L. N. (Lorenzo Niles) Fowler

Born in Cohocton, New York, in 1811, Lorenzo Niles Fowler became one of the best-known American advocates of phrenology, the now-discredited belief that personality and mental traits could be read from the shape of the skull. With his brother Orson Squire Fowler, he lectured widely, gave "readings," and helped build a large publishing business that brought phrenological ideas to a broad public.

The Fowler brothers were major popularizers rather than isolated theorists. Through offices, lectures, journals, and books, they turned phrenology into a recognizable part of nineteenth-century self-improvement culture. Fowler was also linked with reform-minded causes of his day, and sources note his support for temperance as well as his long public career as a speaker and promoter.

Later in life he spent significant time in Britain, where he continued lecturing and publishing and is associated with the founding of the British Phrenological Society. He died in 1896, leaving behind a body of work that is historically important less for scientific accuracy than for what it reveals about popular psychology, publishing, and reform culture in the Victorian era.