Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society
Conferences
The Life of New Materials, November 17-18, 2011
On Nov. 17 and 18 the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) and the Hagley Museum and Library will sponsor the conference, "The Life of New Materials." Conference sessions will explore the ways in which the development, use, and re-use of new materials is an embedded feature of our industrial society. The conference takes the biographies of new materials as its theme: their use cycle, place in supply chains, or features as material culture; and corresponding, their impact – anticipated or not – on subsequent innovations.
Papers range from showing the popularity of using materials derived from food for non-food products to how the development of fiberglass affected guitars and new paints affected art. Several authors look at the process through which the newly-popular metal aluminum became material both for art and for packaging. Other papers look at the creation and then reuse of prosaic materials ranging from the Post-it notes to concrete blocks, and how strategy and innovation affected the use of new inventions, including liquid crystals and Bakelite plastic. Finally the conference also addresses new materials that failed, most dramatically in soaps and tampons, but also in electronic manufacturing.
The presenters include both senior scholars and graduate students, and come from Japan, France, England, Belgium, and all over the United States.
For more information contact Carol Lockman (clockman@hagley.org) at the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society.
Research Seminars, 2011-2012
September 22, 2011
Stuart (Bill) Leslie (Johns Hopkins University)
"Spaces for the Space Age: Southern California's Aerospace Modernism"
October 27, 2011
Thomas Heinrich (Baruch College)
"Industry and Sea Power: U.S. Warship Building in Comparative Perspective, 1940-1945"
December 8, 2011
Courtney Fullilove (Wesleyan University)
"Florida Water in Yokohama? Peddling American Proprietary Medicines in East Asia, 1865-1893"
February 16, 2012
Katherine Epstein (Rutgers University-Camden)
"The Nuts and Bolts of the Military-Industrial Complex: Standardization, Inspection, and Information Control in American Torpedo Production before World War I"
March 15, 2012
Kelly Arehart (College of William and Mary)
"'Men of Sorrow': Science, Sympathy and the Creation of the Death-Care Professional, 1880-1930"
April 19, 2012
Jamin Wells (University of Delaware)
"'Plenty of Glory but no Dividends': Marine Salvage and the Lore of the Shore in Late-Nineteenth Century America"
The Center's Research Seminar on the second Thursday night of the month during the academic year. The audience is drawn widely from Hagley's membership, scholars and researchers, students in the Mid-Atlantic area, and the general public. Papers are circulated in advance. An informal reception at 6 p.m. precedes the commentary and discussion at 6:30 p.m. The seminar is held in the Copeland Room, Hagley Library. To be placed on the mailing list to receive the papers (or paper), contact Carol Ressler Lockman, clockman@hagley.org.