Promoting Public and Academic Understanding of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 431 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19106      www.pachs.net News of the Consortium August 2014 Cynara scolymus, 1793, by James Sowerby, 1757-1822. Original image in: Woodville, William, 1752-1805. Medical Botany (London : Printed and sold for the author by James Phillips, 1790-1793), volume 3, plate 199. Image courtesy of the Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The consortium had a very busy and a very productive year in 2013-2014 and we look forward to another good year. This summer, we have been working to extend the consortium beyond the Philadelphia region with new partner institutions. We will: (1) extend the consortium research fellowships to promote use of more collections; (2) share working groups and other academic and public events online; and (3) expand the resources on our website with materials from new members, including the cross-institutional catalogs search. We are particularly happy about the growth of the fellowship program last year. The applicant pool was nearly twice the size of the previous year's. In December, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded to the consortium a Challenge Grant to help establish an endowment fund for our fellowships. In January, a friend of the consortium provided support for a postdoctoral fellowship for 2014-15. In April, the Center received another NEH grant, from the Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions, that will fund one-year postdoctoral fellowships for the following three years, 2015-2018. In May, the Wyncote Foundation renewed a three-year grant providing core operating support for the Center through 2017. This new and renewed support recognizes the consortium's past accomplishments and the promise of a new, expanded consortium. As we grow, we will be able to more effectively support research in the history of science, technology and medicine and to promote public understanding of the field. Our efforts are only possible because of: the exceptional historical resources of the member institutions; the individuals who participate in our public events, working groups and conferences; the scholars who give their time and expertise to evaluate fellowship applications, contribute to public and academic events and advise us on our programs; and the individuals, corporations and foundations whose gifts and grants make all these programs possible. Thank you all for a very good year.   Fellowships We are welcoming eight research fellows, three dissertation writing fellows and one postdoctoral fellow to the Center for the 2014-2015 academic year. Applications reached a new high with 31 applicants for the research fellowships, 44 applicants for the dissertation writing fellowships, and 56 applicants for the postdoctoral fellowship. Applicants came from a variety of institutions and countries, including China, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. Our incoming group is listed below: New Fellows Nicole Belolan, University of Delaware Research Fellow Navigating the World: The Material Culture of Physical Mobility Impairment in the Early American North, 1700-1861 Amanda Casper, University of Delaware Dissertation Writing Fellow Home Alteration in Industrial Philadelphia, 1865 to 1925 Roberto Chauca Tapia, University of Florida Dissertation Writing Fellow Science in the Jungle: The Missionary Mapping and National Imagining of Western Amazonia Cara Fallon, Harvard University Research Fellow One Hundred Years of Health: Changing Expectations for Aging Well in 20th Century America Abraham Gibson, Florida State University Postdoctoral Fellow In Search of the Social Impulse: Science and Conciliation during the Interwar Years, 1919-1939 Abigail Glogower, University of Rochester Research Fellow Lives of the Copyists: Replicating Subjects in Antebellum American Print Culture 1820-1860 Heidi Hausse, Princeton University Dissertation Writing Fellow Life and Limb: Technology, Surgery, and Bodily Loss in Early Modern Germany Jonson Miller, Drexel University Research Fellow Engineers as Servant-Leaders of the Old South: The Southern Military Schools and the Foundation of the New South Sarah Naramore, University of Notre Dame Research Fellow The Last Great System: Benjamin Rush's Physiological Worldview Elizabeth Searcy, Brown University Research Fellow The Unconscious Mind in America, 1880-1917 Jeannie Shinozuka, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Research Fellow Biotic Borderlands: Constituting Race in Transnational Public Health and Agriculture, 1880-1945 Christopher Willoughby, Tulane University Research Fellow Treating the Black Body: Race and Medicine in American Culture, 1800-1861 Fellows Updates Several former fellows have sent updates about their work or careers. Julia Mansfield, Stanford University 2013-2014 Dissertation Writing Fellow Mansfield has been awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship for 2014-2015 from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. She will be spending this fellowship at the Center. Teasel Muir-Harmony, Massachussetts Institute of Technology 2013-2014 Dissertation Writing Fellow Muir-Harmony has been appointed to a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics. Rebecca Onion University of Texas at Austin 2012-2014 Postdoctoral Fellow Onion's book, tentatively titled Innocent Experiments: Childhood and the Culture of Public Science in the United States, is now under contract with the University of North Carolina Press. Research Reports Follow the links below to read about the research fellows conducted in consortium collections. Jeremy Blatter, Harvard University 2013-2014 Research Fellow The Psychotechnics of Everyday Life: Hugo Münsterberg and the Politics of Applied Psychology, 1892-1920 Catherine Bonier, University of Pennsylvania 2012-2013 Research Fellow Benjamin H. Latrobe's Philadelphia Waterworks: Republican Emblem and Democratic Instrument of Healthy Equilibium Kathleen Brian, George Washington University 2013-2014 Research Fellow Morbid Propensities: Suicide, Sympathy, and the Making of American Eugenics Sarah Chesney, College of William and Mary 2013-2014 Research Fellow The Fruit of Their Labors: Exploring William Hamilton’s Greenhouse Complex and the Rise of American Botany in Early Federal Philadelphia Emily Handlin, Brown University 2013-2014 Research Fellow Moving Beyond Vision: Eadweard Muybridge in Philadelphia Kathryn Irving, Yale University 2013-2014 Research Fellow The American Idiot Schools: Disability and Segregation in the Nineteenth Century Liang Jiang, Arizona State University 2012-2013 Research Fellow Degeneration in Miniature: Cell Death and Aging Research in the Twentieth Century Katrina Jirik, University of Minnesota 2012-2013 Research Fellow A Reinterpretation of American Institutions for the Feeble-minded, 1875-1920: the development of a bureaucracy of care Jason Kauffman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2013-2014 Research Fellow Terra Desconhecida: Nature, Knowledge, and Society in the Pantanal Wetlands of Brazil and Bolivia Joel Klein, Indiana University 2013-2014 Research Fellow Chymical Medicine, Corpuscularism, and Controversy: A Study of Daniel Sennert’s Works and Letters Jessica Linker, University of Connecticut 2013-2014 Research Fellow "It is my wish to behold Ladies among my hearers": Early American Women and Scientific Practice, 1720-1860 Donald Opitz, DePaul University 2013-2014 Research Fellow Cross-Atlantic Fertilizations: Women's Horticultural Education at Ambler, Pennsylvania Douglas O'Reagan, University of California, Berkeley 2012-2013 Research Fellow Seizing Science and Technology: American, British, and French Efforts to Take German Technology During and Following the Second World War James Poskett, University of Cambridge 2013-2014 Research Fellow Printing skulls: the transatlantic publication and reception of Crania Americana (1839) Matthew White, University of Florida 2011-2012 Research Fellow Public Science, Patronage, and Free Education: The Wagner Free Institute of Science in Philadelphia 1855-1900 Brandon Zimmerman, Independent Scholar 2013-2014 Research Fellow An Empire of Skulls: The History of The Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection and Scientific Collecting Practices in 19th Century Philadelphia   Events David Kirsch of the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, speaking about electric vehicles at the Franklin Institute. Attendees braved one of the coldest nights of the year in January to hear David Kirsch of the University of Maryland provide perspective on the promise of electric vehicles with his discussion, "The Electric Car: Past, Present...and Future?" Our audience learned that at the start of the 20th century, there was already wide diversity in transportation with electric delivery trucks and taxis sharing the streets with horse drawn carriages, gasoline cars, and bicycles. The decline in the use of electric vehicles involved consumer expectations, infrastructure economics and habit, not necessarily poorer technology. Matt Jones of Columbia University and Helen Nissenbaum of NYU discuss online security, privacy and surveilance with audience members in the Picture Gallery at Drexel University. In milder weather in March, Matt Jones of Columbia University and Helen Nissenbaum of New York University examined "Technology, Privacy and Security" on the World Wide Web. Jones presented a history of the development of global online surveillance by the US government. Nissenbaum examined tensions between online tracking and privacy in the commercial sector. In perfectly fine weather in May, the Center helped to support an international conference at Johns Hopkins University Institute of the History of Medicine "Personalized medicine in historical perspective: from antiquity to the genome age" The event was organized by Nathaniel Comfort and Gianna Pomata of Johns Hopkins University. The past year saw the addition of two new working groups at the Center, one on the history of the human sciences and another on the history of technology. These bring the total of working groups to eight. We look for forward to continuing to expand the working groups. The new year will start with our Annual Introductory Symposium in which scholars new to the area or new to the field introduce themselves and their work. Please join us if you are near Philadelphia on September 18th.   Collections Updates The Historical Society of Pennsylvania announces the addition of a new collection on veterinary science. The Consortium Special Collections Search Hub can reveal some interesting shared strengths of consortium collections.   Transitions The Center welcomes two new Directors to its Board: Image courtesy of Chemical Heritage Foundation Arnold Thackray served as Founding CEO of both the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia and the Life Sciences Foundation in San Francisco. Dr. Thackray has been active in the public life of scholarship, serving on a number of boards, including those of the American Council on Education, and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is Chancellor of Chemical Heritage Foundation, and a fellow of the Royal Societies of Chemistry and of History, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Image courtesy of Chemical Heritage Foundation Thomas R. Tritton is a Senior Fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. He is former president of Haverford College, and former president and CEO of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. He is currently a member of the Corporation of Haverford College, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees at Ohio Wesleyan University, and member of the Board of Directors of the Fox Chase Cancer Center and the Greater Philadelphia Life Sciences Congress.   Thank You We are grateful and gratified about the consortium's growth so far. Your participation and contributions make all this possible. With best regards, Babak Ashrafi, Executive Director ba@pachs.net Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science 431 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106 Home   Events   Fellowships   Collections   Groups   Contact