Phrenology and Danbury
Phrenology is a pseudoscience focused on the human skull and on the concept that the brain is an organ where different areas have localized and specific functions. Orson Squire Fowler was one of phrenology's chief and most successful proponents in mid-nineteenth century America. Orson with his brother Lorenzo introduced a form of phrenology that was distinctly American and taught that a phrenological analysis could turn up defects in character that could then be rectified through proper exercise, diet (no tobacco or alcohol) and a change of environment. Additionally, Fowler wrote works on heredity, matchmaking, sexuality, and religion.
Though the general premise of phrenology that different areas of the brain corresponded to different functions was subsequently found by neuroscience to be accurate, the specific areas of the brain the phrenologists assigned to functions and the corresponding skull patterns were baseless and blatantly racist. While phrenology was widely dismissed by the end of the 19th century, Fowler’s legacy lives on in another of his endeavors loosely related to his phrenological work - octagonal houses.
Octagon Design. In 1848, Orson Fowler published his book A Home For All - "to cheapen and improve human homes, and especially to bring comfortable dwellings within the reach of the poorer classes." His book, published by his own publishing company and distributed in part by a group of travelling phrenology lecturers, found many willing to give Fowler's octagonal house design a try. While phrenology is largely forgotten, there remain scores of octagonal structures, most inspired by Fowler's work, that have survived across the United States (mainly in the northeast). The octagonal house design was fire resistant (walls were to be made of concrete), full of light (windows in every room with a wrap-around veranda), and energy efficient (placing centralized heating sources in the symmetrical structure provided an efficient way to distribute heat).
Fowler lecturers in Danbury.
There is strong evidence to indicate that phrenology and Fowler's philosophies were fairly popular from the 1840s until the 1870s in Danbury, and there are numerous mentions of phrenological lectures in Danbury contained in Fowler publications. Phrenologist Nelson Sizer wrote of his experiences in Danbury in his Forty Years in Phrenology published by the Fowlers. The wife of hatter Horace Purdy, Gussie Griswold Purdy, is reported to have attended two talks in Danbury in August and September 1869 (http://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/items/show/3396; http://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/items/show/3395).