Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments
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Hours: |
Mon.-Fri., 8:30-4:30 (by appointment)
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| Address: | Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments
Science Center B-06
One Oxford Street
Cambridge MA 02138 |
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| Extent of Collections: | Less than 500 ft. |
| Dates: | 1812-ca. 1920 |
| Holdings Description: | Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory: correspondence and notes. William Bond and Son, Boston: business records, accounts with U.S. Coast and Gcodetic Survey (payroll, instrument purchase and
repair), Harvard Observatory (William Cranch Bond years), and family papers. Formats include personal papers, organizational records, photographs, memorabilia, printed ephemera, drawings, and sketches. Technical drawings and ptrints of scientific instruments. Trade catalogues of instrument makers.
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| History: | The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments was established about 1949 to preserve Harvard's historically important scicntific apparatus and to protect it from being cannibalized for parts or discarded because of obsolcscence. Preservation began through the efforts of David Wheatland, who originally stored the instruments in his office in Cruft Laboratory. After the first public exhibition was held in the main lobby of Mallinckrodt Chemical Laboratory in 1949, the collection was established in the basement of the Semitic Museum. It was later moved to the basement of Perkins Hall and,
in 1973, to Allston Burr Lecture Hall. With the impending demolition of this building, the collection, which had grown considerably, was transferred during 1979 and 1980 to its present location in the lower level of the Science Center. Through the efforts of Wheatland, the first curator, and Ebenezer Gay, who joined him in 1967, the collection now contains close to 20,000 artifacts illustrating the historical development of a broad range of subjects. The instruments provide students with the opportunity of examining, first-hand,
devices that had a role in significant advances in science and
technology. Documentation in the Harvard Archives relating to the purchase and use of many of the instruments makes the collection unique in this country.
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| Items allowed in Reading Room: |
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Please address comments and updates to archinfo@hulmail.harvard.edu.
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