Capturing Kahanamoku : how a surfing legend and a scientific obsession redefined race and culture /
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 eugenicis...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers,
[2025].
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
| 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. |
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| Physical Description: | 343 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references. |
| ISBN: | 9780063279971 0063279975 |