#BookHistory: Delighted to be awarded the renowned Katharine F Pantzer Jr Scholarship of @bibsoc.bsky.social! The grant will support me in finding and studying #EarlyModern extra-illustrated books of natural history, like this Petiver’s book @theulspeccoll.bsky.social @camglamresearch.bsky.social.📜

Just realised that our amazing Whipple Museum of History of Science is on Bluesky. Follow @whipplemuseum.bsky.social for more #HistSci, #HistMed, #SciArt, broken scientific instruments in Cambridge, and more! 📜 🗃️

I’m also thinking about the seed boxes, like this one from @cuherb.bsky.social @camglamresearch.bsky.social, which could make the plant less ‘pressed’. Haven’t seen them in book volumes though, only on specimen sheets. 📜🗃️ (2/2)

Thank you Katie, this is very important work. I like that you used ‘remains’, so that it includes cases like this from @linneansociety.bsky.social. I do wonder about nature printing directly done on the pages, as they might also leave plant remains, even at a microscopic level. 📜🗃️ (1/2)

And now the plaque is here too!

As I continue to uncover women naturalists in Cambridge archives, getting this desktop reminder becomes even more inspiring.

To read more about our article, see the thread below👇

🗃️ #HistSci #EarlyModern #C18th #WomenInSTEM

Christmas #food time 🍜

クリスマスに作った食べ物：
1. 竹輪と豚肉と七面鳥の鍋
2. 鍋の残りの材料で作ったカレー
3. 中華風のエビ玉
4. 「舞妓さんちのまかないさん」風のなす料理。(味噌あったっけ？)

#青空ごはん部

When you open an old notebook in the archive and there is a snake (skin):

@theulspeccoll.bsky.social

🗃️💙📚

Always enjoy #EarlyModern textile #bookbinding. Here is a much cheaper & plain one from my personal collection: a ca.1723 #astrology manual in worn, stained coarse linen cloth, filled with charts and notes on how to use stars to guide daily lives. Detached, but in one piece. #HistSci #SkyStorians 🗃️

We did this project largely because we were having fun in the process. Back then, we’d never imagined getting any prizes, not to say two, first from SSEMWG and then @historyscience.bsky.social. We are so humbled.

We are blessed by so many wonderful colleagues around, in Cambridge and many other places. Dániel Margócsy’s mentee bi-weekly coffee meeting at Cambridge HPS was where this project began. A big shoutout to our friends in my distorted camera:

Also, a shoutout to @drrosalindwhite.bsky.social 's wonderful digital resource, which also features our research on Ellen and Margery Power. If you don't want to miss out on these amazing #EarlyModern women in the Sloane collection, do take a look! 🗃️

reconstructingsloane.org/women/

There are also some rabbit holes that we haven't explored yet. For example, how about these #EarlyModern tools Margery drew? What are they, and where were they used? And how about Ellen's geometric drawing exercise (probably), where did they come from? Any templates? I'm curious. 🗃️ #ArtHistory

On a train from Cambridge to London, we compared photos of Margery’s paper slips with an EEBO Parkinson’s herbal on my iPad. It later became a point made in the article. Unravelling invisible women in the history of science requires comparing their work to many sources. And digitisation helps.

So many exciting moments flash back. Like when we sat side by side at the BL, each grabbing a volume of Power household’s palm-sized memorandum books, and quietly telling each other when Margery mentioned ‘microscope’ again. #EarlyModern household miscellaneous materials reveal many secrets.

It took us a while to shift our focus halfway and begin this very different project. Many colleagues gave us a push on the back. I remember when Lauren said: ‘I don’t care about Henry, I care about Margery’. She was joking, but that’s exactly the energy we needed.

Guess which hand here is Margery?

We didn’t expect her. When we started collaborating, our original plan was to study the husband, microscopist Henry Power’s private library. We didn’t even know that Margery existed. Not until we saw her signature on a ‘Henry’s’ book.

Last week, when the BJHS article by @cberiksen.bsky.social and I received the Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize at HSS Mérida, I wrote a 🧵 on X sharing our research process.

Now I'll redo it on BlueSky, this time with more images of our archival sources: 🗃️ #HistSci #EarlyModern

The last image shows striking similarities to MS 395 @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social, a C15-C16 alchemical manuscript in Latin and Catalan.

parker.stanford.edu/parker/catal...

I miss these primary source conversations on past twitter. More rabbit holes pls. #medievalsky #earlymodern 🗃️ #histsci #herbs

The Plantin’s database is such an underrated source that I always want to share. Here’s a figure from my recent work-in-progress: you can see how these C16 botanical woodblocks were still shaping C18 engravings. This kind of image identification is impossible w/o digitisation & searchable metadata.