(SCIENCE) Burt G Wilder The Brain of the American Negro

Sale 2598 - Lot 368

Price Realized: $ 344

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

(SCIENCE.) Burt G. Wilder. The Brain of the American Negro. Numerous illustrations. 66, 222-225 pages as issued. 8vo, original printed wrappers, minor wear to backstrip; minimal wear to contents. New York: National Negro Committee, 1909

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An offprint from the rare first Proceedings of the National Negro Conference (see Swann's 30 March 2017 sale, lot 227), which included important work by W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida Wells-Barnett. Burt Green Wilder (1841-1909) was a white neurologist at Cornell University with a personal interest in the subject of race relations, as he had spent the Civil War years as the surgeon of the 55th Massachusetts Infantry (brother regiment to the 54th Massachusetts of Glory fame). Most of this article is a scientific effort to address the question: "Do any physical characteristics of the brain of the American Negro warrant discrimination against him?" He concludes "There has been found no constant feature by which the Negro brain may certainly be distinguished from that of a Caucasian, whereas either of them is at once distinguishable from the brain of an ape" (page 40). Numerous illustrations of brains are included to underscore his point. The article then takes an unexpected turn with a section titled "American Negroes in the Civil War," drawing on his personal war experience as evidence that the soldiers of the 55th Massachusetts exhibited "as high a kind of moral courage as has been chronicled in the history of the world."