Capturing Kahanamoku : how a surfing legend and a scientific obsession redefined race and culture / Michael Rossi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rossi, Michael (Historian of science), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 1857-1935.

Osborn, Henry Fairfield.

Kahanamoku, Duke, 1890-1968.

Kahanamoku, Duke.

American Museum of Natural History--History.

American Museum of Natural History.

Hawaiians--Anthropometry.

Hawaiians.

Physical anthropology--United States--History.

Physical anthropology.

Racism in anthropology--United States--History.

Racism in anthropology.

Eugenics--United States--History.

Eugenics.

Hawaii--Anthropometry.

Hawaii.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

343 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

How a surfing legend and a scientific obsession redefined race and culture

Place of Publication:

New York : HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2025]

Summary:

In 1920, Henry Fairfield Osborn, director of New York's American Museum of Natural History, traveled to Hawaii on an anthropological research trip. While there, he took a surfing lesson. His teacher was Duke Kahanamoku, a famous surf-rider and budding movie star. For Osborn, a fervent eugenicist, Kahanamoku was a maddening paradox: physically "perfect," yet belonging to an "imperfect" race. Osborn dispatched young scientist Louis Sullivan to Honolulu to measure, photograph, and cast in plaster Kahanamoku and other Hawaiian people. The study touched off a series of events that forever changed how we think about race, culture, science, and the essence of humanity.

Contents:

The cast of David Kahanamoku

The gospel of the body

The "model youth"

A passion for measuring naked men

Barbarians and demigods

"Quite a different man"

The discovery of nothing

This was your life!

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [307]-343).

ISBN:

9780063279971

0063279975

OCLC:

1546523744