“[Historical scientific instruments] are not used for opening and questioning our understanding of the past so that it illuminates the present. The present illuminates these objects, not the other way around”.
Jim Bennett (2005: 606)
Abstract
Historians of science have recently become increasingly involved with collections and scientific instruments. This creates opportunities for a more significant role of history in museums of science, as well as more meaningful and contextualized exhibitions and educational programmes. However, complementing the mainstream focus on universal scientific principles with history requires structural and cultural changes in museums’ approaches and practices. In this paper we draw from recent collaborative work with historians of science at the University of Lisbon to reflect on the challenges museums face as they prepare for a more meaningful historical approach to science. We argue that documentation is crucial both before objects enter the museum and as regular collections practice. We propose a conceptual and methodological framework comprising two operational levels: documenting individual objects and documenting collections.
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Notes
Although difficult to identify precisely, the turning point seems to have been the special volume of Osiris, edited by Albert Van Helden and Thomas L. Hankins in 1994. Since then, texts resulting from collections-based research have been increasingly frequent in mainstream history of science journals, e.g. Focus Sections of volumes 96 (2005) and 102 (2011) of Isis and special volumes 38 (2007) and 40 (2009) of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, edited respectively by Adam Mosley and Liba Taub, among others.
CIUHCT: Interuniversity Research Unit for the History of Science and Technology, University of Lisbon; both authors are research members. The National Museum of Natural History and Science was formely designated Museum of Science of the University of Lisbon. The bilateral partnership has not been developed in isolation from international networks. Partners that have contributed to the discussions include the Museum of Astronomy (Rio de Janeiro), the Instituto de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia ‘López Piñero’ (University of Valencia), the Jardin des Sciences (University of Strasbourg), the Scientific Instrument Commission and Universeum networks, the Reading Artefacts network (both the Ottawa and Dartmouth branches), among others.
This involves keeping track and record of everything that happens to an object after it enters the museum (exhibitions, restorations, photography, publications, etc.). It has been considerably facilitated through modern databases but almost every museum has, at any given moment, a backlog in keeping up these records.
For example, the Museum of the History of Science (University of Oxford), the collections of scientific instruments at Harvard University and Dartmouth College, the Whipple Museum (University of Cambridge), the collection of scientific and medical instruments at the University of Valencia, the Medical Museion (University of Copenhagen), among others.
According to one of the older teachers of the school. It should be noted that Portugal has no ‘royal’ family since 1910, when the country became a republic.
Purely ornamental ‘instruments’ were considered out of scope.
Although here we are interested in scientific instruments in their relation with historical research and therefore exhibitions and public interpretation are outside the scope, it should be noted that re-enacting historical experiments with historical instruments or replicas has been used before by museums (e.g. Heering and Müller 2002). Provided conservation requirements are met, it has considerable potential as it brings historical scientific instruments ‘to life’, facilitating understanding of their function and providing opportunities for more meaningful educational programmes. It has also potential for science education and for science teachers’ training (e.g. Heering 2000; Riess 2000; Höttecke et al. 2010). For a more visual introduction to the topic, see the videos produced by Paolo Brenni for the Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica in Florence at http://www.fstfirenze.it/filmati/filmati.html. Accessed 15 November 2012.
In principle, scientific instruments are acquired to be used (Stage I), so it is unlikely that a seventeenth century instrument would be acquired in the nineteenth century, unless it was considered an antique. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, scientific instruments may have long periods of use (longer Stages I and II) due to a multiplicity of reasons (institutional policies, lack of resources, downgrade from research to teaching use, cannibalisation, etc.). Although plausible, assignment of instruments to collections based merely on date has exceptions and therefore requires thorough examination of both material and documental sources.
In the case of the royal cabinets of physics, critical points were easily identified as they coincided, to a considerable extent, with major political and social change in Portugal. If a university cabinet of physics is being studied, critical points may be more difficult to identify and, apart from broader social and political change, institutional history needs to be closely examined (creation of a discipline, a new professor, new scientific policies, transfers to new laboratories, etc.). In our research, factors such as scientific development and technological innovation were not considered ‘critical points’ as their impact can be directly characterised through one of the ‘variable parameters’ (Use and Development).
At the Museum of the History of Science of the University of Oxford, the National Museums of Scotland, Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and the National Museum of Natural History and Science, University of Lisbon, respectively.
Scientific Instrument Society visit to the Museum, Lisbon, 1999.
Arrolamento Judicial do Paço da Ajuda (1912), vol. 10, L''' Capella, f. 3506rº, No. 50, item 2, National Palace of Ajuda Historical Archives.
Together with other scientific instruments from the Palace. “Ofícios e pedidos, 1956–1957”, Folder 69, National Palace of Ajuda Historical Archives.
Gramelogia or the mathematical ring. Shewing (any reasonable capacity that hath not Arithmeticke) how to resolve and worke all ordinary operations of Arithmeticke. And those which are most difficult with greate facilitie: the extraction of roots, the valuation of leases, &c. the measuring of plaines and solids. With the resolution of plaine and sphericall triangles. And that onely by an ocular inspection, and a circular motion. London, John Haviland [1631].
The Circles of Proportion and the Horizontall Instrument both Invented, and the Uses of Both Written in Latine by that learned mathematician Mr W[illiam] O[ughtred] but translated into English, and set forth for the publique benefit by William Forster, louer and practizer of the mathematicall sciences, London, Aug[ust] Mathewes, printed for Elias Allen, maker of these and all other Mathematical Instruments and are to be sold at his shop ouer against St Clements church without Temple-barr, 1632.
De la Arithmetica practica geometrica logarithmica, in: Varias obras mathematicas compuestas por el. P. Ignacio Stafford, mestre de mathematica en el Colegio de S. Anton de la Compañia de Iesus, y no acavadas por cauza de la muerte del dicho Padre, Lisbon, 1638. National Library of Portugal, Lisbon, Ms. Res PBA 240.
While research for this paper was being conducted, the Museum of Science went through an institutional crisis that threatened its very existence. Knowledge about its scientific collections and heritage played an important role in overcoming this crisis, as did partnerships and networks.
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Acknowledgments
In Lisbon, we were inspired by Jim Bennett’s texts about history and museums of science, particularly a paper he gave at the Gulbenkian Foundation, January 2006. Research described in this article is being conducted thanks to a grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/HIS-HCT/098970/2008). We are also grateful to the following institutions for access to collections and archives: in Portugal, the Palaces of Ajuda (Lisbon), Sintra, Mafra, Queluz, Pena and Vila Viçosa, as well as the University of Coimbra (Astronomical Observatory and the Science Museum), the Geographical Society and the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon; in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the National Historic Museum, the National Museum, the Museum of Astronomy, the Museum of the Polytechnic School and the College Pedro II.
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Lourenço, M.C., Gessner, S. Documenting Collections: Cornerstones for More History of Science in Museums. Sci & Educ 23, 727–745 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9568-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9568-z