HISTORY OF SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

Donald deB. Beaver, Professor of the History of Science, continued to spread the interdisciplinary gospel during the past academic year, 1998-1999.
On November 23, 1998, he gave a lecture, “Updating Charles Darwin: Ideas That Have Stood The Test of Time,” at the Berkshire Athenaeum, in Pittsfield. Moving from evolution to medicine, he presented a talk on the history of medicine to the student premedical society in April 1999. On May 6, 1999, he gave a lecture, “Technology and Culture, From Cuneiform to Computer: The Interrelation of Technology and Society,” at the Clark Art Institute, as part of a series sponsored by the Berkshire Institute for Lifetime Learning.

The original Thompson Science Laboratories in a photo
taken shortly after 1900.

Continuing with his research on Sarah Bowdich (1791-1856), later Mrs. Lee, an accomplished naturalist, author, artist, and traveler, Prof. Beaver presented “Contributions to Natural History, 1817-1854: The Career of Sarah Bowdich Lee,” at the annual meeting of the Midwest Junto for the History of Science, April 10, 1999, in Bartlesville, OK.
Along the same lines, he reviewed Peter Raby’s new book, Victorian Scientific Travelers, for Isis, and published “Writing Natural History for Survival 1820-1856: The Case of Sarah Bowdich, later Sarah Lee,” in the Archives of Natural History.
During the year, Professor Beaver continued to review and referee scholarly work for the American Journal of Physics, Spectrum [an IEEE journal] and Isis [journal of the History of Science].