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Review: Science Museums in Transition: Cultures of Display in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America, edited by Carin Berkowitz and Bernard Lightman, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017
Book review
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Book review: Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain, by Richard Noakes
Book review: Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain, by Richard Noakes
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Photographic plates and spirit fakes: remembering Harry Price’s investigation of William Hope’s spirit photography at its centenary
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Harry Price’s famous investigation into the spirit photography of William Hope in February 1922, this paper explores the surviving records of the case, including printed materials and photographic evidence.
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Old weather: citizen scientists in the 19th and 21st centuries
Old weather: citizen scientists in the 19th and 21st centuries
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‘Great ease and simplicity of action’: Dr Nelson’s Inhaler and the origins of modern inhalation therapy
This paper reconstructs the history and reception of the Dr Nelson’s Inhaler as a means of understanding the growth of inhalation therapy in the mid-nineteenth century.
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A model instrument: the making and the unmaking of a model of the Airy Transit Circle
The article investigates the construction, reception and fate of a set of models of the Airy Transit Circle (the instrument that defined the Greenwich Prime Meridian) at the Exposition Universelle in 1855 and at the South Kensington Museum.
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Private portraits or suffering
This paper explores the challenges and history of medical photography as sensitive objects in a museum context. It discusses how medical photographs have been treated over time in historical and museological terms.
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Philip Carpenter and the convergence of science
For the instrument makers of the early-nineteenth century there was no distinction between scientific and popular instruments. Exploring the case of the optician Phillip Carpenter, this article will address three popular media formats — the 1817 Kaleidoscope, 1821 Phantasmagoria Lantern and 1827 Microcosm.
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Adapting to the emergence of the automobile: a case study of Manchester coachbuilder Joseph Cockshoot and Co. 1896–1939
This paper will analyse the relationship between the horse-drawn and the motorised vehicle in the UK. It argues that the emergence of the automobile was not a simple matter of technological progress, but involved complex relationships between manufacturers, coachbuilders and customers.
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The Panstereomachia, Madame Tussaud’s and the Heraldic Exhibition: the art and science of displaying the medieval past in nineteenth-century London
This article analyses the role of technology in shaping nineteenth-century experiences of the medieval past. Using three exhibitions as a lens – the Panstereomachia, Madame Tussaud’s and the Heraldic Exhibition – it explores how exhibitors drew on art and science to offer competing visions of the medieval past. In doing so, it will examine how these exhibitions reflect changing views about medieval history and heritage, raising questions about the relationship between technology and the display of the past.