News of the Consortium

The Consortium has started the 2017-18 year with its largest class of fellows, a growing partnership of member institutions, several new conveners for the working groups and a new public events program.

In this issue:

• Harvard University Joins the Consortium
• Fellowships Available for 2018-2019
• New Public Events Series
• October Calendar of Events and Working Groups
• Fellows Updates
• Collections News

• Research Fellowships for travel to collections of member institutions
• Dissertation Fellowships to spend nine months at the Consortium
• NEH Postdoctoral Fellowships to spend up to nine months at the Consortium
• Fellowships-in-Residence for scholars with support from other fellowship programs

Nicole Belolan (2014-2015 Research Fellow and 2017-2018 Postdoctoral Fellow-in-Residence) has been selected by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities to participate in their Public Scholars Project. New Jersey non-profits will be able to apply to have her present her workshop on site called "Disabilities Then, Disabilities Now."

Carin Berkowitz (2009-2010 Dissertation Fellow) has been elected to a three-year term on the American Historical Association's Nominating Committee.

Jeffrey Brideau (2012-2013 Dissertation Fellow) is currently working as a postdoctoral research associate at the Water Policy Collaborative, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park. His project, funded through a grant administered by USGS, and in collaboration with the Institute for Water Resources, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The project focuses on strategic water resources planning and development in the U.S. during the middle decades of the 20th century.

Kathrinne Duffy (2017-2018 Research Fellow) served as a curatorial research fellow for the exhibition Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist, which is opening on Oct. 4 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Katherine contributed essays to an exhibition book co-published with Yale University Press. Katherine also received dissertation research fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society; the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium; and Brown University's Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship and Hazeltine Entrepreneurial Research Fellowship program.

Jonathan Jones (2017-2018 Research Fellow) published "The 'Right' and 'Wrong' Kind of Addict: Iatrogenic Opioid Addiction in Historical Context," Nursing Clio, July 25, 2017. He has also received fellowships from the Huntington Library and Binghamton University.


Joseph Malherek (2015-2016 NEH Postdoctoral Fellow) will be the Fulbright-Botstiber Visiting Professor of Austrian-American Studies at the University of Vienna. Joe also recently published “From the Ringstraße to Madison Avenue: Commercial Market Research and the Viennese Origins of the Mass Culture Debate, 1941–1961,” Canadian Review of American Studies 47 (2017): 261–87.

Joseph Martin (2011-2012 Dissertation Fellow; 2016-2017 NSF Scholar/Fellow-in-Residence) has accepted a position as a teaching associate in the University of Cambridge Department of History and Philosophy of Science. His book, Solid State Insurrection, based on research he conducted as a Consortium predoctoral fellow, has been accepted for publication with the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Timothy Minella (2017-2018 Research Fellow) has accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Augustine and Culture Seminar Program at Villanova University.

Sarah Naramore (2014-2015 Research Fellow) has received an Albert M. Greenfield Dissertation Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Sarah will be working on a project titled "Correspondence Networks and the Construction of American Medicine."

James Risk has accepted a one-year teaching appointment at the University of South Carolina for the 2017-18 academic year. He recently presented his research in a public lecture at the National Lighthouse Museum on Staten Island, NY, and will present his research at the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) Conference in Philadelphia in October.

Dora Vargha (2010-2011 & 2015-2016 Research Fellow) has been named co-editor of the journal Social History of Medicine.

The Adler Planetarium is pleased to announce that the Webster Photographs Collection is now available for research. The Webster Photographs holds print photos, slides, and negatives, most taken by Roderick Webster. The images document the Adler’s scientific instruments, other instruments documented on research trips or through professional conference travel, and exhibitions of such instruments both inside and outside the Adler. The photographs demonstrate how the Websters used the documentary aspect of photography as a tool in their research. The collection is accessible by visiting adlerplanetarium.org/collections and searching "Webster Photographs."

American Philosophical Society makes the Rose Le Dieu Mooney-Slater papers available for research. The papers of physicist Rose Le Dieu Mooney Slater (1902-1981) include correspondence, research and print material that document Mooney-Slater’s career as a professor, department chair, research physicist and accomplished crystallographer; concentrating on the structure of crystals and crystalline materials using X-ray diffraction. Another part of the collection consists of diaries she kept from 1917-1954 that provide a picture of what mattered to her both personally and professionally over 37 years.

Drexel University has opened the following collections for research:

Department of Materials Science and Engineering records, 1950-2015: This collection contains ephemera, printed materials, and scrapbooks from the department between the years 1950-2015. There are annual reports dating from 2001-2013 and scrapbooks from 1950-2003 that include photographs of students and staff, many of which are labelled by name. There are also pamphlets and brochures that describe the department and its curriculum, posters for Philadelphia Materials Science and Engineering Day from 2012-2015, and other items.

Harry C. Rippel papers, 1943-2004: Harry Conrad Rippel (1926-2004) worked as a principal engineer at Franklin Institute Research Laboratory from 1952 to 1984 and was a leading authority on tribology, the study of friction, wear, lubrication, and the design of bearings. This collection contains the academic, professional, and personal papers of Mr. Rippel, spanning from 1943-2004, with the bulk of the materials from 1952-1984.

David Sarnoff Library Collection Opens to the Public at the Hagley Museum and Library.

The contents of the David Sarnoff Library collection, formerly of Princeton N.J., are now fully available to the public, including 700 digital images available through the Hagley Digital Archives. The collection includes thousands of linear feet of documents, reports, photographs, films, and publications detailing the rise and fall of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and of Sarnoff, its longtime leader. David Sarnoff ran RCA for nearly 40 years after developing his skills as a teenager in the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America at the dawn of the radio age. Researchers are encouraged to contact reference staff ahead of arrival so they can be sure material is available upon arrival. Digital materials are available online anytime at digital.hagley.org.