The Lost Museum Archive

Advertisement for The Phrenological Cabinet, 1850

Orson and Lorenzo Fowler were the pre-eminent spokesmen for phrenology in the U.S. during the 1830s and 40s. They zealously promoted phrenology as a practical tool for self-improvement. This advertisement in the 1850 guide to Barnum's American Museum directs people to their nearby establishment, The Phrenological Cabinet, which combined a publishing house, mail-order business, and museum, the latter featuring human and animal skulls, and casts from the heads of "the most distinguished men that ever lived."

Advertisement for The Phrenological Cabinet, 1850

Source: From Barnum's American Museum Illustrated, New York, 1850