Phrenology – a now dismissed and discredited science – was a popular but contested knowledge system in the nineteenth century. Its promoters touted its benefits, claiming that measuring and analyzing protrusions on the skull could solve life's most vexing personal questions: Who am I? Who should I marry? How should I raise my children? How do I treat my illness? How do I comprehend death? Delving into a rich archive of written and material sources, Carla Bittel uncovers the letters, diaries, marginalia, personal artifacts, and mapped heads which show phrenology was not merely directive but also interactive. Bittel argues that everyday users perpetuated phrenology as they adopted, adapted, and resisted it in their pursuit of self-knowledge. She examines how users tried to naturalize individual traits and generalize about the mental and physical qualities attributed to sex and race, revealing disconcerting implications for our modern fixation with knowing and improving ourselves.

‘Phrenology in Practice deliberately refocuses historical attention toward ‘users’ who attended lectures, read pamphlets, and consulted phrenologists individually. Carla Bittel’s extensive research in diaries and letters, reveals that subjects responded, not without critique, to phrenology’s visual and tactile analyses and often applied the authoritative, even scientific, self-identity to choices about health, life partners, child raising, and, indeed, a well-framed life.’

Sally Kohlstedt - University of Minnesota

‘Carla Bittel’s brilliant book is an innovative account of nineteenth-century debates surrounding the mind and body. Moving beyond canonical figures, Bittel centres the everyday users of phrenology—the sceptical physician, the anxious teacher, and the middle-class housewife. In doing so, she reminds us that phrenology was actively shaped by its users, who were neither passive dupes nor senseless zealots. Drawing on a rich collection of archival materials, Bittel leads us through the lecture theatres, consultation rooms, and museums of nineteenth-century America, reconstructing the practices of phrenology in both public and private settings. As Bittel reminds us, the nineteenth century was the first age of the brain. And Bittel’s new book is the best possible guide to it.’

James Poskett - University of Warwick

‘Carla Bittel has written a marvelous book, a superb work of cultural history that brings phrenology’s users to life and reminds us just how much we share with those who sought certainty in the shapes of their skulls. Men and women, Black and white, ordinary and eminent, used the tools of phrenology to answer the questions that plague us still—about work, sex, marriage, family, children, the body, the mind, and the memory of loved ones.’

Ann Fabian - Rutgers University

‘In stunning detail, Bittel reframes phrenology as a technology of self-knowledge, charting the path that users took as they tested, experimented with, and adopted the science. By exploring how users applied it throughout their lives—choosing a spouse, raising children, managing their health, or mourning the dead—she reveals the high stakes for and complex meanings of phrenology.’

Courtney Thompson - Mississippi State University