Mildred Trotter: A Biography and Alternative History of Physical Anthropology

This thesis contains the commentary reviewing a monograph published in 2022, Mildred Trotter and the Invisible Histories of Physical and Forensic Anthropology. The monograph incorporates a revised and expanded version of a 2019 peer-reviewed journal article, “Women’s Experiences in Early Physical Anthropology.” As a unified whole, this interdisciplinary work brings together a biography of a prominent woman in the history of science with an account of the social and scientific context in which she operated. It provides previously unpublished historical details of Trotter’s life and scholarship, particularly as includes her most well-known work with the US military and in forensic stature estimation, which receive continued attention within the discipline. It also engages with historical and archival materials to revive commonly omitted individuals’ stories and analyze them in conjunction and comparison with each other, particularly with regard to experiences related to gender and race. It examines how these same gender and race biases found their way into scientific research, which in turn had practical implications for individuals’ lives. In so doing, this project situates Trotter’s life and career within the often-overlooked domains of professional women and other often underrepresented people, and within the early history of American physical (biological) anthropology.