J. J. Thomson and the emergence of the Cavendish School, 1885–1990

1995 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong-Won Kim
Keyword(s):  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ernest Rutherford ◽  
Cavendish Laboratory ◽  
Experimental Physics ◽  
James Clerk Maxwell ◽  
Physics Community ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physics Laboratories ◽  
A New Species ◽  
Insight Into

The history of the Cavendish Laboratory is a fascinating subject to study, not just because this famous centre of experimental physics produced a large number of Nobel Laureates but also because it gives us an insight into the unique milieu of the Cambridge physics community. The evolution of the Cavendish Laboratory, however, was not as smooth as might be expected, and the prestige and reputation of its first directors – James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Rayleigh, Joseph John Thomson and Ernest Rutherford – did not automatically guarantee a rosy future. Like other British physics laboratories in the late nineteenth century, the Cavendish Laboratory was a new species to meet the pressure and demand from society. Since it propagated new values and modes of doing science, a struggle with old traditions could not be avoided, and the early history of the Cavendish Laboratory illustrates how the ‘old’ and ‘new’ values fought and negotiated each other in late Victorian Cambridge.

Return to the Wilberforce–Huxley Debate

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Vernon Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Young Scientist ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Rhetorical History ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Thomas Henry Huxley ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historic City ◽  
Insight Into

One hundred and twenty-eight years ago in the historic city of Oxford a relatively brief impromptu verbal exchange at a scientific convention occurred. It is still vividly remembered in and out of academia. This so-called ‘debate’ between the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, and the young scientist, Thomas Henry Huxley, a simple and concrete episode, has continued to symbolize dramatically the complex and abstract phenomenon of the conflict between science and religion in the late nineteenth century. while that symbol may be somewhat inaccurate, or its relevance may have shifted from a century ago, it still is a powerful image, one which continues to be an important part of the religious, scientific and rhetorical history of the late Victorian era. Moore recently wrote: ‘No battle of the nineteenth century, save Waterloo, is better known.’ It is, as Altholz put it, ‘one of those historical events the substance and significance of which are clear, but whose specifics are decidedly fuzzy around the edges.’ It is the purpose of this paper to present a full and balanced view of the specific ingredients, permitting a better insight into the event's symbolism and significance.

scholarly journals The museum in the lab: historical practice in the experimental sciences at Cambridge, 1874–1936

BJHS Themes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 245-271
Author(s):  
BORIS JARDINE
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
Cavendish Laboratory ◽  
Experimental Physics ◽  
James Clerk Maxwell ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Historical Practices ◽  
The Way ◽  
Historical Practice

AbstractThis paper explores the hoarding, collecting and occasional display of old apparatus in new laboratories. The first section uses a 1936 exhibition of Cambridge's scientific relics as a jumping-off point to survey the range of historical practices in the various Cambridge laboratories. This panoramic approach is intended to show the variety and complexity of pasts that scientists had used material to conjure in the years prior to the exhibition. Commerce and commemoration emerge as two key themes. The second part turns to the Cavendish Laboratory (experimental physics) to explore the highly specific senses of time and memorialization at play in the early years of the laboratory (c.1874–1910), and the way these were transformed over the subsequent generations leading up to the 1936 moment. The key figure here is James Clerk Maxwell, whose turn to history involved a mix of antiquarianism and modernism. The paper concludes with an attempt to characterize the meanings and significances of ‘the museum in the lab’. This phenomenon ought to be understood in terms of the wide range of ‘collections’ present in laboratory spaces.

scholarly journals Editorial

1972 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Keyword(s):  
Royal Commission ◽  
Ernest Rutherford ◽  
Cavendish Laboratory ◽  
First Report ◽  
James Clerk Maxwell ◽  
The University

The year 1871 was remarkable for science in Britain. The University Tests Act at last abolished the religious test for entry to Oxford and Cambridge, and these universities could henceforth begin to match in science their best counterparts elsewhere. The Duke of Devonshire’s Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science published its first report. The main instigator of the Commission, Alexander Strange, proposed in a lecture to the Royal United Services Institution that a Minister o f Science should be appointed. Stanley met Livingstone at Ujiji. The Cavendish Laboratory was founded, and James Clerk Maxwell was appointed the first Cavendish Professor. Charles Babbage died; and Ernest Rutherford was born. This issue of Notes and Records is largely concerned with the celebrations which, as described on page 5, were organized by the Society to mark the centenary of Rutherford’s birth; and we are printing the lectures and addresses that were given during the course of the celebrations. Inevitably, there is some overlap between the several contributions, but we hope that this will make for easier reading.

The Cavendish Laboratory Archives

1953 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-147 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Annual Report ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Cavendish Laboratory ◽  
Experimental Physics ◽  
James Clerk Maxwell ◽  
Enormous Amount ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Accademia Del Cimento

Historians of modern science are beset equally by the enormous amount of material which might be at their disposal and the great difficulty there often is in ascertaining where such material is preserved. The purpose of this note is to give a preliminary account of the unusually valuable collection of letters and manuscripts which is available in the Cavendish Laboratory, and which relates, for the most part, to three of the first four Cavendish Professors of Experimental Physics. The importance of a historical collection was recognized from the earhest days of the Laboratory, and in its first annual report 1 of 1875 James Clerk Maxwell recorded the acquisition of a thermometer from the Accademia del Cimento, some drawings of lines of magnetic force by Faraday, and a collection of Maxwell’s own demonstration models. The second annual report 2 records the gift of a large collection of W . H. Wollaston’s apparatus. All this reflects the fact that at this time Maxwell was much concerned with historical studies, notably in connexion with his edition of the electrical papers of Henry Cavendish. In 1879 Mrs Maxwell presented to the Laboratory her late husband’s library (which was to serve as the nucleus of a working hbrary for the Laboratory) and with this gift there came many of Maxwell’s original MSS. of his published books and scientific papers, as well as some of his unpublished lectures and addresses. Some of Maxwell’s scientific and personal correspondence must have come with these manuscripts ; other letters probably passed into the hands of his biographers, Lewis Campbell and Wilham Garnett, 3 who later returned these letters together with many others that they had acquired in the course of their work.

scholarly journals A new species of Eogruidae (Aves: Gruiformes) from the Miocene of the Linxia Basin, Gansu, China: Evolutionary and climatic implications

The Auk ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 137 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Musser ◽  
Zhiheng Li ◽  
Julia A Clarke
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Northwest China ◽  
Biogeographic History ◽  
Linxia Basin ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
Fossil Records ◽  
Present Description ◽  
A New Species ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Despite having one of the most robust fossil records within core-gruiform birds (rails, cranes, and allies), the biogeographic history of Gruidae (cranes) and key drivers of diversification within this group remain largely unknown. The Eogruidae of Eurasia represent some of the earliest known crane-like fossils. Here, we present description of a new species represented by a well-preserved specimen of a foot from the late Miocene (7–6.5 mya) Liushu Formation of Linxia Basin, Gansu, China. It is the only eogruid fossil that has been found in this formation and is the first eogruid known from northwest China. Linxia Basin is located along the margin of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, which allows for new insight into Miocene dispersal of the Eogruidae and potential climatological and geological connections. It is also the first specimen with an associated tarsometatarsus and nearly complete phalanges, including a claw, which provides further morphological information on this taxon. Referral of the new specimen to Eogruidae is based on extreme reduction of the trochlea of metatarsal II, which is most similar to the condition present in the eogruid subclade traditionally termed Ergilornithidae.

“Money is the Only Advantage”: Reconsidering the History of Gender, Labor, and Emigration among US Teachers in the Late Nineteenth Century

2015 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 184-212
Author(s):  
Karen Leroux
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Labor History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civilizing Mission ◽  
School Teaching ◽  
History Of ◽  
Low Pay ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
At Home

AbstractLacking the power to improve the terms and conditions of school teaching at home, more than seventy US women migrated to work for the Argentine government in the last third of the nineteenth century. Only a few studies have researched this episode in the history of teachers, interpreting it as an uplifting, civilizing mission and characterizing the teachers as valiant, benevolent, and occasionally misguided reformers. Yet these migrant teachers' own words suggest that the desire to uplift played little part in their migration decisions, whereas low pay and limited employment opportunities for women figured prominently. Drawing on diaries, correspondence, newspapers, and census records, this study explores how these migrant teachers understood themselves, their work, and their social location. The analysis offers new insight into these teachers' identities as workers both at home and abroad. While acknowledging how teachers' labor served reform objectives, the essay argues that the long history of teaching in the United States needs to be reconsidered as a labor history.

The Lives Behind the Mesoamerican Archaeology Collection at the Museum of Vancouver

Collections ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 155019062098783
Author(s):  
Cara Grace Tremain
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Columbia ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Storage Area ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

The origin of the Museum of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, dates to the late nineteenth century—only a few years after the city was formally incorporated. Initially intended to showcase curios and items of interest, among the early donations were objects from various Mesoamerican cultures. Over the years the Mesoamerican archaeology collection grew not from a deliberate collecting strategy, but from chance donations by residents of the city. Not long after the re-focus to a civic museum the collection ceased to grow, and today the collection is consigned to the museum’s storage area. Despite not being of immediate relevance to the museum’s mission, the history of the collection reveals a fascinating insight into the lives of past Vancouver residents and demonstrates the utility of investigating the provenance of previously little-known collections.

The Modernities of H. Lawrence Freeman

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 719-779
Author(s):  
David Gutkin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Black Press ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
White Press ◽  
Grand Opera

H. Lawrence Freeman's “Negro Jazz Grand Opera,” Voodoo, was premiered in 1928 in Manhattan's Broadway district. Its reception bespoke competing, racially charged values that underpinned the idea of the “modern” in the 1920s. The white press critiqued the opera for its allegedly anxiety-ridden indebtedness to nineteenth-century European conventions, while the black press hailed it as the pathbreaking work of a “pioneer composer.” Taking the reception history of Voodoo as a starting point, this article shows how Freeman's lifelong project, the creation of what he would call “Negro Grand Opera,” mediated between disparate and sometimes apparently irreconcilable figurations of the modern that spanned the late nineteenth century through the interwar years: Wagnerism, uplift ideology, primitivism, and popular music (including, but not limited to, jazz). I focus on Freeman's inheritance of a worldview that could be called progressivist, evolutionist, or, to borrow a term from Wilson Moses, civilizationist. I then trace the complex relationship between this mode of imagining modernity and subsequent versions of modernism that Freeman engaged with during the first decades of the twentieth century. Through readings of Freeman's aesthetic manifestos and his stylistically syncretic musical corpus I show how ideas about race inflected the process by which the qualitatively modern slips out of joint with temporal modernity. The most substantial musical analysis examines leitmotivic transformations that play out across Freeman's jazz opera American Romance (1924–29): lions become subways; Mississippi becomes New York; and jazz, like modernity itself, keeps metamorphosing. A concluding section considers a broader set of questions concerning the historiography of modernism and modernity.

Editorial Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Editors of the JIOWS
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Indian Ocean World ◽  
Shed Light

The editors are proud to present the first issue of the fourth volume of the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies. This issue contains three articles, by James Francis Warren (Murdoch University), Kelsey McFaul (University of California, Santa Cruz), and Marek Pawelczak (University of Warsaw), respectively. Warren’s and McFaul’s articles take different approaches to the growing body of work that discusses pirates in the Indian Ocean World, past and present. Warren’s article is historical, exploring the life and times of Julano Taupan in the nineteenth-century Philippines. He invites us to question the meaning of the word ‘pirate’ and the several ways in which Taupan’s life has been interpreted by different European colonists and by anti-colonial movements from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. McFaul’s article, meanwhile, takes a literary approach to discuss the much more recent phenomenon of Somali Piracy, which reached its apex in the last decade. Its contribution is to analyse the works of authors based in the region, challenging paradigms that have mostly been developed from analysis of works written in the West. Finally, Pawelczak’s article is a legal history of British jurisdiction in mid-late nineteenth-century Zanzibar. It examines one of the facets that underpinned European influence in the western Indian Ocean World before the establishment of colonial rule. In sum, this issue uses two key threads to shed light on the complex relationships between European and other Western powers and the Indian Ocean World.

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