Fondren Library Staff News | Tag | Humanities Research Center

Phrenology model and human skull

The Woodson Research Center is collaborating with Rice’s Humanities Research Center and the Houston Academy of Medicine – Texas Medical Center Archives to host local high school students on field trips to Rice exploring the medical humanities.

Lecture portion of the field trip
Rachel Conrad Bracken, a Civic Humanist Fellow at the Humanities Research Center, has developed a lecture entitled “Diagnosing Deviance: How Social Norms Influence our Definitions of Health and Disease,” with the 19th century science of phrenology as a case study to “explore how cultural understandings of race and gender biased medical diagnoses and popular perceptions of “ideal” facial features. ”

Archives portion of the field trip
After Rachel’s lecture and discussion, the students gather in one of Fondren’s collaborative spaces, and have a hands-on experience with archival materials which relate to phrenology and other outmoded models of medicine.

Osterhout phrenological chart

From the Woodson Research Center, the John P. Osterhout Phrenological Chart (https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/27054) shows a 19th century doctor’s evaluation of Mr. Osterhout, measuring his relative powers on a scale of 1-7, and suggesting appropriate careers for him. Strangely, even though he was rated as having a low level of perception and memory of sizes, it was suggested he might be a good mechanic.

Another example from Woodson includes the Mirabeau B. Lamar travel journal of 1835, in which Lamar (who went on to become the second president of the Republic of Texas) describes a speaker in a local church on the topic of phrenology, and whether one can tell from the shape of a man’s head whether he will commit murder (Lamar journal, pg 12).

Students examine phrenological materials

The Houston Academy of Medicine – Texas Medical Center Archives, represented by Phil Montgomery, brought a phrenological model, a human skull from their research collection, and handed out blank charts for the students to use in trying their own analysis.

Phil also brought a variety of older medical tools such as an early surgery kit, a lancet for bleeding patients, and an early electric shock therapy tool.

Impact
The students really enjoyed seeing the tools of the trade for these outmoded medical models and were inspired to include archives in their future research. Seeing the original tools in person helped the students see how seriously these concepts were in their day, even as we see them now as quack medicine. To quote Rachel’s lecture, “by learning to recognize the flaws in outdated models of medicine and anatomy, students can begin to see how contemporary medicine, too, is shaped by the diagnostic technologies and scientific knowledge available to us—knowledge always mediated by our culture and subject to change.”

This spring, the Woodson Research Center in partnership with the Humanities Research Center supervised two undergraduate students in archival research in the areas of medical humanities and cultural heritage. Students learned to apply their humanistic training to real-world problems and to put their critical thinking to use as they learned new practical skills. The students conducted deep research and analysis of primary sources and learned about the nature of archives.

Miriam Shayeb is a freshman English major and was selected to work with the Kezia Payne DePelchin Yellow fever epidemic letters, 1878-1879 (MS 201). This collection consists primarily of a bound volume of 34 letters, the majority of which were written by Mrs. Kezia Payne DePelchin (1828-1893) of Houston, to her sister, describing her experiences as a nurse during the Yellow fever epidemic of 1878 in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. The letters have been digitized and transcribed and are available in the Rice Institutional Repository. Miriam analyzed the letters to gain insight into the treatment of illness in postbelllum South and the “interactions between doctors and nurses during an era in which nursing was not completely professionalized.” She also focused on the intersection of race and illness and nursing. She created two online articles on the OpenStax / cnx.org platform:
http://cnx.org/contents/tNujJ7F6@2/Unsung-Requiem-African-America
http://cnx.org/contents/WqpTQGyb@1/A-Mission-of-Mercy-Nursing-in-

Edna Otuomagie is a Junior Visual and Dramatic Arts (VADA) major and was selected to work on the Between Decisions Omeka Exhibit. Utilizing Fondren’s Omeka web-based exhibit platform, the exhibit explores how Rice University historically handled gender/sex and race relations through discussion of the huge decisions Rice made concerning these issues from 1957 to 1970—a time when Rice underwent many changes including desegregation based on gender/sex and race. Edna researched the topic in the university archives and spoke with University Historian Melissa Kean and others in the Rice community. Edna created a fascinating exhibit on a topic of great interest that had not been covered in a succinct but over-arching way. Her exhibit is available online: http://exhibits.library.rice.edu/exhibits/show/between-decisions Edna was honored with First Prize in the School of Humanities for her research and received the Humanities Research Center’s First Prize at the Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Jacqueline McCauley at Rice University, 1965

Both students created thoughtful archival research projects and delivered them in accessible ways online to a broader audience. The Woodson looks forward to future collaborations with HRC.

Tag Archives: Humanities Research Center

Phrenology – bumps on your head defining your aptitudes?

Humanities students dig deep into Woodson archival collections