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Posted by: Josh Levy
The Manuscript Division holds born-digital collection materials in hundreds of file formats. Remember HyperCard? WordStar? MacDraw Pro? WordPerfect? No? Find out how these obsolete file formats are being made accessible in the Manuscript Division Reading Room.
Posted in: Digital Collections, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
Join us on November 2 for a conversation with author Jonathan Rees about his recent biography of controversial pure food crusader Harvey Washington Wiley.
Posted in: Events, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
A new manuscript collection, the May Benzenberg Mayer Papers, seemed to offer more questions than answers. An archivist and a historian teamed up to tackle its mysteries.
Posted in: Behind the Scenes, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
A new collection in the Manuscript Division contains the vivid testimony of a witness to the 1946 atomic tests at Bikini Atoll. But it also raises questions about what those who viewed the tests were unable to see, and how researchers might try to fill the gaps.
Posted in: Letters, Science and Technology, War and Society
Posted by: Laura Kells
Notes on an air sickness bag in the Bernard A. Schriever Papers illustrate the fact that, when people need to record their thoughts, all sorts of things can become writing paper.
Posted in: Of Note, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
A literate rant from pioneering programmer Ida Rhodes offers a window into the history of early digital computing, and the women who helped shape it.
Posted in: Of Note, Science and Technology, Women's & Gender History
Posted by: Josh Levy
Join us on June 16 for a conversation with authors Jacqueline Mitton and Simon Mitton about their new biography of celebrated astronomer Vera Rubin.
Posted in: Science and Technology, Women's & Gender History
Posted by: Josh Levy
Before the modern textbook, Western school-age children learned mathematical concepts through what was called the "cyphering tradition" and created textbooks of their very own. The volumes in the recently processed Ellerton-Clements Cyphering Book Collection will certainly be of interest to those who study math and early modern education, but many also possess a unique kind of artistry.
Posted in: Early America, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
In the late 1960s, Barry Commoner and the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems became involved in an ambitious, federally funded effort to understand the ecology of the sewer rat, and then kill it. That project’s failure at a moment of heightened political radicalism reveals how the rat-human relationship can highlight histories of economic injustice. With a major reprocessing of the Barry Commoner Papers now complete, those stories, and more, emerge with far greater clarity.
Posted in: International History, Science and Technology