author
Samuel George Morton
1799–1851
A Philadelphia physician and naturalist, he became one of the best-known American craniologists of the 1800s. His work helped shape early physical anthropology, and it is now widely discussed for its central role in the history of scientific racism.
2 Audiobooks
Some Observations on the Ethnography and Archaeology of the American Aborigines
by Samuel George Morton
About the author
Born in Philadelphia in 1799, he studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and later continued his training at the University of Edinburgh before returning home to practice. He also worked as a lecturer and was active in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
Morton is most remembered for building a large collection of human skulls and using skull measurements in an attempt to classify human difference. In books such as Crania Americana and Crania Aegyptiaca, he argued for polygenism, the idea that human races had separate origins.
Today, Morton is a deeply controversial figure. Historians and museums revisit his legacy not only because he influenced 19th-century anthropology, but because his research and collecting practices helped give false scientific authority to racist ideas.