Elizabeth Neill '13 assembled the exhibit under the guidance of history professor Richard Kremer, who is the curator of Dartmouth's King Collection, during her James O. Freedman Presidential Scholarship in the winter and spring of 2012. Neill, whose major is in classical archaeology modified with history, was drawn to the task because of her interest in museum and collections work.
"The research assistantship in this case is just doing research on the collection that Kremer supervises and then conceiving your own project idea, which in my case was this exhibit," Neill said.
The late physics professor Allen King first started crafting the King Collection in 1942. Although King worked in the physics department, his deep interest lay in historic scientific instruments, according to Kremer. He scoured the entire campus looking in attics, basements and professors' homes for objects that would be relevant to the collection. Kremer took over as the curator of the collection upon King's death in 2003, and Neill then became tasked with the responsibility of organizing the exhibit this past winter, according to Kremer.
"I give the Presidential Scholars full freedom," Kremer said. "They come up with the idea for the show, they have to do the research, they have to write the labels, they have to mount the show."
The James O. Freedman Presidential Scholars are notified of their eligibility during their sophomore year, at which time they can select a research assistantship under a professor from a wide range of departments, according to Neill.
Most of the pieces in the exhibit are pedagogical pieces that were used to teach science at Dartmouth, rather than those tools that generate new scientific knowledge, according to Neill. The exhibit features items dating back centuries the oldest piece is the collection's inspiration and focal point, "Portrait of a Lady as an Astronomer," which is part of the Hood Museum of Art's collection.
The portrait, which depicts a well-dressed woman holding an armillary sphere a model of objects in the sky consisting of a spherical framework of rings centered on the Earth originated in 1585 in Venice. Upon seeing this painting, Neill was inspired to see what similar kinds of apparatuses ones that provide students a model representation of the cosmos were developed over time.
The exhibit also displays instruments that were used to teach science at Dartmouth as far back as 230 years ago. One such object is a wooden tube telescope, which was crafted in London in 1785. The telescope was not used for astronomic research, but rather to show Dartmouth students how a telescope worked, according to Kremer.
"You can tell by the fact that the telescope has fancy legs that it was made to sit on a table in a classroom," Kremer said.
Another piece is an orrery, also from 1780s London. An orrery is a mechanical representation of the solar system that depicts the motion of the planets around the sun, he said.
"These are two really handsome and valuable pieces," Kremer said. "They are really crucial to Dartmouth's understanding of itself as an institution that taught science right from the beginning, back in the 18th century. They truly are iconic."
Neill said that the exhibit will draw the interest of students interested in a wide range of disciplines, not just the sciences.
"I definitely didn't start from just a scientific perspective," she said. "One of the best things about the exhibit, in my opinion, is that it joins together the arts and sciences, which is something you don't see enough at Dartmouth."
Kremer also said that the exhibit should interest students who study a range of academic fields, including art history, education and geography.
"Even just speaking from a design perspective, there is a very strong visual component to the exhibit," he said.
Putting the collection together has also inspired Neill and Kremer to conduct further research on this topic.
"We are particularly interested in one of the globes in the collection, the James Wilson globe from 1811," Neill said. "It's actually one of the first globes made in the United States. Most of the globes up till that point were imported from Europe. Our project is looking at the source James Wilson used to make these globes and how he learned to print."
The exhibit will be open in Kresge until the end of the calendar year, Kremer said.
