Summary This paper examines the second generation of British air pumps, covering the period 1700–1750. The air pump originated in the 1650s and 1660s thanks to the work of Otto von Guericke in Magdeburg, Robert Boyle in Oxford and London, and Accademia del Cimento in Florence. While these first models were often seen as unreliable and temperamental, and available to a small group only, the next period saw the air pump transformed into a publicly accessible device for use in public (...) and private demonstrations, in practical applications, as well as in the production of new knowledge. In England, the instrument maker Francis Hauksbee and his followers played a decisive role in this process, which was connected, among other things, to popular medicine, anatomy and health. In this period, pneumatics (the field of air pumps and air-pump practice) reached a state where the pump came to be regarded as an unproblematic tool; and where a ‘vacuum’ came to be thought of and handled as an object. (shrink)

The expanding interest in book history over recent years has heralded the coming together of an interdisciplinary research community drawing scholars from a variety of literary, historical and cultural studies. Moreover, with a growing body of literature, the field is becoming increasingly visible on a wider scale, not least through the existence of the Society for the History of Authorship, Readership and Publishing (SHARP), with its newly founded journal Book History. Within the history of science, however, there remains not a (...) little scepticism concerning the practical value of such an approach. It is often dismissed as an intellectual fad or as an enterprise which is illuminating but ultimately peripheral, rather than being valued as an approach which can offer major new insights within the field. This is no doubt in part because much of the most innovative work in history of science over recent years has been carried out by historians anxious to get away from an earlier overemphasis on printed sources. Eager to correct a profoundly unsocial history of ideas, usually rooted in texts, historians have looked increasingly to both the practices and the material culture of science. In such a context, a renewed focus on the history of books sometimes seems like a retrograde step, especially given the common misidentification of ‘books’ with ‘texts’. On the contrary, however, it is just such a twin emphasis on practices and material culture which also characterizes the new book history. Indeed, to the question ‘what is book history for?’ we might answer that its object is to reintroduce social actors, engaged in a variety of practices with respect to material objects, into a history in which books have too often been understood merely as disembodied texts, the meaning of which is defined by singular, uniquely creative authors, and is transparent to readers. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a cardboard dissected globe made in 1813 by Edward Mogg, a cartographer and map seller, to instruct children in the principles of astronomy. Since little is known about the maker or the specific object, I draw on evidence beyond the sphere itself to construct an account of how the object might have been used. In particular I address conversation as a key part of astronomical education and examine the way in which the cardboard plates of (...) the sphere, the presentation slipcase and the accompanying booklet would have prepared young learners for polite astronomical discourse around large instruments in later life.Keywords: Dissected globe; Edward Mogg; Educational toys; Astronomy; Conversation. (shrink)

ArgumentThe history of ballooning has received considerable attention from historians examining the technological innovations behind it as well as from scholars interested in aeronautical anecdotes concerning launches and disasters. The cultural importance of this new machine, however, remains less fully analyzed. This essay explores one facet of that history through a discussion of the commodification of launches in France and Great Britain. These two countries, which have larger middling classes as well as a higher degree of commercialization in general, provided (...) a fertile environment for aeronauts seeking to instruct and entertain an audience willing to fund ballooning. Balloonists had to invent ways to market this scientific discovery and determine how best to attract paying customers. The audience was entertained while simultaneously empowered to act as witnesses to what balloonists presented as a scientific experiment. (shrink)

The Natuurkundig Genootschap der Dames , formally established by and for women, met regularly from 1785 to 1881 and sporadically until 1887. It challenges our stereotypes both of women and the physical sciences during the eighteenth century and of the intellectual interests open to women in the early European republics. This essay aims not simply to identify the society and its members but to describe their pursuits and consider what their story adds to the history of Western science. What does (...) this society’s existence tell us about the relationship between women and early science in general and about science and society in the Dutch setting in particular? Science and gender look rather different when observed through the activities of the immensely prosperous women of Middelburg, citizens of one of the most highly literate Western countries. The elite lives of the first‐generation members of the women’s society also offer us a glimpse into the early domestication of science, a process vital to its acceptance and assimilation. (shrink)

While historians of the microscope currently consider that no programme of microscopy took place during the Enlightenment, the thesis challenges this view and aims at showing when and where microscopes were used as research tools. The focus of the inquiry is the research on microscopic animalcules and the relationship of European microscope making and practices of microscopy with topical trends of the industrial revolution, such as quantification. Three waves of research are characterised for the research on animalcules in the Enlightenment: (...) 1. seventeenth-century observations on animalcules crowned by Louis Joblot's 1718 works in the milieu of Paris Académie royale des sciences, 2. mid eighteenth-century observations and experiments on polyps and animalcules (Trembley, Baker and Hill) and, 3. between 1760 and 1790, OF Müller's establishment of the systematics of infusoria in Denmark and Germany. (shrink)