Charlotte Fowler Wells

Charlotte Fowler Wells (; August 14, 1814 – June 4, 1901) was an American phrenologist and publisher from New York. Along with her brothers, Orson Squire Fowler and Lorenzo Niles Fowler, her sister-in-law, Lydia Folger Fowler, and her husband, Samuel Roberts Wells, she was an early American popularizer of phrenology. Wells founded Fowler & Wells Company, published the American Phrenological Journal, and taught the first class in phrenology in the United States. She died at her home in New Jersey in 1901. Early life and education Charlotte Fowler was born in Cohocton, New York, August 14, 1814. She was the fourth in a family of eight children. Her father, Horace Fowler, was a deacon and judge. Her mother, Martha Howe, was an intellectual, who died when Wells was five years old, but her teachings left a lasting impression upon the daughter. Wells received most of her education in the district school, with only two winters of three months each of instruction in the Franklin Academy in Prattsburgh, New York, beginning in autumn 1831. She was otherwise self-taught, with a wide range of reading. Her older brothers, Orson and Lorenzo, were among the first to examine and believe the doctrines of Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim. The increasing interest in the science of phrenology was greatly the result of the brothers' lifelong work. Career Wells studied and became interested in Spurzheim's works, teaching the first class in phrenology in the United States, and thereafter, her life was devoted to promoting it. Urged by her brothers, she closed her school in 1837, and joined them in New York City in the family-run business of O.S. & L.N. Fowler, a lecture bureau, museum, and publishing house, where she served as proofreader, writer, business manager, and editor. She also maintained the organization's cabinet and was also instrumental in keeping the permanent offices from being abandoned. When Orson was in the field lecturing, and Lorenzo was establishing a branch in London, England, she had charge of the business in New York, and was considered instrumental in its success. Samuel Roberts Wells (1820–1875) was studying to be a doctor when he attended a course of lectures delivered by the Fowler brothers in Boston. He was impressed with the theme and resolved to investigate it, his first ideas of phrenology having been obtained as a boy from a chart which had been marked by Charlotte Fowler, then in her teens.