Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments

Page 1 of 1

Richard Ketchen working on a clock.

A faithful keeper of time

For the past 30 years, Richard Ketchen has cared for and repaired some of Harvard’s oldest and most historic clocks

Campus|

DateMarch 5, 2020

A glass door looking into a museum of Harvard historical instruments.

A collection of knowledge

Historical Scientific Instruments continues to teach and amaze

Campus|

DateDecember 9, 2019December 10, 2019

Harvard square as seen from above

Places we love

People from the Harvard community share their favorite spots on campus

Campus|

DateMay 22, 2019May 22, 2019

Drawing of glass plates, Nebula in Orion.

Before circuit boards, female ‘computers’ set the standard

News +|

DateDecember 4, 2018December 4, 2018

Alyssa Goodman, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, will discuss the race to determine longitude in the 18th century in a Thursday talk titled “Lost Without Longitude.”

A better sense of place

Astronomer to speak on the race for longitude

Science|

DateMay 13, 2015

The “Tangible Things” undergraduate and HarvardX course is the brainchild of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the 300th Anniversary University Professor and a Pulitzer Prize winner for history, who said the main idea behind the course is that “any object can become an entry point into historical investigation. The shoes on your feet, the chair you’re sitting on, light fixtures in the room — common things have stories."

Scholarship of things

Ulrich makes case for the narrative of objects

Campus|

DateMay 8, 2015June 5, 2018

dOCUMENTA (13) artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev discussed her role in the popular exhibit at Harvard on Wednesday as the inaugural lecturer of a new program by the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture and the Harvard Art Museums.

Artful balance

Lecture kicks off new program on curatorial practice

Arts|

DateMay 2, 2014March 13, 2019

Surgeon and anatomist Robert M. Green (photo 1) lectures at Harvard Medical School in 1941, standing in front of a large-scale wood pulp model of the skull made in the 1890s. Illustrations (photo 2) from Juan Valverde de Amusco’s “Anatomia del corpo humano” (1560). A 1610 engraving of the anatomical theater of Leiden University (photo 3).

Body exhibit

Exhibit shows how a standard medical procedure evolved across centuries

Health|

DateApril 24, 2014

An enthusiastic crowd jammed the Science Center hallway around the downsized Mark I — about half of the original is on display — during a ceremony launching the new, refurbished exhibit.

Down to the details, a giant in computing history

Harvard Mark I exhibit gets an upgrade

Science|

DateApril 7, 2014April 15, 2019

The annual meeting of the History of Science Society in Boston featured speakers such as Harvard's Joseph Pellegrino University Professor Peter Galison, who delivered a lecture on “nuclear wastelands” in the United States, the enormous tracts set aside for toxic dumps related to nuclear power and bomb-making.

Probing how the past behaved

Jam-packed conference focuses on vast array of topics surrounding history of science

Science|

DateNovember 26, 2013July 26, 2019

Time for a movie

Film series augments 'Time & Time Again' exhibit

Arts|

DateJuly 1, 2013May 15, 2019

In this 1937 photo, auto workers punch a time clock as they return to work following a labor dispute. This time-related image is among those featured in a multivenue exhibit called “Time & Time Again."

Pages out of time

Exhibit uses objects to show how the precious commodity is measured, valued, understood

Arts|

DateMay 9, 2013June 18, 2019

Jane Pickering has been named executive director of the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, a new consortium that will draw on faculty and staff expertise and the collections of six partner museums.

A director for Museums of Science and Culture

Jane Pickering to lead new six-partner consortium

News|

DateDecember 4, 2012May 16, 2019

Harvard technician Robert L. Hawkins working on the Mark I multiply-divide unit during its installation in the Cruft Laboratory at Harvard University, Feb. 1, 1944.

Alan Turing at 100

Exhibit celebrates pivotal pioneer of computer, artificial intelligence

Science|

DateSeptember 13, 2012June 4, 2019

Five Harvard museums free for Smithsonian National Museum Day Sept. 29

News +|

DateSeptember 11, 2012

The top image shows Venus on the eastern limb of the sun. The faint ring around the planet comes from the scattering of its atmosphere, which allows some sunlight to show around the edge of the otherwise dark planetary disk. The faint glow on the disk is an effect of the TRACE (Transition Region And Coronal Explorer) telescope. The bottom left image is in the ultraviolet, and the bottom right image is in the extreme ultraviolet.

The last dance between Venus and the sun

On June 5, the transit of Venus will occur: Miss it and your next chance is 2117

Science|

DateMay 29, 2012

Peter Galison is one of the hosts "X-Rays of the Soul," which focuses on Rorschach inkblot tests. The work is on display at the Science Center

You, revealed

‘X-Rays of the Soul’ examines history, influence of Rorschach test

Science|

DateApril 2, 2012June 19, 2019

Sara Schechner, the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, explains how Harvard played a vital role in standardizing time in the 1800s.

America’s first time zone

Observatory timepiece created standard for nation’s first time zone

Science|

DateNovember 10, 2011September 12, 2019

At the exhibit “Cold War in the Classroom,” you can flip through the Life magazine issue of March 31, 1958, and get a glimpse of pre-Sputnik fear: an article about the “underdog profession” of high school science teaching, in peril during a race to domination against the Soviets.

Cold War fever

Exhibit uses maps, texts, video to show how fear entered classrooms

Arts|

DateSeptember 30, 2011July 26, 2019

Harvard College Dean Evelynn Hammonds (from left) opened the discussion "Teaching with Collections" by reporting that more than 100 members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences make Harvard’s collections a centerpiece of courses in areas as disparate as visual and environmental studies, expository writing, the history of science, and stem cell research. Other speakers included Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Peter Galison, Jeffrey Hamburger, and Farish Jenkins (not pictured).

Objects of instruction

Faculty members discuss use of Harvard’s collections in teaching and learning

Arts|

DateApril 6, 2011July 25, 2019

“We are teaching students and visitors about a way of engaging the world and a way of engaging history,” said Laurel Ulrich (right), Harvard’s 300th Anniversary University Professor, who helped to develop the "Tangible Things" exhibit with Ivan Gaskell, Margaret S. Winthrop Curator and senior lecturer on history. Sara Schechner (left) is the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, which houses the core of the exhibition.

Putting things in their place

New course, exhibition re-evaluate how items are classified

Arts|

DateMarch 3, 2011March 5, 2019

An offbeat new exhibit, drawing on material collected at Harvard over the centuries, aims to answer those questions, challenging viewers to explore the notion of how Western thought categorizes a wide array of objects, and what can be gleaned from those classifications. This postcard, designed by Samantha van Gerbig at the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, reflects the variety of items on exhibit.

Hide and seek

New exhibit puts things in their places, and also outside them

Arts|

DateJanuary 27, 2011March 5, 2019

The exhibit “Paper Worlds: Printing Knowledge in Early Modern Europe” was the product of a graduate student seminar. It involved conducting background research, searching Harvard’s various museum collections for appropriate material, designing and building the exhibit itself, and even creating a 100-page catalog and accompanying Web material. Working on the project were graduate student Stephanie Dick (from left), Professor Katharine Park, curator Susan Dackerman, and graduate student Adam Jasienski.

Art, printmaking, and science

Exhibit shows how prints from 16th, 17th centuries allowed scientists to visualize concepts

Arts|

DateMay 21, 2010June 14, 2019