The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts (University of Pennsylvania) recently acquired 58 manuscript codices from the library of the Duke of Northumberland. The manuscripts were originally collected by General Charles Rainsford (1728-1809), an 18th century gentleman scientist, and cover subjects such as alchemy, astrology, Cabbala and Tarot. A portion of the collection is comprised of texts copied or acquired by Rainsford from the Jesuit College at Naples at its dissolution in the late 18th century.
Joseph Martin (2011-2012 Dissertation Writing Fellow) began a fixed-term Assistant Professorship at Lyman Briggs College, Michigan State University this year. His paper, "Is the Contingentist/Inevitabilist Debate a Matter of Degrees?" appeared in the December 2013 issue of Philosophy of Science. Three of his articles are slated to appear in 2015: "Evaluating Hidden Costs of Technological Change: Scaffolding, Agency, and Entrenchment" in Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology; "What's in a Name Change?
The Consortium invites applications for fellowships in the history of science, technology and medicine, broadly construed. Opportunities include:
The Consortium's newsletter has updates on the fellowship program, public and academic events, and the collections of consortium partners.
We are delighted to announce the launch of the new Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine. Seven institutions have joined with the dozen members of the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science to form the new Consortium. We are very excited by the greatly expanded opportunities and resources that these new partnerships will provide for promoting public and academic understanding of the history of science, technology and medicine.
The Consortium comprises the following members:
New acquisitions Daniel Bohn, MD, and Ralph Bohn, MD papers, circa 1905-1919 The Legacy Center, Drexel University .8 linear feet Papers of Daniel Bohn, M.D. (d. 1963, Hahnemann Medical College, 1894), who practiced in Altoona, PA, and his son Ralph W. Bohn, MD (Hahnemann Medical College, 1924), a psychiatrist practicing in New York (Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital).
Congratulations to Carin Berkowitz (2009-2010 Dissertation Writing Fellow), who has been elected to the History of Science Society governing Council for 2015-17.
Susan Hanket Brandt (2011-2012 Research Fellow) successfully defended her dissertation, “Gifted Women and Skilled Practitioners: Gender and Healing Authority in the Delaware Valley, 1740-1830,” and graduated from Temple University in August 2014 with a Ph.D. in History. Her article “‘Getting into a Little Business’: Margaret Hill Morris and Women’s Medical Entrepreneurship during the American Revolution” will be published in a forthcoming special issue of Early American Studies entitled Ligaments: Everyday Connections of Colonial Economies.
The American Philosophical Society has recently made newly processed resources available to researchers, including the following:
- "The World Turned Topsyturvy": Thomas Paine in Print and Ink
- James Van Gundia Neel Papers
- Colonization in the Foulke Papers
- Of Hatches and Haste: A Conservation Adventure
- The Papers of Frank Siebert (1913-1998)
- Read more about these collections here.
