This quack theory was originally developed by a German physician named Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, and although his writings were not universally accepted, many found merit in his arguments, because it helped justify the prevailing prejudices, such as racism (Fowler wrote that coarse hair of African people correlated with coarse fibers in the brain, and thus coarse feelings) and gender stereotyping (the characteristic shape of a woman’s head was believed to be indication of underdeveloped organs necessary for success in the arts and sciences.)įowler set up offices in Manhattan, Boston, and Philadelphia, and eventually in London, where he felt the heads of his clients and made an estimate of their character, in much the same way an astrologer reads palms and predicts the future. Photo: Zrfphoto / įowler was America's foremost lecturer and practitioner of phrenology, a pseudoscience that seeks to track down an individual’s many personality traits to the bumps and dents on his skull.
Today it is a house museum and is occasionally open for touring.
The Rich-Twinn Octagon House in Akron, New York, was built in 1849 and was restored to its current state in the 1990s. “The octagon form is more beautiful as well as capacious, and more consonant with the predominant and governing form of nature, the spherical,” Fowler wrote. In his mind, the circle was the most natural shape, but since a circular house was difficult to construct out of wood, he made a compromise-the octagon.įowler started a craze for eight-sided houses, that lasted throughout the second half of the 19th century, with the publication of his book, The Octagon House: A Home for All, in 1848. Orson Fowler wanted to design the best house, but he detested the traditional boxy shapes.
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