%0 Journal Article %T Wired-up in white organdie: framing women’s scientific labour at the Burden Neurological Institute %A David Saunders %D 2018 %V %N Autumn 2018 %K Burden Neurological Institute %K gender %K Neuroscience %K photography %K women's labour %X The Burden Neurological Institute (BNI) is widely considered one of the central sites in the history of British neuroscience. Founded in 1939 to investigate the anatomy, functions, and disorders of the human brain, the BNI rapidly established a reputation as a world-leading centre of research and expertise. Due to the rich insights offered by the BNI Papers, held in the archives of the Science Museum, London, the work of the BNI has become a popular topic among historians of science and technology. However, one key omission in both the archival record and in subsequent historical accounts has been the BNI’s prominent employment of women as researchers, technicians and laboratory assistants. To address this absence, this article examines the comparatively underutilised photographic collections of the BNI Papers, in which women feature more prominently. However, rather than providing an unproblematic ‘window’ onto the experiences of these scientific workers, this article contends that the photographs in question ‘frame’ women’s labour in particular ways so as to devalue, obscure and erase their contributions to the BNI’s much-lauded achievements. The article considers three such frames: the objectification of women as the subjects, rather than the practitioners, of neuroscientific research; the elision of women’s scientific, domestic, and familial roles; and the visual equation of women’s labour with that of the machine. The article concludes by considering some of the ways in which critiques of visual framing might be integrated into both future historical accounts and museum display practices. %Z For a general history of the BNI, see Cooper and Bird, 1989. %Z Staff and equipment list, 1950, BURD/A/06/083; Staff and equipment list, 1954, BURD/A/06/084, Papers relating to the clinical and experimental neuroscientific work carried out at the Burden Neurological Institute, Science Museum Archives, London [hereafter BNI]. %Z For more on Hutton, see Nicol and Golla, 1956, p 483; Barrett, 2016, pp 4–14; Hubbard, 2017, pp 275–277. For more on Aldridge, see Pickering, 2010, pp 40–41; Hayward, 2001, pp 628–629. For more on Shipton, see Standard Examiner, 2014; University of Iowa Libraries, 2017. %Z Figures calculated from Main Papers, BURD/A, BNI. In comparison, 77 per cent of the materials are authored solely by men, with a further one per cent derived from mix-gender authorship. 16 per cent of the materials are of unknown provenance. %Z For an example of the detailed documentation of male collaborative relationships, see Letter from William Grey Walter to S. Bulmer, 29 April 1947, BURD/A/02/44, BNI. %Z Figures calculated from the photographs and press cuttings in BURD/A/06, BNI. %Z As well as its more literal, aesthetic meaning – related to the subject, perspective, and composition of the photographic image – this article interprets ‘framing’ along the broader lines posited by sociologist Erving Goffman (1986, pp 10–11, 21–25, 38). For Goffman, framing refers to the structures of meaning that we employ to make sense of any given situation. These structures often evade conscious awareness and clear articulation, but nonetheless shape our ability to ‘locate, perceive, identify, and label’ the things we see. This applies as much to the viewing of a photograph as it does a ‘direct’ observation of an event; as Goffman argues, ‘bystanders who merely look are deeply involved too’. %Z See Evening Post, ‘Offenders Could Face Brain Wave Tests’, 25 July 1973, BURD/A/06/118; Western Daily Press, ‘The “Guinea Pig” Girl’, 25 July 1973, BURD/A/06/119, BNI %Z See Letter from C Carrdus to William Grey Walter, 27 September 1943, BURD/A/03/02; Letter from William Grey Walter to C Carrdus, 30 September 1943, BURD/A/03/03; Evening Standard, ‘Truth Machine’, 10 April 1947, BURD/A/06/108, BNI %Z See, for example, Evening Post, ‘Offenders Could Face Brain Wave Tests’, 25 July 1973, BURD/A/06/118 %Z For the Attlee-Shipton wedding, see British Pathé Films, ‘People Were News Aka Prime Minister’s Daughter Weds Mr. Harold Shipton at Ellesborough Parish Church, Bucks’, 20 November 1947, http://www.britishpathe.com/video/people-were-news-aka-prime-ministers-daughter-weds (accessed 11 April 2018) %Z For pictorial conventions of the ‘thinking scientist’, see Jordanova, 2000, pp 41–43. %Z See, for example, Walter, 1953. %Z Letter from Mollie Brazier to William Grey Walter, 9 January 1948, BURD/A/11/MB12, BNI %Z Letter from William Grey Walter to Mollie Brazier, 13 January 1948, BURD/A/11/MB13, BNI %Z See Weinberg et al, 1974 %I The Science Museum Group %@ 2054-5770 %B eng %U https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/wired-up-in-white-organdie/ %J Science Museum Group Journal