Abstract

This article analyses how the idea about an inborn, “natural” self affected the persona of scholarly public intellectuals as well as the personae of other creative and intellectual professions of the late nineteenth century. Analysing the memoirs and other writings of sociologist Edward Westermarck (1862–1939) and his sister, artist, and writer Helena Westermarck (1857–1938), the article argues that the persona consists of more than just the collective expectations of virtues and skills. The article demonstrates that cultural assumptions of what is “natural” to different social categories of gender, age, class, or ethnicity have the power to exclude entire social groups from the social benefits of a recognizable embodiment of persona.