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The Bakken Library and Museum offers two kinds of assistance for the purpose of facilitating research in its collection of books, journals, manuscripts, prints, and instruments: Visiting Research Fellowships and Research Travel Grants. (Click on Library or Artifacts, above, for information about the collections.) Research Travel Grants up to a maximum of $500 (domestic) and $750 (foreign) are to be used to help to defray the expenses of travel, subsistence, and other direct costs of conducting research at The Bakken. The minimum period of residence is one week. Visiting Research Fellowships up to a maximum of $1,500 are to be used to help to defray the expenses of travel, subsistence, and other direct costs of conducting research at The Bakken. The minimum period of residence is two weeks. Preference is given to researchers who are interested in collaborating for a day or two during their research visit with The Bakken on exhibits or other program. All grants and fellowships for 2008 have been awarded. The next deadline for applications for Research Travel Grants and Visiting Research Fellowships is February 20, 2009. For more details and application guidelines, please contact: Elizabeth Ihrig, Librarian Read about research projects conducted by scholars working in the Bakken collections (summaries provided by the scholars). Jodey Castricano Occult Subjects: Literature, Film, and Psychoanalysis. Elizabeth Cavicchi Nineteenth Century Medical Induction Coils. Fiona Clark Uses of the Periodical Press of the 18th c and the Transmission of Scientific Ideas between the Old World and the New. Willem Hackmann The History of Electricity and Its Images. Axel Helmstädter Electricity in Biodynamic Drug Therapy. Tracey Holland Artist Rimako Itoh The Decoration of the Cambron Speculum Manuscripts of Vincent of Beauvais. Jonathan Marshall The
relation of parascience to the practice of the French fin de siècle neurologist
Dr Jean-Martin Charcot. Linda Simon Dark Light: Electricity and Anxiety from the Telegraph to the X-ray. Tom Tucker Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and his Electric Kite Hoax. Ewa Wyka Scientific instruments of the Jagiellonian University Museum. Past Talks The Iconography of Electricity, a talk by Willem Hackmann. Finding the Body -- and Ambiguity -- in the Circuit: Historical and Reconstructive Experiments with a Spiraled Conductor, a talk by Elizabeth Cavicchi. Pioneers
of the Medical Device Industry in Minnesota : This valuable resource consists of edited transcripts of 20 interviews with leaders of Minnesota’s innovative medical device industry, sometimes known as “Medical Alley.” These interviews document the invention, manufacturing, and marketing of important technologies such as the cardiac pacemaker and the mechanical heart valve by companies that include Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, and Cardiac Pacemakers Inc. (now part of Guidant), American Medical Systems, and many others. The interviews were a project of the Minnesota Historical Society that was directed by James Fogerty, Head, Acquisitions and Curatorial Department, in cooperation with The Bakken Library and Museum. Most of the interviews were conducted by David J. Rhees, Executive Director of The Bakken; others were conducted by Kirk Jeffrey, professor of history at Carleton College . Copies of all the interviews are available at both The Bakken and the Minnesota Historical Society; the original tapes, however, are available only from the Historical Society. To use The Bakken’s copies of the printed transcripts, please contact Elizabeth Ihrig, Librarian, at Ihrig@thebakken.org , or 612.926.3878, ext. 227. To access the audio and video tapes at the Minnesota Historical Society, please contact James Fogerty at james.fogerty@mnhs.org. This collection includes interviews with 16 key people in the industry's history selected in consultation with advisors whose different perspectives on the evolution of medical technology, medical history, and business and organizational history and structure ensures interviews with both depth and scope. The advisors also helped determine the major topics that form the basis for the interviews and for research by project staff. Each interview explores the individual narrator's role in the industry, his or her perspective on its growth and development, and predictions for the industry's future. A number of the interviews have a separate video component. The collection includes the following interviews:
Otto Schmitt, Biophysicist and Inventor Extraordinaire With the generous support of the Otto Schmitt Biomimetic Charitable Foundation, The Bakken is pleased to provide a new biography and other resources for understanding the fascinating life and work of Otto Herbert Schmitt, a prominent and uniquely creative scientist and inventor who spent the bulk of his career at the University of Minnesota. The Bakken Library and Museum has compiled a bibliography of 760 works dealing with the history of electricity in medicine and the life sciences. Some of the subjects included in this bibliography are: the history of electrotherapeutics, electrophysiology, electrocardiology, bioelectricity, electrodiagnosis, electropuncture, galvanosurgery, and electroencephalography. While related to the subject of electricity in the life sciences, we intentionally excluded works dealing with radiotherapy, radiology, electron microscopy, and tomography. This bibliography was compiled from a variety of sources; the items listed in it are not necessarily owned by the Bakken, indeed many of them are not. Contact the librarian if you have any question about their availability at the Bakken. The bibliography is organized into four sections:
Each section is arranged alphabetically by author and may be searched using the "Find" function under the "Edit" menu of most browsers. Taming
the Electrical Fire: A Conference on the History and Cultural Meaning
of the Lightning Rod Although in general it is difficult to give the exact
date of a scientific discovery or the invention of a technical device,
it is sometimes possible to name an event that - at least in retrospect
- is inseparably connected with such an achievement. One such event
was the demonstration of the electrical nature of lightning that took
place in Marly near Paris on May 10, 1752, an event linked both to the
development of the lightning rod as well as to Benjamin Franklin. This
event provided the occasion to hold a conference on the history of the
lightning rod. Our intent was not simply to commemorate the 250th anniversary
of a major technological achievement, but also to fill one of the desiderata
in the history of science and technology. Feeling that this device,
its development, and implications deserved comprehensive scholarly attention,
we approached the subject matter from a wide variety of perspectives:
namely, history of science and technology, cultural studies, history
of mentality and literature. The conference was set up as a "workshop" in which all speakers and a limited number of audience members attended the entire conference in order to assure continuity and cohesiveness in the discussions. (See program and abstracts below.). Peter Heering, University of Oldenburg (peter.heering@uni-oldenburg.de) Oliver Hochadel, University of Vienna (oliver.hochadel@univie.ac.at) David Rhees, Executive Director, The Bakken Library and Museum (rhees@thebakken.org) |
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