10 Autumn 2018 Issue 10
This year is significant both as the centenary of women’s suffrage and the Year of Engineering. In our final issue of 2018, we celebrate these significant markers by turning the spotlight on women scientists with a mini-collection of special papers. Read about the pioneering work of Hertha Ayrton, the first female member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and Blanche Thornycroft, a true pioneer among female naval architects. Explore the under-acknowledged role of women in the railways in the early twentieth century, find out what photographs can say about attitudes towards women scientists, and discover how well (or not) Wikipedia represents women engineers today. You’ll also find articles on subjects ranging from Victorian technologies of display to the challenges of exhibiting contemporary science, from the changing ‘voices’ of objects over time to an enlightening review of three exhibitions by artist Tacita Dean. We’re sure you’ll agree that Issue 10 of the Science Museum Group Journal has something for everyone.
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Editorial
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The life and material culture of Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923): suffragette, physicist, mathematician and inventor
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Engineering and the family in business: Blanche Coules Thornycroft, naval architecture and engineering design
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Uncovering the secrets of Canadian Pacific
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Wired-up in white organdie: framing women’s scientific labour at the Burden Neurological Institute
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The history of women in engineering on Wikipedia
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From 2D to 3D: the story of graphene in objects
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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
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Ventriloquised voices: the Science Museum and the Hartree Differential Analyser
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Tacita Dean: LANDSCAPE, PORTRAIT, STILL LIFE
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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
Featured content
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The life and material culture of Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923): suffragette, physicist, mathematician and inventor
Suffragette, physicist, mathematician, and inventor: in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when few women had access to opportunities in STEM, Englishwoman Hertha Marks Ayrton held all these roles and advocated for social justice, including suffrage for women.
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The history of women in engineering on Wikipedia
This paper analyses how the history of women in engineering appears on the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. It uses qualitative and quantitative methods to assess what needs to be improved and makes recommendations based on successful initiatives.
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Uncovering the secrets of Canadian Pacific
This article discusses the changing roles of women on the railway from 1850 to the end of the Second World War. It focuses on the Southern Railway and how women’s roles on the railway changed to the extent that many were involved in the construction of Canadian Pacific.