Theme

History of Science

Featured Items

Detail of a printed text shows a large, leafy tree. Labels printed below.

Museum Museorum

Michael Bernhard Valentini

1704

Detail of an engraved map shows the direction of flow of the "Golfe de Floride." Other text in French labels nearby landmarks such as "Isles de Bahama.'

The Gulf Stream flowing northwards…

Benjamin Franklin

1778

Detail of a printed book shows a colored illustrated dragons on a circular diagram with text in Latin.

Astronomicum cæsareum

Peter Apian

1540

Instructio[n], y memoria, de las relaciones que se han de hazer, para la descripcion de las Indias

Juan López de Velasco

1577

Detail from a printed book shows text in Spanish reading "Los aguacates es uno fruta en las Indias muy preciada, y medicinal."

Secretos de chirurgia

Pedro Arias de Benavides

1567

Printed text shows a large, coiled snake with some Latin text visible.

Historia naturæ

Joannes Eusebius Nieremberg

1635

Detail of a printed book shows a full-page illustration on the frontispiece showing a child carrying the world on their shoulders.

Atlas des Enfans, ou nouvelle methode pour apprendre la geographie,...

1784

Detail from a printed text shows questions and follow-up answers about astronomy.

An astronomical and geographical catechism. For the use of children.

Caleb Bingham

1795

Frontispiece from Museum Wormianum. Seu, Historia rerum rariorum, 1655.

Natural History Collecting in Late Colonial New Spain: Highlights from the JCB Collection

Wednesday, September 29 at 1:00pm

Image of an artificial flower clock, with two hands emerging from clouds on either side holding a numbered circle, and a thorn stemming from the flower's circle pointing at the time.

Fellow's Talk

Earthquakes and Timekeeping Practices in New England, 1600-1800

Wednesday, August 25 at 1:00pm

Fellow's Talk

Studying Absence: Archival Fragments and Interdisciplinary Methods in the History of Medicine in the Atlantic Slave Trade

Wednesday, June 16 at 1:00pm

Air America

April - June, 2016

A map showing the Americas and a constellation over them

Constellations: Reimagining Celestial Histories in the Early Americas

November 2020 - August 2021

map of the world with continents upside down

Exhibition opening

Constellations exhibition launch and guided tour with Historian of Science Simon Schaffer

Friday, October 30 at 3:00pm

illustration of sixteenth-century technological developments

Drugs from the Colonies: The New American Medicine Chest

Fall - Winter 2011

Voyage to the Islands: Hans Sloane, Slavery, and Scientific Travel in the Caribbean

Spring - Summer 2012