Rufus Degranza Pease papers, 1844-1890
0.5 linear feet
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).