there exists spirit and cooperation.
That De Man was primarily motivated by the aim to advance Dutch anthropology is further demonstrated by his emphasis on data collection and his reluctance to draw conclusions from the data he collected. De Man, it seems, was aware that he was initiating the practice of craniometry in the Netherlands. He assumed that Dutch craniometry was still too early in its development to attach much value to its conclusions. De Man, therefore, focused on collecting as much data as possible, in order to enable future generations of craniometrists to supplement that data with their own research and create a database sufficiently large to establish reliable conclusions about Dutch racial history. Schoute, in his early biography of De Man, writes that ‘it was primarily De Man’s intention to collect material.’
Gladly would I have answered him, if I would have been able to meet the expectation that Dr. Sasse may have had of me; yet, for reasons that are easy to apprehend, I was unable to do so, and still am.
When he did interpret data, he usually cautioned the reader not to attach too much value to his interpretation; Schoute therefore describes De Man’s conclusions as ‘aarzelend’ (hesitative).
I have shown that De Man operated in a craniometrical network which transcended the Dutch borders. Such transnational projects cannot be properly understood in a historical framework that is confined by national borders. De Man’s craniometrical network consisted of numerous – to use Latourian vocabulary – ‘centres of calculation’, of which De Man’s Middelburg was just one, and, for instance, Ripley’s Cambridge (MA) another.
De Man’s primary motivation for practicing craniometry was nationalist rather than racist; he simply wanted to bring Dutch science up to international standards. De Man’s case suggests, therefore, that defining craniometrists solely by a racist social motivation is an overgeneralization.
The historiography of late nineteenth century sciences of race is sometimes characterized by a derivative explanation of scientific racism; historians of this historiography adopt the idea that scientists had racial prejudices that needed a scientific justification, and intentionally designed the outcome of their sciences accordingly. Examining the history of one such scientist, Dr. De Man, within one such science of race, craniometry, informs three points of criticism to historians who adopt this model of explanation. In consideration of these criticisms, it becomes less clear to what extent derivative explanations are sustainable. An essential aspect of the derivative historiography is the assumption that there was a great deal of intentionality involved in the constitution of scientific racism. Such narratives, perhaps, become attractive to the current historian in light of the role that scientific racism would play in events of the twentieth century such as the Holocaust, or the practice of eugenics in the United States; they clearly point towards who is guilty, and can thus be held responsible, in the developments that lead to such events. Derivative explanations, in short, are attractive because they add a clear moral dimension to the historical narrative of scientific racism.
The criticisms presented in this article, however, show that, while derivative explanations may be attractive, they sacrifice historicity. They suggest that the alternative historiographical approach – the constitutive explanation of scientific racism –, may be more appropriate. Anderson and Perrin describe what such a constitutive approach should look like:
[Racial discourse] must be grasped as an open and precarious process in which its constitution, along with the relationships and connections between its constitutive elements, must be accounted for and not assumed. These elements may then be understood, not as the expression of some idea of racial difference or hierarchy that precedes them, and that exists essentially apart from them, but as integral parts of the formulation, elaboration and realization of a racial discourse that must be conceived as assembled out of these parts.
Indeed, in De Man’s case, it seems unjust to characterize the craniometrist as simply one who gave expression to, and applied, some kind of independently existing and historically omnipresent racial bias. Nevertheless, De Man’s scientific endeavors are, evidently, somehow related to the historical phenomenon of scientific racism. Recognizing him as an integral yet unconscious part of the constitution of scientific racism, rather than viewing his scientific activities as merely the product of that very phenomenon, may contribute to the creation of a more accurate narrative of the history of racial science.
Kay Anderson and Colin Perrin, ‘Thinking
Ibidem 84.
Gustav Jahoda, ‘Intra-European Racism in Nineteenth Century Anthropology’,
Jahoda, ‘Intra-European Racism’ (n. 3) 39–41. See, for example, J.C. de Man, ‘De verspreiding der bevolking in oud-Zeeland’s eilanden Walcheren, Noord- en Zuid-Beveland en Saftinge, opgehelderd door craniologische onderzoekingen. Rapport van de Commissie voor Ethnographie’, in: J.C. de Man,
Fenneke Sysling,
See, for example: J.C. de Man, ‘Boekaankondiging J. Sasse Az. Over Zeeuwse schedels’ (overdruk uit Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde 1891, 476–483), in: Zeeuws Archief, Middelburg, Archief 26: Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen 1769–1969; inv.no. 11, no. 340: ‘Craniologica’, bundel overdrukken van artikelen door dr J.C. de Man, met meegebonden ingekomen stukken, foto’s, tekeningen en situatiekaartjes, 1865–1895 [hereafter
De Man, ‘Boekaankondiging J. Sasse Az.’ (n. 6) 478.
Ibidem.
Anderson and Perrin, ‘Thinking with the Head’ (n. 1) 84–85.
Colin Perrin and Kay Anderson , ‘Reframing Craniometry: Human Exceptionalism and the Production of Racial Knowledge’,
Stephen Jay Gould,
Fenneke Sysling, ‘Geographies of Difference: Dutch Physical Anthropology in the Colonies and the Netherlands, ca. 1900–1940’,
Patricia Fara,
Terenzio Maccabelli, ‘Social Anthropology in Economic Literature at the End of the 19th Century: Eugenic and Racial Explanations of Inequality’,
Gould,
K. Anthony Appiah, ‘Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections’, in:
Appiah, ‘Race, Culture, Identity’ (n. 18) 81.
See for example J.C. de Man, ‘De begraafplaats “Bloemendaal” te Domburg’, in: De Man,
J.C. de Man, ‘Beschrijving van eenige in het strand van Walcheren gevonden schedels en van een Cranium osteoscleroticum (overdruk uit Archief VI, uitgegeven door het Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen (Middelburg 1865) 135–170), met ingeplakt ingekomen stukken over schedels, 1866–1898’, in:
Appiah, ‘Race, Culture, Identity’ (n. 18) 80.
De Man, ‘Bijdrage tot de kennis van den schedelvorm in Walcheren’, in: De Man,
See, for example, De Man, ‘Bijdrage tot de kennis’ (n. 24) 29.
Audrey Smedley and Brian D. Smedley, ‘Race as Biology is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem is Real: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction of Race’,
Ann Morning, ‘Everyone Knows It’s a Social Construct: Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race’,
Ernst Mayer, ‘The Biology of Race and the Concept of Equality’,
See, for example, Jahoda, ‘Intra-European Racism’ (n. 3); John P. Jackson Jr. and Nadine M. Weidman, ‘The Origins of Scientific Racism’,
Search result for ‘racism’, in:
Quentin Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’,
Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison,
Ibidem 120.
Lorraine Daston, ‘Objectivity and Impartiality: Epistemic Virtues in the Humanities’, in: Rens Bod, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn (eds.),
I do, of course, not intend to give the impression that mechanical objectivity became epistemological reality. It was merely an ideal, a guide point. Daston and Galison emphasize that mechanical objectivity was never completely realized: Daston and Galison,
Daston and Galison,
Lorraine Daston, ‘The Moral Economy of Science’,
De Man, ‘De verspreiding der bevolking’ (n. 4).
Jahoda, ‘Intra-European Racism’ (n. 3) 41.
De Man, ‘De verspreiding der bevolking’ (n. 4) 88–90.
Lorraine Daston, and Peter Galison, ‘The Image of Objectivity’,
Daston, ‘The Moral Economy of Science’ (n. 38) 18.
De Man, ‘De begraafplaats’ (n. 21) 76.
Daston, ‘Objectivity and Impartiality’ (n. 35) 28.
Daston and Galison,
‘iets dat velen vaak verkeerdelijk hebben vergeten.’ De Man, ‘Boekaankondiging J. Sasse Az.’ (n. 6) 478.
‘Het aantal der waarnemingen is zeker te gering om er veel op te vertrouwen.’ J.C. de Man,
See, for example, De Man, ‘De verspreiding der bevolking’ (n. 4) 90.
Patrick Wolfe, ‘Race and Citizenship’,
Anthony Synnott and David Howes, ‘From Measurement to Meaning: Anthropologies of the Body’,
Abha Sur, ‘Persistent Patriarchy: Theories of Race and Gender in Science’,
Jahoda, ‘Intra-European Racism’ (n. 3) 39–48.
Sysling, ‘Geographies of Difference’ (n. 14) 111.
‘Wel zijn er ook in Nederland nog volkenkundigen, doch gering is hun aantal en geringer nog de waardeering, die ze in ‘t moederland ondervinden. Merkwaardig, hoe ook in dit opzicht Nederland weer achterstaat bij andere landen. Terwijl hier de meest beschaafde menschen volkomen onbekend zijn met het groote verschil tusschen doodskoppen onderling en men u met grappige verbazing vraagt, wat het uitmaakt of de ééne schedel één centimeter langer of korter is dan de andere, wordt er in andere landen aan vele universiteiten in volkenkunde onderwijs gegeven door een leeraar, alleen daarvoor aangesteld – worden elders groote bloeiende vereenigingen gevonden tot bestudeering der Anthropologie (leer der menschenrassen) en onderzoek gedaan omtrent kleur van haar en oogen der schooljeugd.’ Johan Sasse,
De Man, ‘Beschrijving van eenige in het strand van Walcheren gevonden schedels’ (n. 22) 31.
See the letters and photographs in
Heather Winlow, ‘Mapping Moral Geographies: W.Z. Ripley’s Races of Europe and the United States’,
Ripley,
See, for example,
‘Wij vleien ons, dat [Sasse] dien tak van wetenschap in ons land zal doen bloeien, en dat is te wenschen omdat er aan anthropologie, waarvan craniologie slechts een onderdeel is, in ons land, wat onze eigen bevolking betreft, zoo weinig wordt gedaan.’ De Man, ‘Boekaankondiging J. Sasse Az.’ (n. 6) 476.
‘Waag ik het dus nog eens een stap te doen op craniologisch gebied, en het weinige te geven, wat ik heb, dan is het alleen om geene onverschilligheid te toonen in een tak der wetenschap, die in alle landen beoefend wordt, en eenmaal misschien de afwijkingen in de menschenstammen zal oplossen of ophelderen. Wat ik nu doe, is dus maar eene poging, om aan te toonen, dat er op dit gebied ook in Nederland wel iets zou te doen zijn, indien er maar lust en medewerking bestond.’ De Man, ‘Bijdrage tot de kennis’ (n. 24) 5.
‘het [was] allereerst De Man’s bedoeling materiaal te verzamelen.’ D. Schoute,
‘Gaarne had ik aan die roepstem gehoor gegeven, in dien ik in staat ware geweest aan de verwachting, die Dr. Sasse misschien daarvan had, te voldoen; doch om gemakkelijk te bevroeden redenen was ik daartoe niet in staat en ben ik het nog niet.’ De Man, ‘Bijdrage tot de kennis’ (n. 24) 5.
Schoute,
De Man, ‘Bijdrage tot de kennis’ (n. 24) 5.
Bruno Latour,
Hendrik te Velde,
Klaas van Berkel,
Perrin and Anderson, ‘Thinking with The Head’ (n. 1) 85.