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].