Browsing by Author "Webb, Charlotte"
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- Networks and professionalization: a history of the Virginia Academy of Science, 1923-1995Webb, Charlotte (Virginia Tech, 1997)In 1923, scientists and science educators gathered in Williamsburg at the College of William and Mary for the first meeting of the Virginia Academy of Science. Representing a variety of scientific disciplines and heralding from virtually every institution of higher education in the Commonwealth, the 135 charter members eagerly supported the establishment of an association to facilitate professional development. Virginia scientists were not unique in chartering an academy to promote professionalism. Over the past century and a half in the United States, organizations at the national and state levels played critical roles in professional advancement. Offering camaraderie, encouraging research, and in some cases, providing a publication outlet, scientific organizations often function as the nucleuses of professionally supportive scientific networks. This dissertation traces the development of the Virginia Academy of Science from 1923 to 1995. Looking discriminately at the past, this study emphasizes the sociology, economics, and politics of the Virginia Academy as well as the Academy's interaction with the larger Virginia society. In so doing, the dissertation examines both Academy's more obvious role in shaping the ideas and institutions of science in twentieth-century Virginia and its less-recognized impacts on individuals and ideology. Incorporating recent perspectives from the disciplines of science and technology studies, this dissertation reveals how the Virginia Academy of Science molded and in tum was molded by the complex. of contemporary practices, interactions, and beliefs on state and national levels. In other words, the analysis considers the ways in which the Academy has been and still is both reflective of and a shaping influence on Virginia culture.
- Science goes South: John Millington, Frederick Barnard, and the University of Mississippi, 1848-1861Webb, Charlotte (Virginia Tech, 1993)Traditional explanations for the lack of scientific activity in the antebellum South are not sufficiently inclusive. Past accounts generally consider religion, climate, lack of urbanization, and deficiency of intellectual activity as the major causative factors. I assert that scientific activity was proceeding along "normal" developmental lines; that is, it was following the national pattern established by the Northern universities whose proximity to urban centers provided the impetus for the earlier start of intellectual activities of various sorts. In this thesis I present as a case study the scientific program at the University of Mississippi developed by John Millington and Frederick Barnard - - with a central focus on Barnard's efforts - - from 1848 to 1861. The case study provides evidence of a Southern academic institution's ability to hire qualified and ambitious scientists, to promote a sophisticated curriculum in science, and to procure the instruments necessary to support a full-fledged scientific effort. An Appendix provides a detailed inventory of the ante-bellum instruments at the University of Mississippi.