Communication Theory ISSN 1050-3293 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Not Just Your Average Beauty: Carl Seashore and the History of Communication Research in the United States Brenton J. Malin Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA This article argues for the relevance of the work of Carl Seashore to the history of communication research in the United States. A psychologist at the University of Iowa in the early 20th century, Seashore’s laboratory took up questions regarding the psychology of music and art with direct relevance to communication studies and influenced such important figures as Wilbur Schramm and Kurt Lewin. Exploring this history offers a more robust picture of the history of experimental communication research in the United States and provides an important corrective to contemporary histories of the field. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2011.01383.x A rich body of research on the intellectual history of communication has taken shape in the past several years. Park and Pooley’s (2008) edited collection, The History of Media and Communication Research, offers a reappraisal of nodal points in the field’s development. The book’s collected essays reevaluate, extend, and challenge many of the accepted stories that have defined communication research history to this point. Peters and Simonson’s (2004) Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts, 1919 – 1968 provides a much needed reader in the intellectual history of the field, presenting primary texts by authors who helped to define it throughout the 20th century. In a similar way, the edited collection Canonic Texts in Media Research: Are There Any? Should There Be? How About These? (Katz, Peters, Liebes, & Orloff, 2003) discusses the contours of the canon of media research readings. The contributors to this volume each offer a rationale for the inclusion of specific canonic works, arguing for their contributions to the field’s history and development. In invigorating discussion and debate about the field’s past, this growing body of research has offered an important frame through which to make sense of contemporary theories and methods of communication research. Despite the valuable contributions of these new histories, a problematic assump- tion, perhaps most clearly articulated by James Carey (1989, 1996), continues to shape Corresponding author: Brenton J. Malin; e-mail: bmalin@pitt.edu Communication Theory 21 (2011) 299–316  2011 International Communication Association 299