ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Dissent, Translation, and Appropriation in Chemical Textbooks, 1760-1881

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

Historians of science have recently come to recognize the value in examining the origin and structure of textbooks from the viewpoint of authors, readers, and publishers. Whereas Thomas Kuhn argued that textbooks offer a static picture of paradigmatic, rigid science that passes on the received view, these newer studies have emphasized that writing a textbook is a profoundly creative act. Textbook authors think deeply about how their field should be organized and how to present the material to students. This session brings together scholars who will present new case studies on the fuller context of how and why chemical textbooks appear as they do. Simon suggests that textbooks provided the “battleground” for the emergence of the new chemical philosophy in late eighteenth century Britain, appearing in Edinburgh and other provincial cities in Britain, rather than in the established centers of academic and political power. Powers examines early nineteenth century American textbooks and shows that Lavoisier’s new chemistry was treated skeptically, presented alongside the phlogiston theory for students to evaluate. Hijmans examines Heinrich Rose’s 1829 handbook of analytical chemistry to reconstruct how Rose could transmit the tacit knowledge of manual laboratory procedures in a printed text. Ramberg explores the publication of Henri Regnault’s best-selling Premiers éléments de chimie (1850) and its equally successful translation into German, and shows that these various editions reflect national, theoretical and personal interests in organizing chemistry for the reader. All of these presentations suggest new ways in which chemical knowledge is not merely disseminated but created.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Charlotte Abney Salomon, Science History Institute

Individual Presentations

• Democratic, Explosive, Insurrectionary: Edinburgh, Birmingham, and the Birth of a Radical Philosophical Chemistry - Esther Simon, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• The Chemical Revolution in American Chemistry Textbooks of the Early 19th Century - john C Powers, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Communicating embodied knowledge through text: Rose’s Handbuch der analytischen Chemie (1829) - Sarah Hijmans, Université Paris Cité - Laboratoire SPHERE

• The Regnault-Strecker Textbook of Chemistry (1850-1881) - Peter Ramberg, Truman State University

Session Organizer

• Peter Ramberg, Truman State University