GRAPHIC: University of Chicago Magazine
Classified Knowledge
Captions are drawn from exhibition descriptions by Naomi Hume, a graduate student in art history.
 
IMAGE: Classified Knowledge
Pop-up Man

William S. Furneaux, ed. Dr. Minder’s Anatomical Manikin of the Human Body. Students ed. rev. by Ethel Mayer. New York: American Thermo-Ware [circa1902].

Moving parts were a feature of early books, and 19th-century advances in printing made it possible to produce such books for a mass audience. Anatomical flap books generalize for teaching purposes and are intended to popularize understanding. By manipulating the illustrations, the reader opens the body and gets beneath the skin to look inside the body.

Such books represent a single specimen, a single body with several layers. Because the reader can move from surface to interior, the format offers literal depth, rather than breadth, of knowledge.
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