Celestial Machines: Caroline Herschel Astronomical Notebooks and the material culture of predigital communication systems
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Philosophy
Abstract
The project is a Collaborative Doctoral Project with a PhD studentship envisaged as an archive-based endeavour, with the student engaged in on-site research within the Royal Society's collections. Therefore, the student will be considered as a member of the Library and Archive team and will receive training in the appropriate skills and duties. The project focuses on the scientific manuscripts of Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), one of the first women to publish articles in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and to be a professional astronomer. Though long recognised for their accuracy, precision and centrality to the foundations of nineteenth-century astronomy and celestial mechanics, the information in her manuscripts has remained a relatively untapped treasure trove of interactive scientific communication, collaboration and innovation.
The student will investigate how Herschel used astronomical notebooks as paper machines; that is, as interactive information management devices that helped her interface with other forms of predigital communications media. This jointly material and informatic aspect of her notebooks will be used to explore the advantages and obstacles inherent to the astronomical image-making and note-keeping practices of the time. The aims are twofold. First, to identify and historicise the main manuscript information management techniques she used within her notebooks to tame the visual and textual data supplied to her by astronomers based in Europe and colonial settings via a plethora of slips, scraps, sheets, catalogues, ledgers, daybooks and letters. Second, to examine how she used her notebooks as personal observation tools that helped her interface with telescopes and other associated forms of material culture.
Rather than solely attributing the origins of Herschel's predigital data management devices to elite, and eminently male, universities and scholarly societies, the project seeks to highlight how her methods originated from her own ingenuity, her early years as a musician, and her role as manager of the Herschel household. In following this path, the project will extend our understanding of how she played an essential role in developing the realtime data management techniques that were used in the manuscript world of astronomy and celestial mechanics. Overall, the project will show that, when treated as a realtime device, each notebook becomes an interactive artefact, an archive of media interface that has been waiting over two centuries to be rediscovered.
By focusing on Caroline Herschel and exploring her role as one of the first salaried female scientists, the project will allow the successful PhD student and the supervisory team to advance the commitment of the Royal Society and Durham University to increase diversity in STEM, to include underrepresented groups, and to develop a world in which scientific knowledge is open to all. Since there is no academic biography of Caroline Herschel, the project is timely and will be of interest to historians and the wider academy and public.
The student will investigate how Herschel used astronomical notebooks as paper machines; that is, as interactive information management devices that helped her interface with other forms of predigital communications media. This jointly material and informatic aspect of her notebooks will be used to explore the advantages and obstacles inherent to the astronomical image-making and note-keeping practices of the time. The aims are twofold. First, to identify and historicise the main manuscript information management techniques she used within her notebooks to tame the visual and textual data supplied to her by astronomers based in Europe and colonial settings via a plethora of slips, scraps, sheets, catalogues, ledgers, daybooks and letters. Second, to examine how she used her notebooks as personal observation tools that helped her interface with telescopes and other associated forms of material culture.
Rather than solely attributing the origins of Herschel's predigital data management devices to elite, and eminently male, universities and scholarly societies, the project seeks to highlight how her methods originated from her own ingenuity, her early years as a musician, and her role as manager of the Herschel household. In following this path, the project will extend our understanding of how she played an essential role in developing the realtime data management techniques that were used in the manuscript world of astronomy and celestial mechanics. Overall, the project will show that, when treated as a realtime device, each notebook becomes an interactive artefact, an archive of media interface that has been waiting over two centuries to be rediscovered.
By focusing on Caroline Herschel and exploring her role as one of the first salaried female scientists, the project will allow the successful PhD student and the supervisory team to advance the commitment of the Royal Society and Durham University to increase diversity in STEM, to include underrepresented groups, and to develop a world in which scientific knowledge is open to all. Since there is no academic biography of Caroline Herschel, the project is timely and will be of interest to historians and the wider academy and public.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Matthew Daniel Eddy (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Odile Lehnen (Student) |