How Scientific Instruments Have Changed Hands

This collection of essays discusses the marketing of scientific and medical instruments from the eighteenth century to the First World War. The evidence presented here is derived from sources as diverse as contemporary trade literature, through newspaper advertisements, to rarely-surviving inventories, and from the instruments themselves. The picture may not yet be complete, but it has been acknowledged that it is more complex than sketched out twenty-five or even fifty years ago. Here is a collection of case-studies from the United Kingdom, the Americas and Europe showing instruments moving from maker to market-place, and, to some extent, what happened next.

Contributors are: Alexi Baker, Paolo Brenni, Laura Cházaro, Gloria Clifton, Peggy Aldrich Kidwell, Richard L. Kremer, A.D. Morrison-Low, Joshua Nall, Sara J. Schechner, and Liba Taub.

A.D. Morrison-Low, D.Phil. (2000) in Economic History with Physics, University of York, Research Associate at National Museums Scotland since her retirement in 2015. Her recent publications explore the 18th and 19th century instrument trade, and the early history of Scottish photography.

Sara J. Schechner, Ph.D. (1988) in History of Science, Harvard University, is the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and Lecturer on the History of Science at Harvard University. Her research has focused on time-finding and social change, instruments of glass, colonial astronomy, and workshop practices in America.

Paolo Brenni, Ph.D. (1981) in Experimental Physics, University of Zürich, specialized in the history of science and technology. His researches are focused on scientific instruments, instrument making and trade (18th to early 20th centuries). He studied and restored several collections of instruments and he is working at the Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica in Florence.