Specimens of Hair: The Curious Collection of Peter A. Browne

(Hardback)

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No matter who we are, old or young, fashion conscious or style indifferent, we are all aware of hair. To a nineteenth-century amateur naturalist named PeterA. Browne, hair was the single physical attribute that could unravel the mystery of human evolution.

Thirty years before Charles Darwin revolutionized understanding of the descent of man, Browne collected hair from as wide a variety of humans and animals as possible in his quest to account for the differences and similarities between groups of humans. The result of his diligent, all-consuming specimen-collecting passion is a fastidious, artfully assembled twelve-volume archive of mammalian diversity kept in the archives of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia since the mid-1800s.

By the time of his death in 1860, Browne had assembled samples from innumerable wild and domestic animals, as well as the largest known study collection of human hair hair from people from all parts of the globe and all walks of life: artists, scientists, abolitionist ministers, doctors, writers, politicians, financiers, military leaders, and even prisoners, sideshow performers, and lunatics. His crowning achievement was a gathering of hair from thirteen of the first fourteen presidents of the United States. The pages of his albums are distinctly idiosyncratic, captivating, and powerfully evocative of a vanished world.

Brownes albums narrowly escaped destruction in the 1970s and remain a unique and fascinating manifestation of the avid collecting instinct in nineteenth-century scientific endeavors to explain the mysteries of the natural world.

Reviews

Buried deep in the archives of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is a remarkable set of 12 bound volumes containing a collection of what one 19th-century amateur naturalist believed30 years before Charles Darwins "Descent of Man" was publishedwould unravel the mystery of human evolution: specimens of hair gathered from animals and people from all over the globe, including hair samples from 13 of the first U.S. presidents. More than 100 photographs accompany Pecks account of the story behind these obsessively handcrafted volumes. Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Robert McCracken Peck is a naturalist, writer, and historian with a special interest in the intersection of science, history, and art. As Senior Fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (now part of Drexel University), he has chronicled historical and contemporary scientific research expeditions. Among Pecks most recent books are The Natural History of Edward Lear and A Glorious Enterprise: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, co-authored with PatriciaT. Stroud. Rosamond Purcells striking photographs of objects from the natural and man-made world have earned her international acclaim. Her collaborations with such diverse intellects as Stephen Jay Gould and Ricky Jay testify to the breadth of her interests: the murky boundary between art and science and the universal human need to collect and classify. Her numerous books include Illuminations, A Glorious Enterprise: The Museum of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,andOwls Head: On the Nature of Lost Things.