scholarly journals Corresponding interests: artisans and gentlemen in nineteenth-century natural history

1994 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Secord
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Books ◽  
The Way

Early nineteenth-century natural history books reveal that British naturalists depended heavily on correspondence as a means for gathering information and specimens. Edward Newman commented in his History of British Ferns: ‘Were I to make out a list of all the correspondents who have assisted me it would be wearisome from its length.’ Works such as William Withering's Botanical Arrangement show that artisans numbered among his correspondents. However, the literary products of scientific practice reveal little of the workings or such correspondences and how or why they were sustained. An exchange or letters is maintained if the interests of both recipient and writer are satisfied. Withering's book tells us only that his interests were served by his correspondents; it allows us to say nothing with certainty about the interests of those who wrote to him. Published texts effectively hide the means by which the author determined the veracity of distant correspondents and also the way these informants demonstrated their credibility.

The Legacy of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians’

2019 ◽  
pp. 156-195
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Medical Student ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

The penultimate chapter looks at the longer-term impact of the efflorescence of evolutionary speculation in early-nineteenth-century Edinburgh on later generations of natural historians. First it examines the evangelical reaction against progressive models of the history of life and its role in the eclipse of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians.’ Next it examines to the evolutionary theory proposed by Robert Chambers in his anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) to assess its possible debt to the Edinburgh transformists of the 1820s and 1830s. Finally it turns to the important question of the possible influence of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians’ on Charles Darwin during his time as a medical student in Edinburgh in the years 1825 to 1827, during which period he rubbed shoulders with many of the key proponents of evolutionary ideas in the city.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
History Of

The introduction sets the scene by exploring the role of Edinburgh as a centre for the development and propagation of pre-Darwinian evolutionary theories. It gives essential background on natural history in the Scottish capital in early nineteenth century and the history of evolutionary thought and outlines the aims and objectives of the book. In addition, it explores some of the historiographical issues raised by earlier historians of science who have discussed the role of Edinburgh in the development of evolutionary thought in Great Britain.

The History of Starved Rock

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Walczynski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
American Frontier ◽  
American Midwest ◽  
History Of ◽  
Frontier Settlers

This book provides an overview of the famous site in Utica, Illinois, from when European explorers first viewed the bluff in 1673 through to 1911, when Starved Rock became the centerpiece of Illinois' second state park. The land that today comprises Starved Rock State Park and the adjacent countryside was nearly continuously occupied by Native Americans until the early nineteenth century. By the early nineteenth century, American frontier settlers would arrive and change the entire dynamic of the Starved Rock area. The book pulls together stories and insights from the language, geology, geography, anthropology, archaeology, biology, and agriculture of the park to provide readers with an understanding of both the human and natural history of Starved Rock, and to put it into context with the larger history of the American Midwest.

Nation-Building and Nationalism in Karamzin's History of the Russian State

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Derek Offord
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Cultural Nationalism ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis essay analyzes Karamzin's contribution, through his History of the Russian State, to the formation of national identity and to the development of nationalism in early nineteenth-century Russia. It explores Karamzin's argument that the development of a unified state gave Russia an equal claim to membership in Europe's family of nations, and thus underlines the way that, for Karamzin, Russia's national identity was subsumed in imperial expansion. Karamzin was first and foremost a political nationalist. Yet the essay also explores the humane, cosmopolitan elements of Karamzin's thinking – elements that were in some tension with his statism and which pointed toward a cultural nationalism more complex than this statism.

John Fleming and the geological deluge

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES BURNS
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Animal Kingdom ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Minor

John Fleming (1785–1857), later professor in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, made his combative contribution to natural history between 1812 and 1832. As an Edinburgh student he had followed Robert Jameson's ‘Wernerian’ lead. His earliest publications, from 1813, expressed what was to be a lifelong hostility to the work of James Hutton. Yet his own thinking moved increasingly towards a ‘uniformitarian’ as opposed to a ‘catastrophist’ view of earth history. His Philosophy of Zoology (1822) embodied criticism of Cuvier. More dramatically, he became embroiled in controversy with Buckland and later with Conybeare. By then the ‘uniformitarian’ hypothesis had been adopted by Lyell, with whom Fleming was in close touch from the mid-1820s. Fleming may have had some grounds for feeling that his priority in advocating uniformitarianism was later overlooked. His History of British Animals (1828) included a preface in which he elaborated his earlier hypothesis as to ‘revolutions … in the animal kingdom’ correlated with six geological epochs. Tension had then developed in Fleming's relationship with Jameson, and the early 1830s found him in a mood of increasing frustration. Reconciliation with Buckland and approval by Sedgwick still left ‘the Zoological Ishmael’ feeling that his advancement in the scientific world was blocked, perhaps permanently. In historical perspective Fleming may be seen as a minor but not insubstantial figure in the scientific landscape of the early nineteenth century.

A history of some fruit models in wax and other materials: scientific teaching aids and courtly table decorations

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-JüRgen Lechtreck
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fruit Trees ◽  
Visual Aids ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Teaching Aids ◽  
Scientific Teaching ◽  
Glass Marble ◽  
History Of ◽  
By Products ◽  
Wax Models

Two early nineteenth century texts treating the production and use of wax models of fruit reveal the history of these objects in the context of courtly decoration. Both sources emphasise the models' decorative qualities and their suitability for display, properties which were not simply by-products of the realism that the use of wax allowed. Thus, such models were not regarded merely as visual aids for educational purposes. The artists who created them sought to entice collectors of art and natural history objects, as well as teachers and scientists. Wax models of fruits are known to have been collected and displayed as early as the seventeenth century, although only one such collection is extant. Before the early nineteenth century models of fruits made from wax or other materials (glass, marble, faience) were considered worthy of display because contemporaries attached great importance to mastery of the cultivation and grafting of fruit trees. This skill could only be demonstrated by actually showing the fruits themselves. Therefore, wax models made before the early nineteenth century may also be regarded as attempts to preserve natural products beyond the point of decay.

Correspondence between Adolphe Brongniart and Robert Schomburgk: trading natural history collections for honours

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-336
Author(s):  
PIOTR DASZKIEWICZ ◽  
MICHEL JEGU
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
British Guiana ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
German Naturalist

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses some correspondence between Robert Schomburgk (1804–1865) and Adolphe Brongniart (1801–1876). Four letters survive, containing information about the history of Schomburgk's collection of fishes and plants from British Guiana, and his herbarium specimens from Dominican Republic and southeast Asia. A study of these letters has enabled us to confirm that Schomburgk supplied the collection of fishes from Guiana now in the Laboratoire d'Ichtyologie, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. The letters of the German naturalist are an interesting source of information concerning the practice of sale and exchange of natural history collections in the nineteenth century in return for honours.

Dan Inman, The Making of English Theology: God and the Academy at Oxford (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014). ISBN: 9781451469264

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The University ◽  
The University

This chapter reviews the book The Making of English Theology: God and the Academy at Oxford (2014). by Dan Inman. The book offers an account of a fascinating and little known episode in the history of the University of Oxford. It examines the history of Oxford’s Faculty of Theology from the early nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. In particular, it revisits the various attempts to tinker with theology at Oxford during this period and considers the fierce resistance of conservatives. Inman argues that Oxford’s idiosyncratic development deserves to be taken more seriously than it often has been, at least by historians of theology.

The National and the Universal

2020 ◽  
pp. 368-386
Author(s):  
Sarah Collins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Johann Gottfried Herder ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Respective Treatment ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the continuities between the categories of the “national” and the “universal” in the nineteenth century. It construes these categories as interrelated efforts to create a “world” on various scales. The chapter explores the perceived role of music as a world-making medium within these discourses. It argues that the increased exposure to cultural difference and the interpretation of that cultural difference as distant in time and space shaped a conception of “humanity” in terms of a universal history of world cultures. The chapter reexamines those early nineteenth-century thinkers whose work became inextricably linked with the rise of exclusivist notions of nationalism in the late nineteenth century, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and John Stuart Mill. It draws from their respective treatment of music to recover their early commitment to universalizable principles and their view that the “world” is something that must be actively created rather than empirically observed.

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