Setting up a Discipline: Conflicting Agendas of the Cambridge History of Science Committee, 1936–1950
Section snippets
The Pre-War Committee: Commitments to Historicity
The Cambridge history of science committee was founded in 1936 and run by two scientists, both of whom, in very different ways, were to make substantial contributions to cultural history.2 They were Joseph Needham and Walter Pagel, both of them scientists who pursued the history of science in their spare time.
The Post-War Committee: Another Quest for True Historicity
One of the key events in the institutionalization of the history of science in post-war Cambridge was the creation of a new position in the field, that is, the post of an assistant curator for the collection of scientific instruments and rare books that Robert Whipple bequeathed to the university (de Renzi, 1998). The first appointment to this position caused some controversy on the committee. For the sake of brevity, however, I won't go into much detail. Instead, I shall focus on the cultural
Conclusions
The notion that the first forum for history of science in Cambridge was started by historians was not a slow sedimentation of beliefs produced by temporal or geographical distance from the relevant events. It originated in Cambridge itself and in the immediate post-war era. Advertised on the dust jacket of Butterfield's influential book, the enormous success of Origins and its author's role in the emergence of the field ensured that the tale traveled far and wide. Not even Needham could undo
Acknowledgements
The original version of this paper was written for the session on ‘The History of the Discipline, c. 1930–1950’, at the 75th annual meeting of the History of Science Society in Pittsburgh, 3–7 November 1999. My thanks go above all to my supervisor, Simon Schaffer, for his unstinting support and for his astute comments on various drafts of this paper, and to Charles Webster for unfailingly bringing to my attention important material and details I had overlooked. I would also like to thank
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