Daniel Garrison Brinton

After the war, Brinton practiced medicine in West Chester, Pennsylvania for several years; was the editor of a weekly periodical, the Medical and Surgical Reporter, in Philadelphia from 1874 to 1887; became professor of ethnology and archaeology in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1884; and was professor of American linguistics and archaeology in the University of Pennsylvania from 1886 until his death.

[1] At his presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in August 1895, Brinton advocated theories of scientific racism that were pervasive at that time.

As Charles A. Lofgren notes in his book, The Plessy Case, although Brinton "accepted the 'psychical unity' throughout the human species," he claimed "all races were 'not equally endowed,' which disqualified [some of] them from the atmosphere of modern enlightenment."

Further, he said the characteristics of "races, nations, tribes...supply the only sure foundations for legislation, not a priori notions of the rights of man.

[3][4] On the occasion of his memorial meeting on October 6, 1900, the keynote speaker Albert H. Smyth stated: "In Europe and America, he sought the society of anarchists and mingled sometimes with the malcontents of the world that he might appreciate their grievances, and weigh their propositions for reform and change.