Beddoe, Ripley gingerly notes “the profound contrast which exists between the temperament of the Celtic-speaking and the Teutonic strains in these [British] islands…. The Irish and Welsh are as different from the stolid Englishman as indeed the Italian differs from the Swede.” 7 This idea of temperament as a racial trait was based on a perversion of Darwinian evolution. With a perfectly straight face anthropologists reasoned that evolution operated on entire races (not individuals or breeding populations), that races had personalities, and that physical measurements of heads betokened racial personality.
Over time the cephalic index both dominated as a symbol of race and became a two-edged sword when color was added to it. Long-headed people, “dolichocephalics,” for instance, should be light and Teutonic (good) or dark and Mediterranean (bad). Alpines (maybe middling, maybe bad) were supposed to be brownish and brachycephalic. These correlations counted as “harmonic” correspondence. Rather than deal with people who did not fit the pattern, such as blond Alpines, race-minded anthropologists them deemed “disharmonic” and then just ignored them. Perfectly “harmonic” Mediterraneans with long heads and dark hair, eyes, and skin also faded from view, because anthropologists judged them to be obviously inferior and therefore of scant interest.
At first all this measuring of heads meant little to most Americans. Slavery and segregation had seen to it that race resided most obviously in skin color, or at least in physical appearance or ancestry that could be classified as black or white. But up-to-date experts stuck to their guns, proffering scientific explanation via visuals. (See figure 15.3, Ripley’s brachycephalic and dolichocephalic skulls.) A caption at the lower left reads, “Brachycephalic type. Index 87. Zuid-Beveland, Holland,” and refers to photographs on the left. On the lower right, “Dolichocephalic type. Index 73. Zeeland, Holland” refers to photographs on the right. * These images were intended to show the difference between a long, dolichocephalic skull with a cephalic index of 73 and a round, brachycephalic skull with a cephalic index of 87.
Fig. 15.3. Brachycephalic and dolichocephalic skulls, in William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe (1899).
Since ordinary readers rarely encountered skulls in everyday life, and Ripley badly wanted them to understand, he added photographs of racial “types” along with their cephalic indices for further clarification. (See figure 15.4, Ripley’s “Three European Racial Types.”)
The three types are ranked vertically, with the Teutonic inevitably at the top, the Mediterranean inevitably at the bottom, and the Alpine in the middle. The Alpine type’s cephalic index is noted as 88, that is, brachycephalic, and the Mediterranean type’s as 77, that is, dolichocephalic, and the hair and eye color of both types is noted. The two dolichocephalic Norwegian Teutonic types are simply “pure blond,” although, inexplicably, the hair color of the man on the right seems as dark as that of the brachycephalic Austrian and the Sicilian.
The four men depicted as embodiments of the “Three European Racial Types” have no names. Anthropologists of the era saw no need for names. They dealt in ideal “types” that stood for millions of presumably interchangeable individuals.
Fig. 15.4. “The Three European Racial Types,” in William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe (1899).
R IPLEY’S 624 pages do contain a great deal of information—unfortunately, much of it is contradictory. He recognizes early on that his three racial traits—hair color, height, and cephalic index—are not reliably linked in real people. Short people can be blond; blond heads can be round; long heads can grow dark hair. He admits—and laments—that such complexity destroys any notion of clear racial types. Even his limited number of traits produced an
Over time the cephalic index both dominated as a symbol of race and became a two-edged sword when color was added to it. Long-headed people, “dolichocephalics,” for instance, should be light and Teutonic (good) or dark and Mediterranean (bad). Alpines (maybe middling, maybe bad) were supposed to be brownish and brachycephalic. These correlations counted as “harmonic” correspondence. Rather than deal with people who did not fit the pattern, such as blond Alpines, race-minded anthropologists them deemed “disharmonic” and then just ignored them. Perfectly “harmonic” Mediterraneans with long heads and dark hair, eyes, and skin also faded from view, because anthropologists judged them to be obviously inferior and therefore of scant interest.
At first all this measuring of heads meant little to most Americans. Slavery and segregation had seen to it that race resided most obviously in skin color, or at least in physical appearance or ancestry that could be classified as black or white. But up-to-date experts stuck to their guns, proffering scientific explanation via visuals. (See figure 15.3, Ripley’s brachycephalic and dolichocephalic skulls.) A caption at the lower left reads, “Brachycephalic type. Index 87. Zuid-Beveland, Holland,” and refers to photographs on the left. On the lower right, “Dolichocephalic type. Index 73. Zeeland, Holland” refers to photographs on the right. * These images were intended to show the difference between a long, dolichocephalic skull with a cephalic index of 73 and a round, brachycephalic skull with a cephalic index of 87.
Fig. 15.3. Brachycephalic and dolichocephalic skulls, in William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe (1899).
Since ordinary readers rarely encountered skulls in everyday life, and Ripley badly wanted them to understand, he added photographs of racial “types” along with their cephalic indices for further clarification. (See figure 15.4, Ripley’s “Three European Racial Types.”)
The three types are ranked vertically, with the Teutonic inevitably at the top, the Mediterranean inevitably at the bottom, and the Alpine in the middle. The Alpine type’s cephalic index is noted as 88, that is, brachycephalic, and the Mediterranean type’s as 77, that is, dolichocephalic, and the hair and eye color of both types is noted. The two dolichocephalic Norwegian Teutonic types are simply “pure blond,” although, inexplicably, the hair color of the man on the right seems as dark as that of the brachycephalic Austrian and the Sicilian.
The four men depicted as embodiments of the “Three European Racial Types” have no names. Anthropologists of the era saw no need for names. They dealt in ideal “types” that stood for millions of presumably interchangeable individuals.
Fig. 15.4. “The Three European Racial Types,” in William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe (1899).
R IPLEY’S 624 pages do contain a great deal of information—unfortunately, much of it is contradictory. He recognizes early on that his three racial traits—hair color, height, and cephalic index—are not reliably linked in real people. Short people can be blond; blond heads can be round; long heads can grow dark hair. He admits—and laments—that such complexity destroys any notion of clear racial types. Even his limited number of traits produced an
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