Earnest Hooton

Earnest Albert Hooton (1887–1954) was an American physical anthropologist whose research addressed human evolution, racial classification, and the biological characteristics of criminals.

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Franz Boas: Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist who challenged biological explanations of racial differences and emphasized culture and human plasticity. Boas’s environmental emphasis contrasted with Hooton’s efforts to classify human physical variation.
The American Criminal: A 1939 study by Earnest A. Hooton that argued criminality was associated with inherited bodily and racial characteristics. This book presents Hooton’s best-known attempt to connect physical traits with criminal behavior.
Scientific racism: The use of scientific claims and methods to justify racial hierarchies and discrimination. Hooton’s racial classifications belong to a wider history of scientific claims used to rank populations.
Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology: A Harvard University museum established in 1866, with collections and research in anthropology and archaeology. Hooton taught at Harvard and developed his academic career within its anthropology community.
Aleš Hrdlička: Aleš Hrdlička was a Czech-American physical anthropologist who helped establish the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History anthropology program. Hrdlička and Hooton were prominent American physical anthropologists during the same period.
Craniometry: The measurement of skull dimensions, historically used in physical anthropology and racial classification. Skull measurements formed part of the comparative bodily evidence Hooton used.
Eugenics: A movement seeking to shape human reproduction in pursuit of purportedly hereditary improvements to populations. Hooton’s hereditary explanations of social behavior overlapped with concerns central to eugenic thought.
American Association of Physical Anthropologists: A professional society founded in 1930 to advance the study of human biological variation and evolution. Hooton helped establish the organization that formalized physical anthropology as a profession in the United States.
William Montague Cobb: William Montague Cobb was an African American physician and physical anthropologist who documented human variation and challenged racist scientific claims. Cobb’s scholarship provides a contemporary counterpoint to Hooton’s racial classifications.
Human evolution: The evolutionary history of humans, including changes in anatomy, behavior, and population relationships. Hooton investigated how fossil evidence and comparative anatomy could illuminate human origins.