O. S. (Orson Squire) Fowler

Born in 1809, Orson Squire Fowler became one of the best-known popularizers of phrenology in the United States. Along with his brother Lorenzo Niles Fowler, he lectured, published widely, and built a business around the idea that personality and ability could be read from the shape of the skull.

Fowler was also remembered for championing the octagon house, a home design he promoted as practical, healthy, and efficient. That interest in domestic reform fit with his broader writing on health, marriage, and self-culture, subjects that appealed to many 19th-century readers looking for advice on how to live better.

Today, phrenology is regarded as a pseudoscience, but Fowler remains a revealing figure from his time: energetic, entrepreneurial, and deeply involved in the reform-minded popular culture of 19th-century America. He died in 1887.