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The idea of race as a rough classification of anatomically modern humans has a problematic history. Before the 19th centuries, the word ‘race’ was used in the sense of “ethnic group” and got its contemporary meaning in the area of anthropology only from the mid-nineteenth century.
Amongst the 19th century scientists who established the field were Georges Cuvier, James Pritchard, Louis Agassiz, Charles Pickering. Cuvier listed three races, Pritchard seven, Pickering eleven and Agassiz twelve races.
In the 19th century, scientists tried to change race from a taxonomic to a biological concept. Races were distinguished by skin colour, facial type, the shapes and sizes of a skull, texture and colour of hair. Besides, human races were supposed to reveal group variations in moral character and intelligence.
Throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century, the tension between some who believed in the inborn supremacy, and others who thought in human equality, was at a supreme.
Cultural and political progress that happened at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century led to the change in the discussion of race.
The distribution of the human race (1851)
Ethnographical map showing the distribution of the human race.
“The Caucasian. Skull of the most symmetrical form, forehead open, cheekbones low & but slightly projecting, jaws well rounded, & teeth vertical. The Mongolian. Skull square and elevated at the vertex, cheekbones projecting outwards, nose & face flat angle of the eye depressed, and chin prominent. The Ethiopian. Skull narrow, compressed and elongated from front to back, forehead convex, cheekbones projecting forwards jaws elongated, front teeth turned obliquely forwards. The Malay. Skull small, dome high and rounded forehead low, mouth wide with projecting upper jaws, and teeth resembling the Negroes. The American. Skull like the Mongolian but the forehead low and the eyes sunk.”
