Doctoral dissertation research: Articulating the Past, The Value of Dinosaurs in America, 1870-1930

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Introduction. This grant is to support a research project that will serve to enhance the researcher's doctoral dissertation. The dissertation focuses on the production and circulation of scientific knowledge; one of its key goals is to determine how a wide range of people interacted with fossil dinosaurs in late 19th and early 20th century America. The dissertation consists of three parts. The first is on the acquisition of fossils, focusing on the people and practices associated with collecting dinosaur bones in the field. The second explores how museum curators used fossils to generate new knowledge about the history of life on earth. The final part is about the public's interaction with dinosaurs, both in natural history museums and other sites of amusement such as the cinema or amusement parks. Close attention is paid to constructing a new and appropriate interpretative methodology to understand the construction and "consumption" of knowledge using models of economic exchange. Intellectual Merit. This award will fund travel to a selected number of museum archives. The goal of these trips is to acquire information that will serve to provide a fresh account of the activities of people brought together by a shared interest in dinosaurs and the diverse ways in which each of them interacted with these objects and one another. The plan is to produce an historical narrative around fossils rather than people, ideas, or practices; doing so will results in a history that cuts across geography, social class, and a range of epistemic concerns. It will also serve to illustrate that science during the early turn 20th century was not just the purview of a small academic elite. On the contrary, many people besides professional paleontologists contributed to the making of new knowledge about dinosaurs. Moreover, an even broader cross section of American culture participated in its consumption. For these reasons, the history of dinosaurs provides a unique opportunity to explore the contested boundary between science and other domains of American culture around the turn of the 20th century. Potential Broader Impacts. The dissertation explores how expert scientific knowledge was integrated into a broader cultural context. The challenge of doing so is no less urgent today than it was a hundred years ago; global climate change, widespread habitat destruction, and the loss of biodiversity are all problems that cannot be solved by scientists alone. In democratic societies, science relies on a broad base of public interest, involvement, and support. As a result, the project has the potential to help us better understand why it can be so difficult to establish meaningful communication across widely dispersed social and cultural contexts.