The Lost Museum Archive

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."