Measurement on the Color Line: Scientific Instruments and the Making of Human Categories

About this event

Everyone thinks they know what race is—but do they?" Measurement on the Color Line traces how present-day ideas of race were shaped by scientific, biological, anthropological, and medical practices from the eighteenth century to today. The exhibition examines how scientific instruments, measurement, and data have been used to construct racial categories and claims of difference, with new sciences and technologies repeatedly enlisted to answer old questions about race. It also highlights physicians and social scientists who, since the late nineteenth century, challenged these race-making measurements.

Curated by Harvard's Evelynn M. Hammonds, the exhibition draws on her co-authored book with Rebecca Herzing, The Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics, exploring how early disciplines like anthropology and medicine sought physical justifications for social hierarchies. Objects are lent by institutions including the Peabody Museum, Dittrick Museum, Amherst College, and Harvard's library collections, plus artists Lucy Kim and Wendel White.