“Household Oeconomy and Chemical Inquiry, 1760 to 1840

Time: 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Event Type: Open to the Public

Fee: Free

RSVP Online: No Registration Required

This talk explores the role of the home as a site of chemical experimentation and the role of oeconomy, or domestic management, in shaping the ways householders approached materials and objects as experimental resources. Werrett’s argument is that in the period from 1760 to 1840, the age of the “Chemical Revolution” and a period normally associated with radical innovation, in domestic settings the reuse of old things was as significant a part of chemistry as the invention or consumption of new. He will examine the understanding of oeconomy in the period before considering how the home was often a site for shared oeconomical and chemical practices. Householders and chemical practitioners strove to make the most of the material objects in their possession and took care of those possessions to avoid them being damaged. Oeconomic and chemical literature offered diverse recipes for maintaining and repairing material objects, and also encouraged the reuse of broken objects and waste. He concludes by considering how the nature of chemical materials changed in the 19th century, with consequences for the sustainability of science in the present day.

Simon Werrett is a senior lecturer in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London, where he teaches the history of early modern science. Before coming to UCL, from 2002 to 2012, he was an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Washington, Seattle. Werrett has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and the Getty Research Center in Los Angeles. He was a fellow of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich in 2011 and is a visiting fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation and Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in 2016.

About Brown Bag Lectures

Brown Bag Lectures (BBLs) are a series of weekly informal talks on the history of chemistry or related subjects, including the history and social studies of science, technology, and medicine. Based on original research (sometimes still in progress), these talks are given by local scholars for an audience of CHF staff and fellows and interested members of the public.

For more information, please call 215.873.8289 or e-mail bbl@chemheritage.org.