Rufus Degranza Pease papers, 1844-1890

Summary

Creator:

Pease, Rufus Degranza, 1820-1890

Abstract:

The papers of Dr. Rufus Degranza Pease are made up of 219 letters, documents, drafts, a diary, notes, broadsides and handbills, a printed journal, and ephemeral items dating between 1844 and 1890. The papers contain 195 incoming letters and drafts of outgoing letters focusing heavily on four main areas: itinerant teaching and lecturing on scientific and pseudoscientific subjects in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and other areas between the 1840s and 1860s; Dr. Pease's imprisonment at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in October-November 1863; Dr. Pease's work for and later litigation against the National Christian Association Opposed to Secret Societies, late 1860s-1870s; and his work as phrenologist and physiognomist in Philadelphia in the 1870s and 1880s. The collection also includes Dr. Pease's 1855 pocket diary, a copy of Pease's The Journal of Man (1871), and a variety of printed handbills, tickets, broadsides, business cards, and trade cards associated with Dr. Pease's lectures and occupations.

Extent:

0.5 linear feet

Language:

English

Authors:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Cheney J. Schopieray, December 2023

Background

Scope and Content:

The papers of phrenologist and physiognomist Rufus Degranza Pease are made up of 219 letters, documents, drafts, a diary, speeches, notes, broadsides, a printed journal, and ephemeral items dating between 1844 and 1890.

The Correspondence and Documents series contains 195 incoming letters and drafts of outgoing letters focusing heavily on four main areas:

• Itinerant teaching and lecturing on scientific and pseudoscientific subjects in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and other areas between the 1840s and 1860s;
• Dr. Pease's imprisonment at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in October-November 1863;
• Dr. Pease's work for and later litigation against the National Christian Association Opposed to Secret Societies in the late 1860s and early 1870s; and
• His work as phrenologist and physiognomist in Philadelphia in the 1870s and 1880s (including several drafts pertinent to Dr. Pease's analysis of Charles Guiteau's "psycho-physiology," dated 1881 and 1882)

The collection also includes Dr. Pease's preprinted Pocket Diary for 1855. For Registering Events of Past or Present Occurrence ... Boston: Wm. J. Reynolds & Co., [1855]. Dr. Pease used this daily diary to document activities, notes, costs and purchases, medicinal recipes and more. It is unclear whether or not many of the entries correspond to the pre-printed dates on which they were written. He spent much of 1855 in Indiana (particularly Wayne County). Examples of his brief entries include: "Completed my large portfolio" (March 3); a recipe for broth taken from the Tribune (March 10). "Went to Indianapolis on cars . . . got cards printed . . . guitar strings. & saw Risher Linder in bookstore" (April 2); a rough pencil sketch of a "Puzzle box"; card printing and costs, and Silas Galespy's printer in Iowa (April 4-6); section headed "The Italian Lost Girl" with brief biographical notes about Amelia [Ettensberger?] (April 7-9); instructions for making "Webber's Plates" (for portrait painting) (April 22-23); reference to "Lectures to Ladies on Anatomy..." followed by a note "Mrs Lukens is said to be in sympathy with H.C. Wright." (April 24-25); an entry stating "a want of sensibility in the skin has been found in a vast number of cases of insanity" (June 18); a treatment for "Frozen flesh" (July 15-16 and November 27). Throughout are very brief notes or lists pertinent to articles and books, art, geographical locations, body measurements, names of people, professions, where they were from or where he met them, and places.

The papers include a single Photograph, a 3.5" x 2.5" tintype group portrait of three unidentified women, one standing behind two seated.

The collection's Printed Items include:

• R. D. Pease, The Journal of Man. Philadelphia: Wm. S. Rentoul, January 1872.
• Two business cards for "R. D. Pease, M. D., Editor of the Journal of Man," one with manuscript revisions.
• One trade card for R. D. Pease's services in Philadelphia.
• Eleven different handbills, broadsides, programs, and prospectuses for lectures and courses by Dr. Pease and others, plus fragments.
• Four tickets to lectures and courses by Dr. Pease (including one complimentary ticket for the Wagner Institute of Science).

Biographical / Historical:

Rufus Degranza Pease was born in New York State on August 8, 1820, to parents James and Olive Thompson Pease. He was one of at least four children, including James T. (1808-1824), Mary E. (1811-), and Olive M. Pease (1817-1876). The family was from Hinsdale, Massachusetts, but later moved to western New York and then Cleveland, Ohio. Olive M. Pease eventually married Dr. William Crane and settled in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin.

Rufus D. Pease attended the Cortland Academy at Homer, New York, in 1836 and matriculated at Willoughby Medical College, at Willoughby, Ohio, in 1843. Following his graduation in 1845, Dr. Pease worked as an itinerant teacher, delivering lectures and courses in geology, astronomy, chemistry, anthropology, physiology, pathogeny, penmanship, photography, psychometry, and other subjects in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and surrounding areas. In 1848, he signed a contract with David Jordon to deliver join lectures and travel together for 14 months, with Pease speaking and Jordan providing "chemical and philosophical apparatus." In one advertisement, their delivery included experiments with "chemical apparatus, oxygen gas, exhibiting the levity of hydrogen gas by a balloon ascension." Whether or not the contract was fulfilled, Pease delivered a class on animal magnetism in December 1848 at Bridgeport, Iowa. R. D. Pease continued teaching and lecturing through the early 1860s, gaining a specialization and practice in phrenology and physiognomy. Dr. Pease claimed he received his phrenological education from George Combe of Edinburgh and Buchanan of Cincinnati.

Dr. Rufus Degranza Pease was fiercely independent in his thinking throughout his life, and often expressed sharp opposition to people in his own communities as well as accepted norms in fields that he studied and taught. For example, as part of his work, he sold individual copies and collections of "phreno-physiological" engravings, including Dr. Gall's signs of character, the skull, the brain, and Professor Grimes' classifications. Dr. Pease was active in and served on committees for the State Medical Society of Wisconsin in the 1850s and early 1860s.

Rufus Degranza Pease was imprisoned at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in October 1863--apparently related in some way to accusations of insanity, fornication, seduction, and/or "scandalous behavior." He was released the following month. He spent the remainder of the Civil War period in Wisconsin, then settled in Chicago from at least 1867 to 1869.

Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, Dr. Pease continued to deliver public lectures on scientific topics, physiognomy, phrenology, anti-spiritualist topics, and anti-Catholic and anti-Freemason themes. He was among the early members of Chicago-based National Christian Association (NCA), established in the late 1860s to oppose secret societies and the Freemasons in particular. Dr. Pease moved to Philadelphia and worked for a time as an agent for the NCA, especially in gathering subscriptions to the organization's newspaper The Christian Cynosure. In 1871-1872, he worked with William S. Rentoul to publish the first issue of a magazine by Pease titled The Journal of Man, though the January 1872 number would ultimately be the only issue published. By 1873, Dr. Pease and the NCA became embroiled in what would become lengthy litigation over unpaid wages, ineffective labor, and other aspects of his work for the group. Dr. Pease worked as a phrenologist and physiognomist out of his office at 1320 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia in the 1870s and 1880s, providing measurements and interpretations in person and physiognomy analyses (if the client sent him a photograph of their face and head).

In 1886, Dr. Pease was arrested and tried for seduction of boys, sodomy, and buggery. He was convicted of one charge and sentenced to two years in Philadelphia's Eastern Penitentiary. He was paroled after one year and four months in prison. He remained in Philadelphia after his release, dying on September 26, 1890, at the age of 70.

According to newspaper coverage of his death, Dr. Pease had become reclusive, though at times received visitors. Reports from the coroner and from a friend differed, but both agreed that Dr. Pease was very weak, perhaps due to stomach illness and difficulty eating without teeth. Ensuing newspaper articles as far west as Iowa accused him of being an "old miser," given the $358.00 in cash, gold, and precious stones he had on his person at the time of death. The same newspapers referred to his dust-covered phrenological and physiognomic papers and heads as "rubbish." He was buried on October 1, 1890, in Mount Moriah Cemetery.

Remigius Weiss acquired Dr. Pease's collection of objects, charts, posters, artwork, and papers--possibly by Pease's will, though additional research is needed to verify this claim. R. Weiss had been a spiritualist medium and practiced under the name Remigius Albus. However, he reversed his efforts, testified against spiritualism in the Seybert Commission's investigations, and became a friend of magician and skeptic Harry Houdini. Remigius Weiss called Dr. Pease's collection the "Phreno-psycho-physiogno-ethnological-anthro-pological collection." Remigius sold portions of Dr. Rufus Pease's papers and collections to Houdini. He sold a large collection of Dr. Pease's phrenological heads, death masks, plaster skulls, oil paintings, and more to psychologist Madison Bentley in 1917. Bentley was professor at the University of Illinois and the collection was part of their holdings at least until 1931.

Acquisition Information:

2023. M-7762 .

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in the following series:

• Correspondence and Documents
• Diary
• Photograph
• Printed Items and Ephemera

Rules or Conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Related

Additional Descriptive Data:

Complete List of Contributors in the Rufus Degranza Pease Papers:

• Allen, Henry G.
• Ames, Charles G.
• Andrews, Edmund.
• Apple, A. E.
• Armour, A.
• Ashton, Edward.
• Atkins, W. S.
• Atwood, Lucius.
• Austin, Edgar.
• Avey, Charles.
• Bailey, Joshua.
• Baker, D. B.
• Balderston, Marcellus, -1935.
• Barrows, S. M.
• Blanchard, Jonathan, 1811-1892.
• Brewer, John H.
• Bridges, Dewitt C., 1847-1916.
• Bright, Daniel.
• Brinton, D. G.
• Buckly, J. Gillis.
• Burrows, Mrs. Bert?
• Campbell, William.
• Cassell, E. R.
• Cauley, Jno. R.
• Chalfont, Walter H.
• Clapp, Charles.
• Coffin, Levi
• Cook, E. S.
• Cook, Ezra A.
• Cribb, E. Weston.
• Crowe, James.
• Cutler, Carroll, 1829-1894.
• Dagget, Samuel.
• Dambly, Augustus E.
• Dambly, John A., 1863-1949.
• Delavan, William A.
• Doolittle, H. Hamilton.
• Dutton, D. B.
• Earl, W. C.
• Eason, Joseph.
• Elliott, Daniel.
• Fay, Thomas G.
• Fitch, O. F.
• Ford, C. R.
• Whitehill, R. B.
• Stroh, J. I.
• Foster, J. A.
• Funk, Albert E.
• Gage, William M.
• Greener, Richard Theodore, 1844-1922.
• Hacker, John D.
• Haines, J. P.
• Soldiers' Aid Society (Columbus, Wis.)
• Hecker, Rudolph.
• Hicks, Thomas F.
• Higham, H. H.
• Higham, Jno. S.
• Hinds, W. A.
• Hubbell, Walter, 1851-.
• Hunt, C. A.
• Imes, George H., 1844-1892.
• Inman, H. C.
• Pallan, John.
• Shepardson, J. B.
• Frost, R. D.
• Ellery, Thomas.
• McNabb, J. R.
• Jackson, E., Jr.
• Jackson, James C., 1811-1895.
• Johnson, James F.
• Johnson, L. H.
• Jones, J. Elizabeth (Jane Elizabeth), 1813-1896.
• Kehrer, Fred. P.
• Kellogg, Alonzo C.
• Kinsley.
• Knapp, M. L.
• Lamb, Martha Ann.
• MacGill, D.
• Mendenhall, A. Pinck.
• Millikan, Silas F., 1834-1915.
• Mintzer, George B.
• Mitchell, Hinckley Gilbert.
• Moore, John.
• Munsee, S.
• Nichols, John.
• Paddock, R. H.
• Pease, Austin S. (Austin Spencer)
• Pease, Charles H.
• Percival, G.
• Percival, James G.
• Powell, W. B.
• Reaney, Robert L.
• Reavis, L. U., 1831-1889.
• Rentoul, W.
• Richardson, J. T.
• Roberts, Benjamin Titus, 1823-1893.
• Roope, Rufus Haymond, 1833-1913.
• Sadler & Haynes.
• Shannon, J. Jacob.
• Shantz, Dilman B.
• Smith, William R.
• Stevenson, T. P.
• Tarble, Edmund Fletcher.
• Terry, S. S.
• Tingley, Joseph.
• Tyson, James, 1841-1919.
• VanCourt, Robert A.
• Vanneman, D.
• Wadsworth, William.
• White, H. W.
• Wilhite, J. S.
• Wilson, John G. (John Grover), 1810-1885.
• Woolley, E.
• Wooster, E.
• Worchester, F.

Bibliography

Pease, David, and Austin S. Pease, A Genealogical and Historical Record of the Descendants of John Pease... Springfield, Mass.: Samuel Bowles & Company, 1869: 221.

"An Old Miser's Death," Sioux City Journal. Sioux City, Iowa (September 30, 1890): 1.

"Annual Meeting of the State Medical Society," Janesville Daily Gazette. Janesville, Wisconsin (February 3, 1860): 6.

"Criminal Court Notes," The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (September 25, 1886): 3.

Dawson, Robert. "Rare Historical Phrenological, Physiognomy Collection Exhibit on Display at Uni Laboratories" in The Daily Illini, The University of Illinois. Champaign-Urbana (July 11, 1931): 1.

"Dr. Pease Found Dead," The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (September 27, 1890): 2.

"Dr. Pease's Death," The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (September 28, 1890): 7.

Houdini, Harry. A Magician Among the Spirits. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1924.

"Jottings about the City," The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (October 2, 1890): 1.

"Meeting of the Wisconsin State Medical Society," Mineral Point Tribune. Mineral Point, Wisconsin (February 12, 1856): 1.

"Phreno-Physiology," The Washington Democrat. Salem, Indiana (April 19, 1851): 2.

"R. D. Pease," Pennsylvania, U.S., Prison, Reformatory, and Workhouse Records, 1829-1971 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

"Secret Societies," Chicago Evening Post. Chicago, Illinois (June 9, 1869): 4.

Subjects

Click on terms below to find any related finding aids on this site.

Subjects:

Anti-Catholicism--United States--History--19th century.
Anti-Masonic movements--United States.
Antislavery movements--United States.
Insanity (Law)
Itinerant teachers.
Lecturers--United States.
Mental health--United States.
Phrenology--United States--History--19th century.
Physiognomy--United States--History--19th century.
Prisoners--Wisconsin--Oshkosh.
Protestants--United States--History--19th century.
Science--Study and teaching.
Scientific apparatus and instruments--United States--History--19th century.
Secret societies--United States.
Spiritualism.

Formats:

Admission tickets.
Broadsides (notices)
Business cards.
Diaries.
Drafts (documents)
Handbills.
Letters (correspondence)
Letters of recommendation.
Magazines (periodicals)
Petitions.
Tintypes (photographs)
Trade cards.
Writings (documents)

Names:

National Christian Association.
Guiteau, Charles J. (Charles Julius), 1841-1882.
Balderston, Marcellus, -1935.
Blanchard, Jonathan, 1811-1892.
Bridges, Dewitt C., 1847-1916.
Cutler, Carroll, 1829-1894.
Dambly, John A., 1863-1949.
Greener, Richard Theodore, 1844-1922.
Hubbell, Walter, 1851-.
Imes, George H., 1844-1892.
Jackson, James C., 1811-1895.
Jones, J. Elizabeth (Jane Elizabeth), 1813-1896.
Millikan, Silas F., 1834-1915.
Pease, Austin S. (Austin Spencer)
Pease, Charles H.
Reavis, L. U., 1831-1889.
Roberts, Benjamin Titus, 1823-1893.
Roope, Rufus Haymond, 1833-1913.
Tyson, James, 1841-1919.
Wilson, John G. (John Grover), 1810-1885.