1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,560 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 2 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:10,440 Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And collections are by definition 3 00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:14,040 Speaker 1: kind of weird. The collectors devote days, weeks, months, even 4 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:18,400 Speaker 1: years to compiling excessive quantities of stamps. They'll never mail coins, 5 00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:22,840 Speaker 1: they'll never spend hair, They'll never wait what, yes, you 6 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:27,240 Speaker 1: heard that right? Hair? Take for example, nineteenth century lawyer 7 00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:30,720 Speaker 1: and naturalist Peter A. Brown. He has the distinction of 8 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:35,120 Speaker 1: having cultivated the world's greatest known hair collection. In the 9 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:37,680 Speaker 1: eighteen forties and fifties, Brown decided he would try to 10 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:41,199 Speaker 1: piece together a scientific portrait of humanity by obtaining as 11 00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:45,200 Speaker 1: many hair specimens as possible. He wanted strands from famous figures, 12 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:48,760 Speaker 1: in regular folks, living in dead. Basically, if a person 13 00:00:48,840 --> 00:00:52,840 Speaker 1: had hair, Brown wanted it. He collected samples from a fetus, 14 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:55,880 Speaker 1: a one year old man, patients in the Western Virginia 15 00:00:55,960 --> 00:00:59,120 Speaker 1: Lunatic Asylum, celebrities can joined twins, a corpse that have 16 00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:02,120 Speaker 1: been buried for third two years, and a convicted murderer. 17 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:05,920 Speaker 1: Before and after his hanging. Of course, Brown even had 18 00:01:05,959 --> 00:01:08,480 Speaker 1: a few strands of George Washington's hair, courtesy of the 19 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:12,480 Speaker 1: late president's Barber's son. He had samples from thirteen of 20 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,120 Speaker 1: the first fourteen US presidents, so all in all, a 21 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:20,760 Speaker 1: pretty weirdly thorough collection. What exactly was the point of 22 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:23,440 Speaker 1: all this hair gathering, you might ask? According to the 23 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:26,320 Speaker 1: book Specimens of Hair, the Curious Collection of Peter A. 24 00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:29,679 Speaker 1: Brown by Robert McCracken, Peck Brown was on a mission 25 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:33,920 Speaker 1: to explain the differences and similarities between humans. Years before 26 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:36,679 Speaker 1: Charles Darwin blew the world's collective mind with his theory 27 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:40,640 Speaker 1: of evolution, Brown obsessively sought to understand how and why 28 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:44,199 Speaker 1: there was so much variance in human beings appearances. Peck 29 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:47,280 Speaker 1: told the arts and culture website hyper Allergic, his fellow 30 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:49,640 Speaker 1: members of the Academy of Natural Sciences were doing the 31 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:52,280 Speaker 1: same things with birds and insects and fish, and trying 32 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:55,320 Speaker 1: to figure out what were the distinctive characteristics that separated 33 00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:59,560 Speaker 1: one from another and combined one with another. With humans, 34 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:03,080 Speaker 1: that a much more fraught political and social issue. Any 35 00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:06,000 Speaker 1: attempt he made to separate people into separate species, as 36 00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:08,240 Speaker 1: he called them at the time, was doomed to failure, 37 00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:11,040 Speaker 1: and rightly so, because we recognize that all humans are 38 00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:15,519 Speaker 1: from the same origin. But Brown didn't know that, so 39 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:19,200 Speaker 1: he collected. And perhaps the strangest part about his strange 40 00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:22,120 Speaker 1: collection is that for the era, it wasn't considered strange 41 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:24,919 Speaker 1: at all, Peck said in an interview with the Academy 42 00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:27,760 Speaker 1: of Natural Sciences of Drextile University, or the a n 43 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:31,560 Speaker 1: SP for short. The collection may seem weird by today's standards, 44 00:02:31,720 --> 00:02:33,440 Speaker 1: but at the time it was made, it was considered 45 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:36,600 Speaker 1: very important by scientists around the world. Brown referred to 46 00:02:36,600 --> 00:02:39,520 Speaker 1: it as a national collection. It contained not just the 47 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:41,640 Speaker 1: hair of humans, but the wool of sheep and the 48 00:02:41,639 --> 00:02:43,959 Speaker 1: fur and hair of many other animals. It was a 49 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:47,600 Speaker 1: collection made for scientific purposes and for the love of country. 50 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:51,640 Speaker 1: Welcome to the world a Victorian hair culture. If you 51 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:54,119 Speaker 1: haven't heard of this, consider a recent news story out 52 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:56,720 Speaker 1: of the UK wherein a woman stumbled upon a ring 53 00:02:56,760 --> 00:02:59,960 Speaker 1: containing a lot of Charlotte Bronte's hair while waiting through 54 00:03:00,160 --> 00:03:02,680 Speaker 1: her late father in law's attic. She opened a curious 55 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:06,320 Speaker 1: metal box and found a single ring inside inscribed Bronte's 56 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:08,840 Speaker 1: name and the date of her death. So the woman 57 00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:11,440 Speaker 1: did what anyone in sudden, unexpected possession of an old 58 00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:14,760 Speaker 1: trinket might do. She went on Antiques Road Show. On 59 00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:17,600 Speaker 1: the show, she told jewelry expert Jeffrey Munn she suspected 60 00:03:17,639 --> 00:03:20,880 Speaker 1: she might have accidentally inherited some of Bronte's strands. Munn 61 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:23,880 Speaker 1: wasn't phazed, he explained on the show, it was a 62 00:03:23,919 --> 00:03:26,560 Speaker 1: convention to make jewelry out of hair. In the nineteenth century. 63 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:28,760 Speaker 1: There was a terror of not being able to remember 64 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:33,000 Speaker 1: the face and the character of the person who had died. Yes. 65 00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:35,720 Speaker 1: In those days, people often wove bits of hair into 66 00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:38,760 Speaker 1: just about everything, from rings and bracelets and cuff links 67 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:42,920 Speaker 1: to intricate framed art pieces suitable for display. Peck told 68 00:03:42,920 --> 00:03:46,240 Speaker 1: the NSP blog the hair Family and Friends was commonly 69 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:49,640 Speaker 1: exchanged and retained through the nineteenth century. It was often framed, 70 00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:53,040 Speaker 1: kept an albums, or featured in jewelry. Today, many parents 71 00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:55,920 Speaker 1: still retained the hair from their child's first haircut, but 72 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:58,320 Speaker 1: it's rarely put on public display as it was during 73 00:03:58,320 --> 00:04:02,320 Speaker 1: the Victorian era. That kind of thing is also probably 74 00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:05,040 Speaker 1: not as valuable as Brontes. Mun told the Lady with 75 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:07,600 Speaker 1: the Ring that while her newly discovered jewelry was probably 76 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:10,480 Speaker 1: only worth about thirty two bucks, the famous authors strands 77 00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:13,360 Speaker 1: bumped up the value to about twenty six thousand dollars. 78 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:18,039 Speaker 1: But back to Peter A. Brown. While he never realized 79 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:21,039 Speaker 1: his albeit flawed and problematic dream of separating the human 80 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:24,560 Speaker 1: race in two species, he did make an enduring contribution 81 00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:28,120 Speaker 1: to modern science. Peck said to hyper Allergic, what is 82 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:30,640 Speaker 1: so useful about this collection now is that all of 83 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:33,160 Speaker 1: that DNA is preserved. And he had no idea he 84 00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:34,960 Speaker 1: was doing that. When he sent out his requests to 85 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:37,560 Speaker 1: people for hair, he actually asked them to send the 86 00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:40,240 Speaker 1: roots of the hair the follicles. Many of them did 87 00:04:40,279 --> 00:04:43,159 Speaker 1: just clip it, but with the follicles attached, that is 88 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:47,000 Speaker 1: a gold mine. And Peck actually helped save this collection 89 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,719 Speaker 1: from total destruction, he told the n s P blog. 90 00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:52,880 Speaker 1: In the mid seventies, before anyone recognized the importance and 91 00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:56,120 Speaker 1: irreplaceable value of the DNA contained in Brown's collection, a 92 00:04:56,160 --> 00:04:58,640 Speaker 1: staff member, in a position to determine its fate, decided 93 00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:00,720 Speaker 1: that the wool, fur and human here it contained was 94 00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:03,400 Speaker 1: of no current scientific interest and was taking up too 95 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:06,120 Speaker 1: much space, and he decided to discard it. I was 96 00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:07,760 Speaker 1: lucky to be in the right place at the right 97 00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:10,240 Speaker 1: time to spot it and save it from oblivion. Who 98 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,320 Speaker 1: would have guessed it would one day become a collection 99 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:19,720 Speaker 1: of such interest and the subject of a book. Today's 100 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:22,839 Speaker 1: episode was written by Michelle Konstantinovski and produced by Tyler Clang. 101 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:25,640 Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. 102 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:27,800 Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other Harry topics, 103 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:30,400 Speaker 1: visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com. And 104 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:32,799 Speaker 1: for more podcasts in my heart radio, visit the iHeart 105 00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:35,440 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 106 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:36,120 Speaker 1: favorite shows.