History Commons^™

“Sounds Like” Redemption? On The Musicality Of Species And The Species Of Musicality, Tyler Yamin, Alice Rudge

Faculty Journal Articles

Popular and academic studies of music frequently claim that human musicality arose from the so-called ‘natural world’ of non-human species. And amid the anxieties produced by the Anthropocene, it is thought that the possibility of reconnecting with the natural world through a renewed appreciation of music’s links with nature may usher in a new era of posthuman environmental consciousness, offering repair and redemption. To critique these claims, we trace how notions of ‘musicality’ have been applied to or denied from non-human entities across diverse disciplines since the late nineteenth century. We conclude that such debates reinforce the separation that they …

George C. Caldwell (1834-1907): American Agricultural Chemist, Pat Munday

Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Articles

George Caldwell served as president of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 1892. Prior to this time, the ACS had been a rather parochial New York City based organization. In 1890, the constituency of the ACS expressed its desire to become a truly national body. Toward this end, it forged closer ties with the Chemical Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and merged with the Chemical Section in 1891. As Caldwell had been active with the AAAS group for several years previous to this merger, his election to the presidency of the ACS can be …

Divine Cosmos: Emergent Ecology And Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Lucas R. Nossaman

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation offers a new interpretation of German naturalist-explorer Alexander von Humboldt’s profound influence on nineteenth-century American literature and culture. Humboldt was a household name in mid-nineteenth-century America, often interchangeable with his most celebrated work, Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe (1845-1859). By demonstrating that Cosmos influenced how a range of scientists and literary writers represented the natural world, this project seeks to dispel the sense of historical inevitability that surrounds the midcentury with Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) looming on the horizon. Although Humboldt’s Cosmos did help move natural science into nonreligious territory, the …

Black Apollo Of Science: The Life Of Ernest Everett Just - Summarizing Timeline, Sumitography And Concept Poster, Lillie R. Jenkins

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

This two-part chronology is based on Kenneth R. Manning’s biography, Black Apollo of Science: The Life of Ernest Everett Just (1983). Like other such timelines, this one details Just’s life and pioneering research work. Additionally, and distinctively, this timetable lays out Just’s pioneering fund-seeking and his work mentoring African American female co-researchers (Part 1). A sumitography featuring the United States Postal Service’s postage stamp (1996) recognizes Just’s innovative thinking in biology (Part 2). Following this logic, the author includes a proof-of-concept poster commending E.E. Just’s work as a forward-thinking administrator. This timeline summarizes, chronicles, and aims to re-frame Just’s …

文理人 (Wenliren: Humanities, Science, Human), Lui Lam

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

By Shattering The Vulture’S Nose, Melissa Yang

The Goose

This project explores an unusual ornithological debate between 19th-century naturalists John James Audubon and Charles Waterton on the olfaction of vultures. Both naturalists involved were also artists—certainly more than they were scientists—and prone to artifice and performative amplification. This article examines the rhetorical dynamics of this niche but sensational debate on avian olfaction, and its problematic influence on scientific progress.

Sympathetic Physics: The Keely Motor And The Laws Of Thermodynamics In Nineteenth-Century Culture, Robert Macdougall

History Publications

In Philadelphia in the 1870s, John Worrell Keely announced the invention of a fantastic new motor that could, he promised, drive locomotives, power factories, and even defy gravity without fuel or heat. The Keely Motor became the most notorious perpetual motion scheme of the nineteenth century, attracting believers and investors for nearly thirty years. This article explores the “work” the motor performed for Keely, his supporters, and his critics—not physical work, but financial, cultural, and psychological. To investors, the Keely Motor represented a dream of riches without effort. To Keely’s critics, the motor offered an opportunity to defend the legitimacy …

Science At Engineer Cantonment, Hugh H. Genoways, Brett C. Ratcliffe, Carl R. Falk, Thomas E. Labedz, Paul R. Picha, John R. Bozell

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Conclusions

It is our contention that Thomas Say, Titian Peale, Edwin James, and their colleagues of the Stephen Long Expedition of 1819–1820 were heavily engaged in scientific research, which took the form of the first biodiversity inventory undertaken in the United States. This accomplishment has been overlooked both by biologists and historians, but it should rank among the most significant accomplishments of the expedition. The results of this inventory continue to inform us today about environmental, faunal, and floral changes along the Missouri River in an area that is known to be an ecotone between the deciduous forests of the …

An Engineer Cantonment Bestiary: The Art Of Titian Ramsay Peale, Hugh H. Genoways, Thomas E. Labedz

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Includes an overview of the work of American nature artist Titian Ramsay Peale as part of the Stephen H. Long Expedition, 1819-1820, at Engineer Cantonment in eastern Nebraska, USA.

Includes textual descriptions and/or reproductions of watercolors and lined drawings by Peale of banded killifish (Fundulus diaphanous), American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrothynchos), Wood Duck (Aix sponsa), Rough-legged Hawk (Buteo lagopus/Falco lagopus), Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis tabida), Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos), Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), American Tree Sparrow (Spizella arborea), Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus …

History Of Computing, George K. Thiruvathukal, David B. Dennis

David B. Dennis

The social and organizational history of humanity is intricately entangled with the history of technology in general and the technology of information in particular. Advances in this area have often been closely involved in social and political transformations. While the contemporary period is often referred to by such names as the Computing and Information Age, this is the culmination of a series of historical transformations that have been centuries in the making. This course will provide a venue for students to learn about history through the evolution of number systems and arithmetic, calculating and computing machines, and advanced communication technology …

History Of Computing, George K. Thiruvathukal, David B. Dennis

George K. Thiruvathukal

The social and organizational history of humanity is intricately entangled with the history of technology in general and the technology of information in particular. Advances in this area have often been closely involved in social and political transformations. While the contemporary period is often referred to by such names as the Computing and Information Age, this is the culmination of a series of historical transformations that have been centuries in the making. This course will provide a venue for students to learn about history through the evolution of number systems and arithmetic, calculating and computing machines, and advanced communication technology …

History Of Computing, George K. Thiruvathukal, David B. Dennis

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The social and organizational history of humanity is intricately entangled with the history of technology in general and the technology of information in particular. Advances in this area have often been closely involved in social and political transformations. While the contemporary period is often referred to by such names as the Computing and Information Age, this is the culmination of a series of historical transformations that have been centuries in the making. This course will provide a venue for students to learn about history through the evolution of number systems and arithmetic, calculating and computing machines, and advanced communication technology …

Ecologies Of The Passions In Early Modern English Tragedies, Roya Biggie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ecologies of the Passions recovers a neglected model for understanding early modern relationality, one that turns the seemingly inward experience of emotion outward toward the environment. Drawing on early modern medical texts, I argue that the period’s dramatists imagine bodies as humorally vulnerable to other bodies, both human and nonhuman, within dynamically affective environments. As such, my project illustrates the intimate configurations of human and nonhuman life in early modern tragedies. Building upon recent work in the emerging fields of ecocriticism and affect theory, I argue that the period’s dramatic literature exposes the porous fluidity of the Galenic body—its embeddedness …

Triple Triumph: Three Women In Medicine

Syracuse Unbound

Triple triumph: Three women in medicine is the story of three physicians.

Three physicians, all women, each perceived serious unmet needs in their fields, and envisioned imaginative approaches to meeting those needs. Each encountered resistance, discouragement, and obstruction from the traditional, male-dominated departments in which they worked. These powerful pioneers, undeterred, created programs that earned the highest levels of national distinction and acclaim. Their work and their names are now legendary—in geriatric medicine, in the treatment of breast cancer, and in diabetes research and treatment. Their stories differ, but the commonalities help us understand why constructive change is often so …

Review: The Gene: An Intimate History. By Siddartha Mukherjee, Jordan Lieser

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the highly regarded and Pulitzer Prize winning The Emperor of All Maladies, has undertaken what he terms as an “intimate history” of the gene. Mukherjee’s medical credentials are impressive, yet they are also atypical for research and writing on the history of science. The Gene is impeccably written and expands our understanding of a well-known history through his unique viewpoint. In fact, Mukherjee’s work is reminiscent of another Pulitzer Prize winner, Jared Diamond. Originally a physiologist, Diamond, is best known for applying his scientific viewpoint to the Spanish Conquest in his 1997 Pulitzer Prize winning …

Evotext: A New Tool For Analyzing The Biological Sciences, Grant Ramsey, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

We introduce here evoText, a new tool for automated analysis of the literature in the biological sciences. evoText contains a database of hundreds of thousands of journal articles and an array of analysis tools for generating quantitative data on the nature and history of life science, especially ecology and evolutionary biology. This article describes the features of evoText, presents a variety of examples of the kinds of analyses that evoText can run, and offers a brief tutorial describing how to use it.

Surgery As A Science: The Intellectual And Practical Evolution Of European Surgery From The 16th To The 18th Century, Molly Nebiolo

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This thesis will highlight some of the major technological inventions in the field of surgery during this time range, but more importantly will utilize the scarce resources available to piece together why these technologies did advance and how they played a role in the professionalization of surgery as a whole. The resources currently available to determine the advances in surgical tools and techniques either lack written descriptions of their uses, and are just picture books, or are beyond my ability to use since they are in foreign languages. Not only this, but there are no written works already published that …

Experimental Reporting And Networks Of Political Information: Lorenzo Magalotti's Framing Of Courts And Nature, Bradley L'Herrou

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores changes in experimental reporting during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. In particular, I examine and compare some of the works of Count Lorenzo Magalotti, namely the Saggi di Naturali Esperienza or Essays on Natural Experiments and the Relazione d'Inghilterra. In 1667, as secretary of the Accademia del Cimento – the Tuscan experimental academy founded in 1657 – Magalotti (1637-1712) authored the Saggi, a collection of experimental reports. These reports included extensive written descriptions of experiments along with dozens of engravings depicting the instruments custom-made for the experiments. Magalotti also served as ambassador and agent of …

0455: Brigadier General Chuck Yeager Collection, 1923-1987, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection consists of manuscript materials, items, and books belonging to Brigadier General Charles "Chuck" Yeager . Items were created between1923 and 1987.

Avicenna, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

The Visual Image Of Chemistry: Perspectives From The History Of Art And Science, Joachim Schummer, Tami I. Spector

Chemistry Faculty Publications

In this paper we investigate the most important visual stereotypes of chemistry as they occur in current portraits of chemists, depictions of chemical plants, and images of chemical glassware and apparatus. By studying the historical origin and development of these stereotypes within the broader context of the history of art and science, and by applying aesthetic and cultural theories, we explore what these images implicitly communicate about the chemical profession to the public. We conclude that chemists, along with commercial artists, have unknowingly created a visual image of chemistry that frequently conveys negative historical associations, ranging from imposture to kitsch. …

[Review] Lápis De Carvao. Maria Estela Guedes (2005), Enrique Wulff

Enrique Wulff

No abstract provided.

Toils And Perils Of Scientific Publishing In The Late Eighteenth And Early Nineteenth Centuries, Eileen Snyder

The Courier

It is perhaps not realized by the modem armchair naturalist what hardships attended his 'explorer naturalist' predecessor in the early 1800s. In the George Arents Research Library there is an intriguing—indeed, quite outstanding—group of volumes, landmarks in the history of the natural sciences, by American, British, and French botanists, ornithologists, ichthyologists, entomologists, and herpetologists. A study of the various prefaces, introductions, and accompanying advertisements reveals the overwhelming problems that not only attended every fact ,gathering expedition, but seemed as well to plague every stage in the publication of the new materials. Nevertheless, undaunted, these explorers were inspired to do what …

William Martin Smallwood And The Smallwood Collection In Natural History At The Syracuse University Library, Eileen Snyder

The Courier

This article details the life and efforts of Syracuse Professor William Smallwood to collect major works on many of the major disciplines of science. Together the Smallwood collection provides a wonderful resource for the history of science and natural history.

Ariel - Volume 12(13) Number 1, Sheila Grossman, Gary Fishbein, Sam Markind, Grace Goracci, Richard Spiegel, Sue Sajer, Joe Dankoff, Gary Gilman

Ariel

Executive Editor

Gary E. Fishbein

Associate Editor

Sam Markind

Business Manager

Rich Davis

Sports Editor

Dave Cohen

Photography Editor

Ben Alman

Layout

Sheila Grossman

On The Progress Of Recent Science; A Lecture, Introductory To The Course Of Practice Of Medicine., John K. Mitchell, Md

Jefferson Medical College Opening Addresses

No abstract provided.

Introductory Lecture To The Course Of Chemistry, Delivered In Jefferson Medical College, November 6, 1844., Franklin Bache, Md

Jefferson Medical College Opening Addresses

No abstract provided.