The archives and correspondence of the gentleman and scholar Henri Michel
Dr Conrad van Cleempoel
Henri Michel (1885-1981) was an important collector and connoisseur of antique scientific instruments. Residing in Brussels he was in contact with the wide sense of instrument-aficionados. He looked after his contacts by frequent travels and extensive correspondence. This correspondence is still preserved and forms the subject of the present paper. There are letters to and from all the major instrument specialists covering the period c. 1933 to c. 1975. It is therefore an important source for a period that coincided with the construction of several major collections in Europe and North America, among others: the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It was also the time in which Ernst Zinner wrote his pioneering book on German and Dutch instrument makers. The exchange of letters between Michel and Zinner is particularly vivid. Michel’s legacy comprises over 500 letters, four carnets and a large set of photographs in the form of glass plates.
Henri Michel is also remembered as the learned author on various aspects of antique instruments. Being a professional engineer, his technical approach of the instrument was pioneering.
Between the market and the academy: Robert S. Whipple as a collector of books of science 1920-1950
Dr Silvia De Renzi
The managing director of the Cambridge Instrument Company, Robert Whipple, was an avid collector of scientific instruments and of books on instruments. In 1944 he bequeathed his collections to the University of Cambridge, as a nucleus of a museum of the history of science. While scholars have intensely researched the instruments, they have neglected the books. In my paper I discuss the main strengths of Whipple’s book collection and how he assembled it between the 1920s and 1950s; I also place Whipple’s activities in the wider framework of 20th-century British book collecting. There is evidence that in Great Britain science books started to be perceived as collectable objects in the 1920s. While a general trend to collect ‘landmarks of science’ can be easily traced, more specific interests, for example in books on instruments, could lead to different collecting patterns. In exploring the network of book dealers with whom Whipple mostly did business, I focus on Thomas H. Court and Ernst Weil. I also argue that the development of the history of science as an academic discipline has effaced the activities of a 20th-century diverse community crossing boundaries between scholarship and commerce.
The Derek Price Archive at The Adler Planetarium
Dr Bruce Stephenson
Derek John de Solla Price (1922-83) was surely one of the most versatile scholars to have studied the history of science, and in particular of scientific instruments. His archival materials are divided between an archive at La Villette, outside Paris, containing 58 cartons of papers and offprints, and an archive at the Adler Planetarium, in Chicago, containing Price’s very extensive collections of photography. Neither archive has been properly exploited. This presentation will survey the Adler archive, which includes, not only photographic prints, but 35mm slides, large-format transparencies, lantern slides, microfilm, microfiche, and other materials.
The archive also includes material that Price collected relating to the work of Neugebauer, and a considerable amount of preliminary material on the antikythera mechanism.
Scholars interested in Price’s legacy are encouraged to contact the Adler.