Abstracts Archive

In response to the events in Chicago in 1968, several professional societies moved their annual meetings from Chicago to other cities, but the Association of Computing Machinery chose not to. In response, a group of computer scientists attempted to organize “The Counter-Conference,” a conference...

During the nineteenth century, chemists were involved in conservation treatments of polychrome artworks. Appropriate methods for the cleaning of easel paintings, for instance, were sometimes done in consultation with chemists. In the field of archaeology, paint samples were extracted from historical...

The session focuses on the development of a science-based conservation practice and the emergence of art history as a ‘science of art’ (or Kunstwissenschaft) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With which scientific methods was technique in the arts studied, and how did they relate to lar...

With the “spatial turn” (Livingstone/Withers), scholars are examining local contexts and the networks linking scientists’ communities. We study the circulation of texts, scientists, scientific knowledge, and specimens or the raw materials used to produce (for example) drugs or armaments. We kn...

Despite earlier experimentation with X-Ray technology applied to paintings in German science laboratories, it was only in the 1920s and 1930s that the technology became more widely and systematically applied to art. Alan Burrough’s acquisition of the first and extensive archive of X-ray images of ...

A “silver curtain” of secrecy separated Eastman Kodak’s photographic emulsion researchers from their co-workers and professional colleagues in the Cold War United States. As the popularity of this metaphor among Kodak’s laboratory workers suggests, the firm’s concern about divulging insigh...

In a 1922 discussion of appropriate femininity, the author noted that “perspiration... steals away that natural freshness and fragrance” and “robs a young woman or girl of charm and daintiness.” Women navigated a complex system of etiquette in the early twentieth century in order to not only...

Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century art history arises as a scientific discipline, taking part in the process of systematization of the human sciences in their relationship to the natural sciences. From the perspective of the history of science this period can be seen a...

 On 20 January 2018 RocketLab, a space-tech start-up, launched the Humanity Star, a metre tall ‘disco ball’ intended to “blink brightly across the night sky to create a shared experience for everyone on the planet”.[1] The launch provoked a range of responses from the scientific community, ...

By the 1970s, the world’s deepest mines were operating two miles below the surface. In South Africa, prospective miners were required to undergo an extensive acclimatization process in order to cope with the intense heat builds up in the ultra deep gold mines. To streamline and increase the ef...

In this talk, I will discuss the research that I've conducted as a 2018 NASA/HSS History Fellow on postwar visions of spaceflight on television. My study considers ways to rethink science fictional series (like NBC's Star Trek) as serious science educational ventures. Understanding the partnerships ...

The nineteenth-century communications revolution witnessed Islamic rulers eagerly adopt new technologies en masse. A curious outlier to this was the Afghan ruler Amir Sher Ali (r. 1863-78). Rather than adopt the communications revolution in toto, he adopted the postal system, printing press, and pho...

Can flavor be measured? This roundtable will trace the quantification, creation, and destruction of flavor by technoscientific institutions like the US military, the flavor industry, and by neuroscientists fixated on understanding how humans taste. Following Steven Shapin’s call for increased atte...

  Heart-lung machines are key components of cardiac surgery. Their main purpose is to replace cardiopulmonary functions during surgical interventions in the open heart. While today’s heart-lung machines are robust and reliable devices, their early versions were highly precarious assemblages. ...

Situated at the intersection between the history of technology, economic history, and diplomatic history, this paper examines China’s three major waves of technology transfer during the Cold War period: from the Soviet in the 1950s, from Western European countries, the United States, and Japan in ...

Human factors engineering professionalized in the early years of the Cold War due to the development of safety-critical systems—those in which failures would be catastrophic. Often used interchangeably with ‘ergonomics,’ human factors engineering (HFE) not only considers physical comfort in th...

This paper examines gender in the interplay of practice, knowledge production and device in medicine in Sweden between approximately 1870 and 1914 by looking at medical trade catalogues and trade journals. Studying this relationship aims to locate where women are through the examination of technolog...

The case of the twentieth-century perfume industry illustrates the varieties of knowledge developed in the production of materials requiring a high level of both technical and aesthetic expertise. Previous studies, such as those of Geoffrey Jones and Eugenie Briot, have shown the significance of syn...

Throughout the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, scientists and conservators at a select number of cultural institutions worked towards developing a more accurate understanding of the techniques and materials used by Old Master painters. Some of the first pioneers in this area include A.P. Laurie based in Edinbu...

Death Valley is the hottest, driest, lowest, place in North America.  It is also home to thousands of desert-dwelling plants, animals, and paleontological artifacts.  After the National Park Service took over management of the valley in 1933, park rangers struggled to develop a coh...