William Z. Ripley was an economist who trained at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at Columbia University. He also studied railroad economics at Harvard University. In 1899, he authored a book entitled The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study. Ripley based his entire system of racial taxonomy on the cranial index, which was a well-established and easily obtained measure. The cranial index entailed the ratio of a human skull's width to its overall length. 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

From this and other socio-geographical factors, Ripley was able to classify European Caucasians into three distinct races:

1) Teutonic - members of the northern race were long-skulled (or dolichocephalic), tall in stature, and possessed pale eyes and skin.

2) Mediterranean - members of the southern race were long-skulled (or dolichocephalic), short in stature, and possessed dark eyes and skin.

3) Alpine - members of the central race were round-skulled (or brachycephalic), stocky in stature, and possessed intermediate eye and skin color.

The Races of Europe, overall, became an influential book of the Progressive Era in the field of racial taxonomy. The Races of Europe is a book written by Harvard anthropologist Carleton Stevens Coon. ...

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Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era