Friday, 9 February 2018 — 12:00 noon — WAG 316
Paul Erickson (Wesleyan University) and Amrys Williams (Hagley Museum)
“Under Connecticut Skies: Exploring and Interpreting 100 Years of Astronomy at Wesleyan’s Van Vleck Observatory”
In this presentation, we will describe how we carried out an interdisciplinary public history project to research, document, and interpret a century of astronomy at Wesleyan University’s Van Vleck Observatory. Working with astronomers, librarians, archivists, students, the local stargazing club — and a trove of glass plates, lantern slides, documents, books, instruments, calculation sheets, correspondence, and photographs — we transformed the observatory library into a museum exhibition, and created new spaces and resources for doing the history of science on campus. We will discuss both the project and our research findings, and reflect on what this experience taught us about doing the history of science in collaboration and in public.
–––––––––––––––––––––
Amrys Williams earned her PhD in the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin and is the Associate Director and Oral Historian at the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society of the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware. Paul Erickson is associate professor of history, environmental studies, and science in society at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He also earned his PhD in the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin and is the author of The World the Game Theorists Made (2015).