Exhibition Opening of Measurement on the Color Line: Scientific Instruments and the Making of Human Categories

Measurement on the Color Line Exhibit Opening

Date and Time

October 16, 2026

11:00AM - 04:00PM EDT

Location

Science Center 2nd FL Special Exhibitions Gallery

New Exhibition

Measurement on the Color Line: Scientific Instruments and the Making of Human Categories

Opens Friday, October 16; gallery is open 11:00–4:00 pm

Harvard Science Center, 1 Oxford St, 2nd FL Special Exhibitions Gallery, Cambridge, MA 02138

Read the press release

Curated by Evelynn M. Hammonds, the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard, the exhibition draws directly from her co-authored book, with Bates College Professor Rebecca Herzing, The Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics. Her research highlights how early scientific disciplines, including anthropology and medicine, sought physical justifications for social hierarchies.

Evelynn Hammonds

Evelynn_Hammonds@harvard.edu

Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science

Professor of African and African American Studies & Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, T. Chan School of Public Health

Areas of Research: African & African-American Studies, History of Medicine, Science & Race, Science & Technology Studies, Women & Gender Studies Professor Hammonds is the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and Professor of...